Larry v. Magic: Game 14 (Part 3)

1984 NBA Finals Game 7

Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary

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

The 1984 Finals were a Clash of Cultures

What it came down to was a triumph over doubt.

When the Boston Celtics took the seventh game, we discovered all over again that not just suckers have faith. The older we get, the more difficult it gets to hold that hard work and teamwork and grinding it out can prevail. The Los Angeles Lakers had more of what we were afraid wins in the modern world.

They were taller, at center and point guard; they were faster at almost every position. They had better shooters, better fast-breakers, and theirs was the destiny of the post-industrial world.

They were West Coast, at a time when East Coast is decaying or dead. They were flash and glitter and Hollywood, they had cheerleaders and Dancing Barry and Jack Nicholson at courtside with Walter Matthau in reserve. We were lunchpail and bump-and-run and grinding it out. They were Ronald Reagan - glib, California, show-biz, luck. We were Tip O'Neill - aging, overweight, clinging to the notion of helping those left behind.

Arnold Toynbee told us about yin and yang, challenge and response, and how the difficult climate of northern Europe helped those people overcome the sun- dwellers of the land where fruit grew on trees. But we had reason to doubt that those from a harsh climate could overcome those who lived in the land of sun and balmy breezes. You can't measure toughness on the depth chart. Wanting-it-more is the measurement that's hardest to quantify.

L.A. took Game 1 and the home-court advantage; we luck out in overtime in Game 2. Game 3 they blow us away; Game 4 is ours again in OT. Give L.A. one more point at the end of regulation in Games 2 and 4, and we're obliterated, four straight. Game 5, we tough it out; Game 6, they come back. Game 7, it's a war.

Anyone heading in for a layup, forget it, you were going to get mugged. It was hockey's King Clancy who said, "If you can't beat 'em in the alley, you can't beat 'em on the ice," and our Celts beat 'em in the alley and then in the Garden.

Who'd ever have thought our Dennis would outplay their Magic in the titanic battle of the backcourt Johnsons? Magic was gimpy at the end, a brilliant colt hobbled by injury.

The Lakers came back, they were within three points right near the end, but they got outmuscled, out-banged, out-desired, out-home-advantaged. One reason basketball is such a great game is that there are many ways to play and win. If you can't run with the oppo, you slow it down, post them up, muscle in the rebounds, and keep them off the break. Boston did that.

In terms of talent, L.A. is a little better than the Celts. We did it with rebounds, defense, a little intimidation, and a guy named Bird. Get me the ball, says Larry, I'll make things happen when the game and everything else is at stake. Even when he's missing, or throws the ball away, or his man snakes past him for a stuff, Bird comes back. He does not talk, he does!

He is not the biggest or fastest or best, statistically, at anything but foul-shooting, and that's because shooting fouls is in large measure mental. Bird is mentally tough, and the reason we are all in awe is that he's taken talent that extra step, past mental toughness, to a place where no one else plays.

Bird is out there all by himself. But you pick up your ball, and eye that basket, and mentally rehearse that jumper, or finish that layup with the reverse twist and underhand scoop that spins in off the backboard and drops through hitting nothing but twine, and become Bird. Bird lives!

Like the yearning voter who "becomes" the charismatic politician, the backyard hoopster "becomes" Larry Bird. We all have access to baskets and balls, and fantasies are free.

Baseball was the game when Ruth was the name. Football had its day when television got large. But Dr. Naismith's game is the game of this age, played everywhere, by everybody. Boys, men, girls, women, athletes in wheelchairs. When you no longer play full court, five-on-five, you go half-court, winner's out, call your own fouls, win-by-two.

The Russians play, the Chinese too. Hoop is the game because you need nothing but a ball and a basket and a loincloth. You don't need ice, hockey sticks, bats, gloves, cleats, shoulder pads, helmets, a level field, polo mallets, cricket bats, skis, fishing rods - the list of things you don't need is infinite.

Just a ball, a basket, and it's you and your imagination. Bird and his teammates made it possible for us to imagine victory in its sweetest sense. The work ethic works, even in the seventh game. What a feeling! There's hope!