1984 NBA Finals
Pat Riley thinks his Lakers have already won tonight's title match against the Celtics.
"It's destiny," the Lakers coach said yesterday. "I believe in the Fates, and I think it's our time . . . I think the script is written for us to win."
Riley has a couple of wounded warriors. Bob McAdoo sat out Sunday's second half with an Achilles tendon injury, and Magic Johnson has been bothered by tendinitis in his left knee.
Riley said the injuries won't matter. "There's only 48 minutes left in the season," noted the Laker coach. "Tendinitis and Achilles tendons . . . they mean nothing now."
McAdoo said he would try to play, and Magic, obviously, will play as many minutes as necessary.
Meanwhile, the Celtics are expected to still be without Scott Wedman. He suffered a hairline fracture of his left fibula in Game 4 and was still walking with a cane when the Celtics came back to Boston yesterday.
NBA commissioner David Stern chose not issue any statement in response to Larry Bird's charge Sunday that Stern wanted a seventh game because the league needed the money. After Sunday's Celtic loss, Bird said he had been told that Stern said the league wanted a seven-game series. "When Stern makes a statement like that, things are going to happen," said Bird.
Stern was in Dallas yesterday, listening to representatives of the Clippers explain why they have moved from San Diego to Los Angeles. Stern's office said the commissioner was "unreachable," and no one there knew his exact whereabouts. However, NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre spoke with Stern. "David said Bird's comment is ridiculous. Like every fan in America, he has been looking forward to a seventh game. It's a dream matchup, and everybody has wanted to see a seven-game series since Day 1."
You can expect Bird to take more than 11 shots tonight. Bird felt he didn't get the ball enough Sunday, and K.C. Jones said, "I agree with that. We should have gotten him the ball more, and we talked about it after the game." Gerald Henderson on the same topic: "Hopefully, we'll get the ball to Larry a little more. Maybe when they were coming back Sunday he should have gotten the ball. That's something to consider." Bird is averaging 28.5 points, 14.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 3.8 turnovers and 44 1/2 minutes in the series. He's shooting 52 percent (56-108) from the floor and 82 percent (56-68) from the line. Magic Johnson is averaging 18.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, 13.3 assists, four turnovers and 42 minutes per game. He's shooting 60 percent (42-70) from the floor and 74 percent (26-35) from the line.
Nine of the last 11 NBA crowns were won on the road. No Celtic team has ever lost a series after building a 3-2 lead . . . The Celtics are 13-3 in seven-game series (Knicks in 1973, Sixers in '77 and '82), but are 6-0 in final-round seventh games, including 3-0 vs. LA. The Lakers have never won a seventh game in an NBA final. They lost three to the Celtics and one to the Knicks (1970) . . . The Lakers are 5-4 on the road in the playoffs this year . . . LA arrived in Boston late yesterday afternoon . . . The Celtic brass met yesterday morning and discussed extra security for tonight's game. Assistant general manager Jan Volk said, "There will be additional (security) people . . . We're really not concerned about the behavior of our fans." . . . Has anyone noticed that we have not seen a single Coop-a-Loop in this series? . . . Boston's bench has scored 198 points to LA's 184 . . . Tickets marked "Game M" will be honored for tonight's finale.
8.24.2010
Both Teams Guarantee a Take-No-Prisoners Game 7
1984 NBA Finals
The ugliness is everywhere.
It is in the packed-in seats and bannered rafters and tiny locker rooms of steaming Boston Garden.
It spills from the lips of the Boston Celtics and from the throats of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Yes, there will be a decisive seventh game of the NBA championship series Tuesday night at the old building on Causeway Street.
But don't look for these two teams to show each other a lot of mutual respect.
Not after a Lakers fan threw beer
in the face of the Celtics' M.L. Carr on Sunday after the Lakers' 119-108 victory over the Celtics in Game 6 at the Forum.
Not after James Worthy's firstquarter, push-from-behind foul on a fast- breaking Celtic, Cedric Maxwell.
Not after Danny Ainge's rip-yourhead-off foul on Worthy on Sunday afternoon.
