Larry v. Magic: Game 13 (part 5)

1984 NBA Finals Game 6

Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary

Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage

Lakers Fan Throws Beer at ML Carr

As the Boston Celtics' plane hurtled eastward through the night skies, some seasoned passengers wore masks over their eyes or pulled blankets over their heads to give themselves a few hours of sleep on the overnight flight known as "the red-eye."

One passenger stood rubbing his eyes, which were red even before jet lag struck them. M. L. Carr didn't even play in the sixth game in Los Angeles on Sunday but he took one for the team anyway: a dosage of beer, right between the eyes, thrown by a spectator at five paces as the teams left the court following the Lakers' 119-108 victory.

"I couldn't see for a minute," Carr said. "It was frightening because you didn't know what it was. Even if it was just beer, the acid made my eyes red right away. I still can't see too well."

Carr has been more morale booster than participant during the playoffs that will end tonight with the seventh game in Boston, the latest playoff game, by four days, in the history of the National Basketball Association. It has also been one of the most physical playoffs in many years, a throwback to the late 1940's and early 1950's when the Gallatins and the Lloyds and the Brannums roamed the earth.

The beer cup thrown in Carr's face has not been the only violence of the playoffs. The Celtics and the Knicks had one full-scale rumble in their series, and this long- running television spectacular, stretched over three weekends, has had its share of cocked fists and ugly words.

The latest talk from both sides is that tonight's game is going to be "a war." Maybe it's the heat wave that fried everybody's brains last Friday in Boston, a byproduct of the longest season ever. Either way, this is not one of those elegant Sam Jones off-the-backboard, Elgin Baylor twisting-the-night-away series that resides in memory. This is nasty stuff.

"It's t's going to be hot in the gym," was Dennis Johnson's weather report for tonight. "It's going to be as rowdy as a rat. Will it be war? Well, I'm bringing my hand grenades and my machine gun."

This kind of talk stems directly from the flying tackles in this playoff that are straight out of National Football League highlight films, complete with the electric bass when the wide receiver lands on his back and everybody chuckles and has himself another beer.

The Knicks and Celtics played some tag-team matches, trading turns performing karate on shooters about to score a layup. Danny Ainge of the Celtics has won a black-and- blue belt by now, but Rory Sparrow of the Knicks made the mistake of doing it to Larry Bird, and was ejected from the game. Right call, one game late.

In this series, Ainge and Carr have shown no hesitation about shoving a Laker shooter out of bounds if he had a clear layup. This becomes more dangerous in playoff time because extra benches of reporters and photographers and television cameras and fans are flanked alongside the court. Nobody has missed playing time after being flung into the sideline seats yet, but it's only a matter of time.

"The whole idea is to disrupt the shot," Carr says. "You don't want to hurt anybody, but you do whatever you have to do to keep the man from making the layup."

The Lakers claim the level of aggression was raised in the fourth game when Kevin McHale impeded Kurt Rambis's progress with a forearm around the neck, a move last practiced by Gorgeous George of wrestling fame and Tuffy Brashun of roller-derby fame.

The Lakers' coach, Pat Riley, called the play "as blatant a foul as I've ever seen in all my years in this league," but his complaint seemed to make the Celtics all the more aggressive and make the Lakers feel more like victims. Magic Johnson of the Lakers later said, "I think it kind of jacked them up and got us caught in the wrong situation."

Also in the fourth game, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird debated the ethics of an elbow wielded by Abdul-Jabbar, and Ainge and Bird played swing-your-partner on James Worthy and Michael Cooper. And in the fifth game, some of Bird's rebounds were aided by second efforts with his elbows.

The Lakers seemed to catch on in the sixth game. At 4:51 of the first period, Worthy saw Cedric Maxwell about to take a layup and shoved him in the general direction of the Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga. Maxwell came up with his fists cocked but the officials stuck their bodies in the middle and no punches were thrown.

"He was just trying to stop the layup," McHale said of his opponent, Worthy. "We're not gonna cry about that. I said it before - believe it or not, some people play basketball that way - they play hard to win. Ask Pat what he thinks of it now."

Riley said: "It was a hard foul. We never talked about becoming more aggressive. We always want to commit a good hard foul when the other team is on a break. We have to stop them from scoring. I'm sure they have no problems with that. They've seen those things before."

Everybody's seen those things by now, as the N.B.A. playoffs have matched the election campaign for endlessness, game by game, primary by primary. The shoving and the war talk that has been going on have made this spontaneous team game sound like the grubbiest and most promoted "sport" of all, boxing. When players, even without meaning to, start talking like boxers hyping the gate, it's time to take the summer off. Tonight, maybe an epic seventh game between old foes. Tomorrow, the beach.