Celtics and Lakers Don't Like Each Other

1984 NBA Finals

The NBA championship series couldn't be much closer. The games are even at three apiece, the flagrant cheap shots are knotted at one apiece and both teams have hurled about 1,000 insults and threats. But after Sunday's loss, the Celtics, led as usual by Larry Bird, took an edge in incitement to riot and commissionertrashing before they flew home to prepare to meet the Lakers tonight in the seventh and deciding game.

That should be a happening. It could be a horror. It may again be in the 90s in beautiful-ugly old Boston Garden, and the harsh rhetoric on both sides may make it even hotter. These two teams have developed a genuine, deep dislike for each other, which has created an undercurrent of hostility and tension that escalates with every game and threatens to explode in violence. They've been on the brink of a brawl several times, and given the heat and pressure of the deciding game, one more cheap shot could touch off an extremely ugly, dangerous scene.

Two on-court episodes and Bird's bird-brained post-game remarks Sunday added fuel to the fire. The first encounter was Laker James Worthy pushing Cedric Maxwell hard from behind into the supporting post as he was driving for a layup. It was as flagrant and dangerous a cheap shot as Celtic Kevin McHale's clothesline tackle of a driving Kurt Rambis in Game Four, a foul which prompted Laker Coach Pat Riley to accuse the Celtics of thuggery and hint at retaliation.

On both occasions, the officials failed to eject the man committing the foul, even though in both cases the player could have been seriously injured. Is stopping a layup worth risking, say, a spinal injury and paralysis? Is that the lesson the NBA would like to convey to kids watching?

The normally quiet, soft-spoken Worthy was hardly repentant.

"They play that way the whole series and nobody says nothing about it," he said. "So I don't want to hear about it. I didn't clothesline him, wrap my arm around his neck and try to put him out for his career. I wasn't trying to deliver a message; I just wanted to put him on the foul line."

Bull. Worthy obviously was trying to deliver a message: that the Lakers can and will play it just as rough, in word and deed, as the Celtics.

"They've been verbally abusing us the whole series, giving choking signs in front of 17,000 people," Worthy said. "If that's the way they want to play, fine. I think we have to play like them. We can't let them intimidate us. If the Celtics want to call us out, OK, we're coming out.

"I don't like to get involved in that kind of stuff, but playing a team like the Celtics, you have to. But I'd never do the things they've done, the taunting and choking signs. It's not the way I like to play basketball. It's not the way I was taught to play the game. It's unprofessional and it's immature."

Oh, and pushing a guy into the post from behind is professional and mature?

Maxwell hinted at retaliation for Worthy's retaliation.

"Call it what you want to call it, but it wasn't basketball," Maxwell said of Worthy's big push. "But the way the game is being played now, the same thing could happen to him."

Then Maxwell, who has an odd sense of humor at times, added, "It was flagrant and it was a cheap shot . . . the only thing is, I'm used to giving 'em, not receiving 'em."

Cheap shots. A real laugh riot.

Tonight's game?

"More of the same," Maxwell said. "Bodies'll be flying and nobody'll be getting no layups."

Celtic guard Dennis Johnson went one up on the zip-gun analogy made by Riley after McHale had massaged Rambis' throat.

"We're going to bring hand grenades, machine guns, everything we can think of," Johnson said. "Now that they've brought out their secret weapon, it's our turn to retaliate."

Sounds like a speech from Dr. Strangelove. Lighten up, D.J. It's still just basketball.

The fans became involved when M.L. Carr, the most pugnacious of the Celtics, was doused with beer as he left the court after the game. That, plus the Worthy shove, had Carr's mouth motoring at warp five.

"Now it's all-out war. We are not going to come out soft anymore (huh?). I'd like to meet them at the airport."

From Carr, who talks better than he plays, you would expect trash like that. But it was the normally -- pardon the expression -- unflappable Bird whose comments were most incendiary of all.

"I'm not predicting anything will happen at the (Boston) Garden, but after what happened to M.L., the Lakers better be wearing hard hats on the bench instead of oxygen masks. Our fans can do anything. You never want to do that (the Carr incident) and then go back to the other fellow's home. You don't want to turn the Boston fans loose. . . . If the fans got wind of it or saw it on TV, they will do something. I hope they don't, but I think they will be ready to explode."

They certainly will be after "getting wind of it" from Bird. Celtic fans are rabid to begin with, and the 9 p.m. EDT start gives those so inclined extra time to get well lubricated. Combine that with the heat, the stakes, the inflammatory rhetoric and you've got the potential for an outbreak no one wants to see.

Bird should have known better. If he had to say something about the Carr episode, he should have said that he hopes Celtic fans have more courtesy, class and sportsmanship. Instead, he practically invited them to go after the Lakers.

That's the danger. All of these threats and insults may be meant to psych or merely represent macho posturing, but the cumulative effect is inflamed
emotions and a climate ripe for violence.

Finally, Bird-brainia was in evidence again in his vague, off-the-wall criticism of NBA Commissioner David Stern. According to Bird, he learned that Stern had told a fan on an elevator before Sunday's game that the league wanted a seventh game because it needed the money and exposure it would bring.

"When you get a statement like that from the commissioner, you know things are going to happen and it's going to be tough," Bird said. "With a statement like that, we have to play 10 times harder to win."

Huh?

Was he implying an anti-Celtic bias in the officiating of Sunday's game? Bird said no, not with Jake O'Donnell and Jack Madden working the game (though the implication was it might be true with other refs).

Then what did he mean?

Bird wouldn't say, except to repeat that he didn't think it was a proper thing for the commissioner. Trying to peer into Bird's brain, one can only assume he felt the commissioner was rooting for the Lakers Sunday, and that it was unfair. Stern was undoubtedly rooting for the Lakers Sunday, as he would have been rooting for the Celtics had they been facing elimination.

Of course Stern wanted a seventh game. "Me and fans all across the country," he said. It does mean precious income and exposure for a league that needs both. This is the NBA's showcase event, and it lucked out in getting its two best, sexiest, most starstudded teams as finalists. If it had its druthers, the NBA would like them to keep playing until September (perish the thought).

The question is what kind of seventh game will it be? Hopefully, it will be memorable for the quality of play, closeness, building drama and shattering climax. Hopefully, a Bird bomb or Kareem sky hook will win it at the buzzer in triple overtime. Hopefully, all the insults and threats will be forgotten at tipoff.