Not with the memory of Kevin McHale's clothesline tackle of the Lakers' Kurt Rambis in Game 4, for which he was labeled a "thug" by Los Angeles Coach Pat Riley.
Not after the verbal confrontation between Celtics forward Larry Bird and Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the same game.
The 1984 title series, which began as a black-tie affair between the two elite basketball teams, has turned ugly. Now, not even the Geneva Convention could save this one from violence.
"This (the seventh game) will definitely be more physical than yesterday's," Bird said.
"I'm not predicting anything will happen in the Garden," Bird continued, ''but after what happened to M.L., the Lakers had better wear hard hats instead of oxygen masks.
"You never want to do that (throw beer) and then go back to the other fellows' home.
"You don't want to turn the Boston fans loose.
"If the guy had walked up to M.L. and done it face to face, it would have been different. But to do it from 20 rows up. . . . 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."
That definitely can be interpreted as a warning, made all the scarier
because it was not even from the guy who got hit.
The guy who got hit, Carr, was even angrier.
"Now it's all-out war," the seldomused swingman said. "We are not going to come out and be soft anymore."
Of the foul by Worthy on Maxwell, Carr said: "I know what James did he did in the sense of battle. That just shows they are going for the gold, too. But we are not going to be soft. I'd like to meet them at the airport tomorrow."
Maxwell himself showed little emotional restraint.
"He just pushed me with both hands," the Celtics' starting power forward said.
"I guess that's how you play basketball (in Los Angeles). The last game will be physical from the very beginning. And I'm sure that something will happen to them for doing that."
Not that the Celtics are the only ones ready to rumble tonight.
"We tried to play team basketball," Worthy said, "but they've been verbally abusing us the whole series, giving choke signs in front of 17,000 people. 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. They came in here the last time (in Game 4) and floored Kurt with a clothesline tackle and just kept doing it, trying to humiliate us.
"I don't like to get involved in that kind of stuff, but playing a team like the Celtics, you have to compete with them. I'd never do the things they've done, the taunting and choking signs. It's unprofessional and it's immature."
But it's for real, as real as the bruises on all their bodies.
Now all that's left is to play the game inside the Garden caldron, in front of 14,890 of the most raucus, the most vocal and the most frantic basketball fans in the NBA. * * *
Lakers reserve center Bob McAdoo is doubtful because of a strained Achilles' tendon suffered in Game 6, although he made the trip. . . . Magic Johnson is nursing a sore left knee, which is slowed by tendinitis. . . . Abdul-Jabbar has suffered six migraine headaches since the series opened. . . . This is the first seventh game in an NBA title series since 1978. . . . The Celtics are 7-0 in seventh games in title series, while the Lakers are 0-6. . . . With a win Tuesday night, the Celtics would earn their 15th title, their first since 1981. . . . The Celtics have lost only one title series, in 1958, to the St. Louis Hawks.
The ugliness is everywhere.
It is in the packed-in seats and bannered rafters and tiny locker rooms of steaming Boston Garden.
It spills from the lips of the Boston Celtics and from the throats of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Yes, there will be a decisive seventh game of the NBA championship series Tuesday night at the old building on Causeway Street.
But don't look for these two teams to show each other a lot of mutual respect.
Not after a Lakers fan threw beer
in the face of the Celtics' M.L. Carr on Sunday after the Lakers' 119-108 victory over the Celtics in Game 6 at the Forum.
Not after James Worthy's firstquarter, push-from-behind foul on a fast- breaking Celtic, Cedric Maxwell.
Not after Danny Ainge's rip-yourhead-off foul on Worthy on Sunday afternoon.
Not with the memory of Kevin McHale's clothesline tackle of the Lakers' Kurt Rambis in Game 4, for which he was labeled a "thug" by Los Angeles Coach Pat Riley.
Not after the verbal confrontation between Celtics forward Larry Bird and Lakers center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the same game.
The 1984 title series, which began as a black-tie affair between the two elite basketball teams, has turned ugly. Now, not even the Geneva Convention could save this one from violence.
"This (the seventh game) will definitely be more physical than yesterday's," Bird said.
"I'm not predicting anything will happen in the Garden," Bird continued, ''but after what happened to M.L., the Lakers had better wear hard hats instead of oxygen masks.
