L.Bird as Roy Hobbs

Larry Bird is on the cover of Time magazine this week, and there is mounting evidence that he may be basketball's Roy Hobbs - the best there ever was.

It has been a season of epic achievement for Larry Joe Bird . He's won back-to-back games with "gimme the ball" buzzer-beaters, eschewed statistical immortality (a quadruple double ) for the good of the team, and helped a teammate break his own scoring record.

Last night, Bird carved a new chapter in Celtics history and sports folklore. Nine days after graciously helping Kevin McHale break Bird's Celtics scoring record, Bird went four up on McHale with a 60-point outing in a 126-115 victory over the Atlanta Hawks.

Like Babe Ruth, Bird had called his shot on this one. When McHale torched the Pistons for 56 on March 3 (breaking Bird's 53-point regular-season and John Havlicek's 54-point playoff franchise record), Bird was asked if he thought McHale's record would stand forever.

"It might stand until the next game," retorted Bird, who had spoon-fed McHale's final nine points, then chastised him for not going for 60.

Bird missed his prediction by one week, shattering the record just four games after McHale's performance.

The Boston Celtics have been playing basketball since 1946. Scoring records established in the first 3308 regular-season and playoff games have been broken twice in the last five games.

"I thought 56 was pretty good," said McHale, who assisted Bird by fouling to stop the clock last night. "But when you can't hold a record like that for 10 days, this must be a pretty tough team to play on."

"It's Kevin's own fault," joked Bird. "He should have gone for 60, and I told him that."

Bird chose an unilkely site for his record, but again, it adds to the fable. Every hoop fan worth his sweatbands knows that Wilt Chamberlain chose the remote outpost of Hershey Pennsylvania for the site of his fabled 100- point game. Now we have Bird breaking the Celtics record on the Lakefront Arena floor of New Orleans University.

It had the feel of an exhibition game at the start, but then, one could argue that the entire NBA 82-game slate amounts to little more than a six- month preseason.

Abusing a trio of Hawks defenders, Bird had 12 at the quarter and 23 at the half. The Celtics led by seven at intermission, but Atlanta's Dominique Wilkins (36) and Eddie Johnson (26) brought the Hawks back to a 69-69 tie early in the third.

Then Bird exploded, hitting fallaways, stepbacks, onehanded lofts, layups and leaners. He scored 19 in the quarter, and 11 in the final 3:10 as the Celtics built a 100-89 lead at the end of three. Bird was so destructive that defender Rickey Brown almost got into a fight with Atlanta coach Mike Fratello when the period was over.

Scott Wedman preserved the lead with a couple of jumpers early in the fourth, before Bird came back with 8:41 left. He would score 18 points in the final 5:11 - which is exactly how many the Celtics scored in that stretch.

It should be mentioned that Shreveport's own Robert Parish snatched 19 rebounds, and Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge combined for 30 assists, but Bird was the one who had the crowd chanting "Lar-eee, Lar-eee" as they filed out for a night on Bourbon Street.

The record run started with a Bird layup with 5:11 left that pushed the Celts to a 110-103 lead. It was only the beginning.

After a free throw and a couple of bombs, he was up to 49 and the Celtics led, 115-105, with 1:57 left. Victory was assured and the Celtics started thinking about the record.

Fratello gave Bird his 50th, courtesy of a technical foul.

With 1:26 left, Bird canned a 22-footer. With 43 seconds left, he hit another 22-footer. He was up to 54, then went to the line with 27 seconds left after being fouled by Kevin Willis. He made both for 55 and 56.

McHale immediately fouled Glenn Rivers.

"Hell, I helped him out a little, too, so it works both ways," said Bird.

Then Bird made a preposterous three-pointer after a whistle. It didn't count, but his first free throw put him ahead of McHale. They high-fived, then Bird went back to the stripe for 58.

Rivers buried a three-pointer, and the Celtics got the ball right back to Bird, who canned a 17-footer at the buzzer to hit the 60 barrier.

"When I'm shooting the ball like that, nobody's going to stop me," said Bird.