Hubie Brown Doesn't Take the Bait

NBA Eastern Conference Semis
May 1984

Today's lesson in eternal truths: You can react to anything in one of two ways.

You can become angry and scream and destroy a locker room urinal. Or you can sigh, count to 10 and forget it.

Examples follow.

Knicks coach Hubie Brown read Cedric Maxwell's words in yesterday morning's paper: "(The Knicks) are going to lose, no question about it. (Bernard King) has been the guy carrying them, but I don't feel they can come in and have one guy beat us in this series . . . He ain't getting 40 on us. We're going to stop the bitch."

Now, there were two ways to react to this. Brown could tell Truck Robinson to remove Maxwell's teeth, or . . .

"We don't react to that at all," Brown said. "We don't worry about that stuff."

Maybe the Knicks coach wasn't concerned with Maxwell's statements. The Knicks alone were enough to worry about.

They have no dominating center: Bill Cartwright can make shots and Marvin Webster can block them, but they don't play at the same time, so the Knicks always have a weakness against Robert Parish.

Also, New York has depended upon King for a third of its playoff points. What if the Celtics didn't let him score 40? Or 30? Or 20? Has anyone bothered to ask Brown why he's gray?