"You never want to do that (throw beer) and then go back to the other fellows' home.
"You don't want to turn the Boston fans loose.
"If the guy had walked up to M.L. and done it face to face, it would have been different. But to do it from 20 rows up. . . . 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."
That definitely can be interpreted as a warning, made all the scarier
because it was not even from the guy who got hit.
The guy who got hit, Carr, was even angrier.
"Now it's all-out war," the seldomused swingman said. "We are not going to come out and be soft anymore."
Of the foul by Worthy on Maxwell, Carr said: "I know what James did he did in the sense of battle. That just shows they are going for the gold, too. But we are not going to be soft. I'd like to meet them at the airport tomorrow."
Maxwell himself showed little emotional restraint.
"He just pushed me with both hands," the Celtics' starting power forward said.
"I guess that's how you play basketball (in Los Angeles). The last game will be physical from the very beginning. And I'm sure that something will happen to them for doing that."
Not that the Celtics are the only ones ready to rumble tonight.
"We tried to play team basketball," Worthy said, "but they've been verbally abusing us the whole series, giving choke signs in front of 17,000 people. 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. They came in here the last time (in Game 4) and floored Kurt with a clothesline tackle and just kept doing it, trying to humiliate us.
"I don't like to get involved in that kind of stuff, but playing a team like the Celtics, you have to compete with them. I'd never do the things they've done, the taunting and choking signs. It's unprofessional and it's immature."
But it's for real, as real as the bruises on all their bodies.
Now all that's left is to play the game inside the Garden caldron, in front of 14,890 of the most raucus, the most vocal and the most frantic basketball fans in the NBA. * * *
Lakers reserve center Bob McAdoo is doubtful because of a strained Achilles' tendon suffered in Game 6, although he made the trip. . . . Magic Johnson is nursing a sore left knee, which is slowed by tendinitis. . . . Abdul-Jabbar has suffered six migraine headaches since the series opened. . . . This is the first seventh game in an NBA title series since 1978. . . . The Celtics are 7-0 in seventh games in title series, while the Lakers are 0-6. . . . With a win Tuesday night, the Celtics would earn their 15th title, their first since 1981. . . . The Celtics have lost only one title series, in 1958, to the St. Louis Hawks.
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.
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.
Myths of the 1984 Finals
Two weeks of soaring slams, sweeping sky hooks, arching jumpers, savage boardwork, crisp passing and just plain passion have resulted in a deadlock. The Celtics and Lakers, burdened with the public pressure to entertain us with professional basketball at its best, have often done just that.
But amid the obvious basketball issues in this series there have been needless diversions. Let us set the record straight by identifying the two biggest nonissues in the Celtics-Lakers series.
1. Pat Riley Calls The Celtics Thugs'
It was just a standard playoff bit designed to attract the attention of the two officials who were working the next game. Who are the Celtic ruffians? Robert Parish? He sure leaves bruises. Cedric (I'm A Lover, Not A Fighter) Maxwell? Kevin McHale (one regrettable foul does not a bully make)? Larry Bird? No Steeler linebackers in that corps.
M.L. Carr aside, the Celtics have no players on the roster to rival the recent likes of Dave Cowens, Paul Silas and Rick Robey. I've got too much respect for Pat Riley's intelligence and class to take seriously anything he said about the Celtics being a rough team. The Celtics rough? That snicker you hear over there in the corner belongs to Rick Mahorn.
Good try, Pat. Shows you have a sense of history.
2. The Celtics Band Together To Show Up The Media
After Game 4 you kept hearing the media this and the media that coming out of Celtics' mouths. The inference was that the Boston press (and public) had questioned the team's integrity following the Game 3 rout. That is not what happened.
Leaving aside whatever Tom Heinsohn said or did not say about Dennis Johnson on the telly, and therefore sticking to the printed ac-counts, the truth is that people questioned Boston's ability to compete with Los Angeles on a talent basis. To hear the Celtics tell it, they were accused of burning orphanages in their spare time. The worst part was that certain irresponsible local scribes printed their inane statements without qualification.
Now let's talk about the real issues in this series.
