Hawks Dump C's

Celts Fall to 16-5
1981-82 Boston Celtics

All those bodies flying, all those elbows lashing out, all those juicy name-calling exchanges, why it just about brought nostalgic tears to Kevin Loughery's eyes.

"Hey, when I was coaching in the ABA we played Denver 22 times one year. Now those were wars," Loughery said, with a twinkle in his eye.

Loughery's postgame mood was cheerful, as it should have been. His Atlanta Hawks had just held off the Celtics, 108-97, to end a seven-game losing streak, and they had done it by outplaying the world champions in the fourth quarter, when the Green and White is supposed to be at its best.

The Hawks came into the fourth quarter tied at 77 and simply blew the Celtics out, building a pair of 14-point leads before fighting a holding action down the stretch.

This second of two in a two-night, back-to-back sequence of games was reminsicent of two things: the NBA of yore and the closing scenes of "On The Waterfront." Pretty it wasn't. Aggressive it most definitely was.

"It was like the playoffs with all those bodies flying around," continued Loughery.

The Celtics certainly didn't lose because of the rough stuff, since they can usually take care of themselves without running home to mommy. They lost because the starters, as a unit, were a pretty bad basketball team.

The first unit must live with the fact that in the first quarter it was outscored by 11 points before getting the hook, en masse, and that in the final period it allowed a tie game to become a 14-point Atlanta advantage. Even in the third period they were merely competent.

The stirring sub-plot from the Boston standpoint was the remarkable play of the six bench people in the final 13:35 of the first half. With 1:35 remaining in the first period and the Hawks leading by a 30-19 score, Gerry Henderson picked up his fourth foul. It was obvious he was coming out. What wasn't so obvious was that Larry Bird, Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parish and Chris Ford were coming out with him. Yup, five subs.

What transpired was almost hard to believe. The unit of Rick Robey, Kevin McHale, Eric Fernsten, Danny Ainge and Charles Bradley started cooking, and when they needed a lift, they got it from sweet-shooting Terry Duerod, who came into the game with 4:37 remaining in the half and promptly canned three straight jumpers, the last of which tied the score at 51 with 27 seconds left in the quarter.

The unit scrapped defensively, pounded the boards (Johnny Most's beloved Thump-Bump duo split 10 rebounds up front) and moved the ball. Ainge was an open-floor revelation, and it was a great spurt of team basketball.

Too bad the regulars never could follow through. One problem was Bird's night-long inability to contain either Rudy Macklin or John Drew, each of whom shot jumpers in his kisser all night long. Drew, who didn't play in the first half, came off the bench to score 16 valuable second-half points, and was a key to the Hawks' victory.

Boston lost control from 85-81, Atlanta (8:05) to 100-86, Atlanta (4:09), the spurt-igniter being a pretty Charlie Criss fast-break runner for a three- point play that gave the Hawks an 88-81 lead.

Ainge got two points back with a steal and quick banker after missing a jumper, but Drew scored four quickies on a jumper and two free throws and Boston couldn't recover.

There was temporary bad blood in the game between the coaches, as Fitch and Loughery had a fiery exchange following a nasty Tom McMillen wipe-out of Ainge. That enabled both of them to get off the refs for a while, anyway.

For Boston, it was something of a lose-the-battle-but-win-the-war game, since Ainge gets into it more every night.

"I think you saw something of our future out there," Fitch said.

See? Everybody went away happy. Loughery saw the past and Fitch saw the future.