Bird Yet to Have Good Game at Silverdome

1981-82 Boston Celtics

The Celtics have yet to lose in six visits to the Silverdome in Pontiac, Mich., but you can pardon Larry Bird if he wished never to see that ugly structure again.

The cavernous Dome has been his personal House of Horrors, and the Pistons' fans can be forgiven if they don't quite understand what the hype is all about. Only once in those six games has Bird shot the ball well at all, that being an 11-for-19 effort last Feb. 21. His other five Silverdome outings have produced such gems as 7 for 21, 8 for 21, 4 for 14, 5 for 15, 7 for 19 and 2 for 8, all of which, when combined with the one good night, adds up to 35 percent shooting.

Bird will enter the Silverdome tomorrow night (Ch. 4, 9 p.m.) as the league's hottest player, however. After shooting 10 for 35 in games against Chicago and Philadelphia last week, he went 40 for 67 in his last three affairs before last night while scoring 93 points. He has also had 49 rebounds, 32 assists, 13 steals and 4 blocks in those three games. His 28- point, 19-rebound, 15-assist game against Atlanta may very well have qualified him for Player of the Month, let alone Player of the Week, on the basis of that game alone.

If shooting background is what has been bothering Bird in Pontiac, he should be pleased to hear that the Pistons are expecting a crowd in excess of 20,000 for tonight's game. That should eliminate the sea of blue one normally sees.

Playing alongside Larry Bird must do a job on the ego, if one is geared to publicity. Poor Robert Parish, for example, posted back-to-back 24-point, 11- rebound games against New Jersey and Atlanta, and nobody has noticed . . . And in any ordinary circumstance, a Kevin McHale would have been showered with praise after scoring 28 points while starting in place of Cedric Maxwell (knee injury) on Wednesday. McHale's 43 minutes played established a career high in that category, surpassing the 34 he posted last season while starting his only game of his rookie year. In his two starts McHale has scored 49 points . . . The Celtics have won four straight and have also won four of their last five road games dating back to Dec. 26, when they stopped Kansas City in overtime . . . Bird, who again leads all NBA forwards in assists, has racked up 47 in his last five games. He's also averaging 15.4 rebounds a game in his last eight games, and 31 points a game in his last three.