1. Double-Teaming
There may never have been a series like it. Both the Celtics and Lakers have a star player of such magnitude that full-time double-teaming has been deemed necessary. The Celtics are doing what teams generally do by double- teaming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But by insisting that Larry Bird cannot be handled by one man, the Lakers are paying him a tribute accorded few, if any, forwards, in history.
Suffice it to say that what each of these great players has achieved in light of the attention lavished upon him by their opponents is astonishing.
2. Conditions
Somebody Up There likes the Celtics. The visiting Lakers first spent four days in a hotel plagued by incessant nocturnal fire alarms. They spent their second trip moping around in a heat wave. They simply could not adapt to the playing conditions inside the Boston Garden, where the game-time temperature was 97 degrees. Backed by their fans, the Celtics were able to turn the adverse Garden situation into an asset.
3. Crowds
This was thought to be a major Boston advantage, and indeed it was until the third quarter of Game 6. There was a Boston timeout with the score Boston 84, LA 81, during which the normally somnolent Forum gathering transformed itself into a maniacal mob that the Palestra would have embraced as its own. The Celtics, of course, are assuming that tonight their backers will be in a mood to wake the dead in every Southern California cemetery.
4. Magic vs. Larry vs. Ziegfeld
We wanted a seven-game series in order to observe the two best all-around players in the game. What have we learned? We've learned that Magic is a wondrous full-court player. We've learned that Magic will stand out there and knock in 20-foot set shots as long as you'll let him. We learned that Bird will always find a way to score, that he is a phenomenal rebounder and that he eagerly embraces the concept that he is the team leader.
However, this being basketball, we have also been reminded that there is no more effective weapon than a big scoring center. The Bird-Magic argument is mainly artistic. The fact remains that if the 22-year-old Larry Bird, the 22- year-old Magic Johnson and the 22-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were all available in a given college draft, that the first pick would be Kareem.
5. It Has All Been Worth It
Some might argue that we would probably need a great game tonight to officially label the series a certified classic, but we have all basically gotten what we wished for. Each team has demonstrated that it has the heart and intelligence to match its talent. The runnerup will be disappointed, but surely not embarrassed.
But amid the obvious basketball issues in this series there have been needless diversions. Let us set the record straight by identifying the two biggest nonissues in the Celtics-Lakers series.
1. Pat Riley Calls The Celtics Thugs'
It was just a standard playoff bit designed to attract the attention of the two officials who were working the next game. Who are the Celtic ruffians? Robert Parish? He sure leaves bruises. Cedric (I'm A Lover, Not A Fighter) Maxwell? Kevin McHale (one regrettable foul does not a bully make)? Larry Bird? No Steeler linebackers in that corps.
M.L. Carr aside, the Celtics have no players on the roster to rival the recent likes of Dave Cowens, Paul Silas and Rick Robey. I've got too much respect for Pat Riley's intelligence and class to take seriously anything he said about the Celtics being a rough team. The Celtics rough? That snicker you hear over there in the corner belongs to Rick Mahorn.
Good try, Pat. Shows you have a sense of history.
2. The Celtics Band Together To Show Up The Media
After Game 4 you kept hearing the media this and the media that coming out of Celtics' mouths. The inference was that the Boston press (and public) had questioned the team's integrity following the Game 3 rout. That is not what happened.
Leaving aside whatever Tom Heinsohn said or did not say about Dennis Johnson on the telly, and therefore sticking to the printed ac-counts, the truth is that people questioned Boston's ability to compete with Los Angeles on a talent basis. To hear the Celtics tell it, they were accused of burning orphanages in their spare time. The worst part was that certain irresponsible local scribes printed their inane statements without qualification.
Now let's talk about the real issues in this series.
1. Double-Teaming
There may never have been a series like it. Both the Celtics and Lakers have a star player of such magnitude that full-time double-teaming has been deemed necessary. The Celtics are doing what teams generally do by double- teaming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. But by insisting that Larry Bird cannot be handled by one man, the Lakers are paying him a tribute accorded few, if any, forwards, in history.
Suffice it to say that what each of these great players has achieved in light of the attention lavished upon him by their opponents is astonishing.
