Attention, scalpers and scalpees. Pay all you want to gain admission, but let it be known that the best seats in the Garden are held by those who are paid to sit there. They belong to the Celtics Green (With Envy) Team, which last night witnessed perhaps the most one-sided display of play-off basketball ever.
"We play those guys in practice, and we usually beat 'em," declared Bill Walton, who then admitted the Celtics ' 36-6 third quarter was the best display of basketball he had seen -- and Walton's resume includes playing center for those impeccable UCLA championship teams and the 1977 NBA champion Trail Blazers.
"I have probably not seen anything of the manner in which we dominated," Walton said. "It just seemed like it was blocked shots and fast-break layups and great ball movement. And the crowd just really got into it. They were just pushing their intensity into everybody until everybody was on fire."
Including those on the Celtics bench. "We were all excited," Walton said. "We were asking ourselves how many points the run was. Sometimes you have to sit there and try and figure out just much we're ahead by."
It was at that time that the Celtics realized they were witnessing history, whether or not it could be substantiated statistically.
"We got up by 20 and we scored a couple more," rookie guard Sam Vincent said. "And we scored a couple more. And we scored a couple more. Then I just happened to look up at the score. We're up by 40. It's 100-61."
"That was like unbelievable," forward David Thirdkill said. "We were just cheering 'em on. It seemed like every loose ball, we got."
"I came here because I knew we were going to win," said backup guard Jerry Sichting, who joined the Celtics after five years at Indiana. "I didn't expect to see anything like that. You could see a little bit of panic in their (the Hawks') faces. They didn't know what to do. If you want to see how to play the game of basketball, put that third quarter on film and show it to the kids."
The scene dawned on the Celtics bench all at once. Playing its starters throughout the quarter ("That's something that's happening more in the play- offs," Sichting said), Boston scored the last 24 points of the period. "There was some kind of timeout with just a little bit left," Sichting said. "I think then we realized we'd held them to just six points in the quarter (which became a play-off record). I think somebody told the guys with three or four minutes to go that they'd only scored six."
"It seemed like we blocked six or seven or eight shots," Walton said. "It was everybody. It was not just Larry (Bird). Larry's the leader of our team, but everybody was playing great. Then the crowd just fed on it. They were just pushing, pushing, pushing. The team was already playing well, but the crowd just really made them feel great."
The Celtics probably don't feel bad this morning either. The next few days are a time to rest, and to glow. "Everybody knew the score was 66-55 at the beginning of the quarter, so it wasn't like we were rubbing their faces in it," Sichting said. "It's better happening at the end of the series than in the beginning (remember what happened after Game 1 vs. the Lakers last year?), so we don't get overconfident and they get upset. This will put us in a positive frame of mind."
By quarter's end, the Celtics bench was standing throughout play. "I did see something like that once in a high school game," said Vincent, perhaps the only Celtic who could make such a claim. "I just happened to be playing. We scored 20 points in two minutes. It was pretty awesome."
But these are the best players in the world, playing what is supposed to be one of the most intense games of the season. "And we were jumping up and down," Vincent said. "The guys on the bench were probably happier than the guys on the court -- because we all knew this was going to let us get in the game."
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