2. Conditions
Somebody Up There likes the Celtics. The visiting Lakers first spent four days in a hotel plagued by incessant nocturnal fire alarms. They spent their second trip moping around in a heat wave. They simply could not adapt to the playing conditions inside the Boston Garden, where the game-time temperature was 97 degrees. Backed by their fans, the Celtics were able to turn the adverse Garden situation into an asset.
3. Crowds
This was thought to be a major Boston advantage, and indeed it was until the third quarter of Game 6. There was a Boston timeout with the score Boston 84, LA 81, during which the normally somnolent Forum gathering transformed itself into a maniacal mob that the Palestra would have embraced as its own. The Celtics, of course, are assuming that tonight their backers will be in a mood to wake the dead in every Southern California cemetery.
4. Magic vs. Larry vs. Ziegfeld
We wanted a seven-game series in order to observe the two best all-around players in the game. What have we learned? We've learned that Magic is a wondrous full-court player. We've learned that Magic will stand out there and knock in 20-foot set shots as long as you'll let him. We learned that Bird will always find a way to score, that he is a phenomenal rebounder and that he eagerly embraces the concept that he is the team leader.
However, this being basketball, we have also been reminded that there is no more effective weapon than a big scoring center. The Bird-Magic argument is mainly artistic. The fact remains that if the 22-year-old Larry Bird, the 22- year-old Magic Johnson and the 22-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar were all available in a given college draft, that the first pick would be Kareem.
5. It Has All Been Worth It
Some might argue that we would probably need a great game tonight to officially label the series a certified classic, but we have all basically gotten what we wished for. Each team has demonstrated that it has the heart and intelligence to match its talent. The runnerup will be disappointed, but surely not embarrassed.
Was Worthy's Foul Worse than McHale's?
1984 NBA Finals
Laker coach Pat Riley didn't think James Worthy's first-quarter shove of Cedric Maxwell was equal to Kevin McHale's clothesline tackle of Kurt Rambis in Game 4.
After the McHale-Rambis incident, Riley said it was the cheapest shot he'd ever seen and labeled the Celtics "thugs." Riley went so far as to say, "One of my players wouldn't do something like that."
Riley termed Worthy's play yesterday "a hard foul," but he added, "I don't think what he did to Max was anything near what McHale did to Kurt. He (Worthy) didn't grab him around the neck and throw him to the floor. But that's history. Why talk about history?"
"It (Worthy's play) was worse than what Kevin did," countered Celtics general manager Red Auerbach. "At least their guy (Rambis) saw our guy coming. Max couldn't see anything coming today."
"It just shows you how this game changes people," said Maxwell. " . . . But as long as they're able to dish it out and take it, that's fine."
"We're not going to go crazy about that," said McHale. "You won't hear us start calling them thugs."
Laker coach Pat Riley didn't think James Worthy's first-quarter shove of Cedric Maxwell was equal to Kevin McHale's clothesline tackle of Kurt Rambis in Game 4.
After the McHale-Rambis incident, Riley said it was the cheapest shot he'd ever seen and labeled the Celtics "thugs." Riley went so far as to say, "One of my players wouldn't do something like that."
Riley termed Worthy's play yesterday "a hard foul," but he added, "I don't think what he did to Max was anything near what McHale did to Kurt. He (Worthy) didn't grab him around the neck and throw him to the floor. But that's history. Why talk about history?"
"It (Worthy's play) was worse than what Kevin did," countered Celtics general manager Red Auerbach. "At least their guy (Rambis) saw our guy coming. Max couldn't see anything coming today."
"It just shows you how this game changes people," said Maxwell. " . . . But as long as they're able to dish it out and take it, that's fine."
"We're not going to go crazy about that," said McHale. "You won't hear us start calling them thugs."
Larry v. Magic: Game 14 (part 2)
1984 NBA Finals Game 7
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
Bird: Lakers Better Wear Hard Hats for Game 7
BOSTON
By now, the governor should have been alerted and the National Guard should be in position outside North Station.
Boston's Larry Bird was practically inciting the fans here to riot as the Celtics and Lakers prepared for Game 7 of the NBA's Championship Series tonight (Channel 10, 9 p.m.) at Boston Garden.
Bird was upset that teammate M.L. Carr was splashed in the face with a beer as the Celtics walked off the court at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., after a 119-108 loss in Game 6. And, he spewed some venom of his own at the Lakers.
''I'm not predicting anything will happen in the Garden,'' Bird said. ''But after what happened to M.L., the Lakers better wear hard hats on the bench instead of oxygen masks. Our fans can do anything. You never want to do that and then go back to the other fellow's building. You don't want to turn the Boston fans loose.
''If a guy had walked up to M.L. and done it face-to-face, it would have been different. But to do it from 20 rows up . . . 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.''
Bird has been outspoken throughout this volatile series. He said his teammates played like ''sissies'' after an embarrassing 33-point loss in Game 3. Then, on Sunday, he claimed that NBA commissioner David Stern told a fan that the league wanted a seventh game for financial reasons.
But Bird's latest apparent premeditated verbal outburst goes beyond the bounds of good taste when it threatens crowd control. And Los Angeles coach Pat Riley thinks it does.
''I've always had a lot of respect for Larry as a person who does his job and keeps his mouth shut,'' Riley said. ''But I'm starting to think he's cracking up from the strain. Maybe he can control his teammates but I don't know how he's going to control 15,000 fans.''
The Garden should be a tinderbox as it is, with the temperature inside the sauna expected to be in the high 90s and so much on the line.
''I'm sure, if it's cool that day, they're going to turn the temperature up to about 110,'' said Celtics forward and minister of hype Cedric Maxwell.
Boston general manager Red Auerbach has been notorious for that kind of stunt in the past. But Auerbach, who will retire after this game, was acting awfully sanctimonious about the deteriorating condition of the antique building where his team plays.
''Maybe all the negative things that are being written about the Garden by writers from around the country will help us get a new building,'' Auerbach said. ''We're the only building in the league without air conditioning.' '
The Boston Garden, which is owned by the Bruins, was orginally built in 1928, long before NBA playoffs extended into June.
''It would cost $2 million to install air conditioning,'' Auerbach guesstimated. ''And they still couldn't do it the right way.''
The Celtics figure to have a major advantage if the building is a steam bath. They drowned the Lakers in a sea of perspiration last Friday during a 121-103 victory in Game 5.
''Hopefully, it will be 100 degrees there,'' Boston forward Kevin McHale said. ''They seemed to have problems with the heat.''
McHale has been a central figure in this theater of the absurd after he horse-collared Lakers forward Kurt Rambis when Rambis tried to score on a breakaway layup in Game 4.
But McHale did not want to get into a war of words after Lakers forward James Worthy pushed Maxwell in a similar play in Game 6.
''You are not going to see us sit here and cry and call them things,'' McHale said. ''The only way to survive now is to keep quiet, go out and play aggressive basketball.''
Maxwell was more open with his comments, ripping the Forum fans after they tried to root him into missing a pair of free throws just before the half on Sunday.
''I wish those freaks' arms would have fallen off,'' Maxwell said. ''I was going to make those, so it didn't matter.''
The Celtics know what they have to do to win a 15th NBA championship. For openers, they must find a way to get Bird more than 11 shots. They must continue to pound the offensive glass. They must show more patience in their halfcourt offense, making the Lakers' defense adjust to the extra pass. They must continue to make Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, LA's 37-year-old center, run the floor. And they must continue to pressure guard Magic Jonson the length of the floor, hoping to wear down his gimpy left knee.
''There's only so much you can tell a team now,'' Celtics assistant coach Chris Ford said. ''If they don't know what it takes, they never will.''
The Celtics actually were in position to drink champagne in Game 6. Boston outplayed the Lakers for 35 minutes before collapsing down the stretch when rookie guard Byron Scott came off the bench to ignite a rally that turned the game around.
Scott, who scored 11 points, is a creative offensive player, much like Andrew Toney and World Free. Both Toney and Free are notorious for the problems they caused the Celtics in past playoffs with the Sixers. Scott has the same explosive potential.
Both teams will depend basically on six players in the grand finale, with Boston going to McHale for instant gratification and Los Angeles looking to Scott to supply the offensive punch that will be missing without injured Bob McAdoo.
''It's going to be an all-out war,'' Maxwell said. ''We've had two overtime games. We've had two games that have been blowouts, games that were given away.
''I think the first six games were very even. I think a lot of people wrote us off, the same way a lot of people wrote the Lakers off. But, both teams have bounced back.
''The Lakers are like vampires, really. You never can keep them down until you drive a stake into their heart. You can rest assured somebody's going to get a stake driven into their heart come Tuesday night.''
Larry v. Magic: Game 14 (part 1)
1984 NBA Finals Game 7
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
Temperature at Garden will be Hot for Game 7
The heat, as they say, is on.
The temperature here is expected to remain at least in the 80s, still locking hot, stale air inside Boston Garden. There should be enough dregs of the merciless 95 degrees-plus heat of the last week to keep the crusty, aging building bubbling, defenselessly transformed into the world's largest crockpot.
Whoever thought the fabled parquet floor would ever be considered a skillet? Or that two groups of professional athletes would writhe on it, slashing at each other like so many Ginsu knives?
In any case, the Los Angeles Lakers will meet the Boston Celtics tonight in a decisive Game 7 of the NBA Championship Series (Channel 10, 9 p.m.). The Celtics have never lost a seventh game in the finals, the Lakers have never won one. The teams have played for the championship seven previous times, most recently in 1969, and the Celtics have won each time. And nine of the last 11 titles have been won on the road.
The Lakers, getting a heroic 30-point performance from captain Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a terrific 17-minute contribution from rookie Byron Scott, won 119-108 Sunday in Inglewood, Calif., evening their latest series at 3-3. Only four teams have ever come back from a 3-2 Championship Series deficit to win a title: the 1955 Syracuse Nationals, over Fort Wayne; the '62 Celtics, over LA; the '69 Celtics, over LA, and the '78 Washington Bullets, over Seattle.
They have run, shot, rebounded, passed and scuffled, and they will test history.
''There's a first time for everything,'' said Pat Riley, the Lakers' coach. ''We have a chance to do something that's never been done. We're going to go into the Garden, with all of those championship flags hanging there, with all that heat, and see which team is better.''
The Lakers' last game here - a loss Friday night - was debilitating. The Garden, which has no air-conditioning and very little circulation, was a steaming 97 degrees, forcing the Lakers to keep oxygen on the bench.
Both teams used cold towels, extra liquids and changes of uniform at intermission, and Boston star Larry Bird became slightly dizzy and light-headed in the fourth quarter.
But the single most affected player was the 37-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, who shot 7-for-25 and had difficulty breathing. He also has struggled with a series of migraine headaches, which have plagued him throughout his career and have, during this series, required chiropractic and intravenous treatment.
''I suggest that you go to a local steam bath, with all your clothes on, do 100 push-ups and then try to run back and forth for 48 minutes,'' Abdul-Jabbar said, describing his most recent visit to the Garden. ''But it was also the first time I had faced anything like that while I was playing for all the marbles. I would think, the second time, I'll at least be able to handle it better.''
This time, the Lakers have got to beat the Celtics, beat back the ghosts of Celtics past, and beat the heat.
''I've already talked it over with Jack (trainer Jack Curran) and Dr. Kerlan (team physician Dr. Robert Kerlan) ,'' said Riley, ''and so far we've agreed to come up with a program that will provide the players with more nutriments and liquids. One thing that will be different is, the situation won't be new to us. We've been through it once, and at least now there won't be the fear of the unknown.
''I wish we had time to sit around and build up some anger, to have a day or two to tell the world that we know we're out there by ourselves and that we have to stick together. But all we can really do is is go play the game. Sometimes that's best.''
Not that Riley isn't open to suggestions.
''Maybe there has to be some psychology involved,'' he said. ''Maybe we have to tell the guys to all have chocolate sundaes, or send each guy to his room with a note. A situation like this, you try anything that's in the best interests of your players.''
Dave Wohl, the assistant coach who played at Penn and later with the 76ers, reached back in his memory bank for a shred of expertise.
''Before my rookie year in the NBA, I played for the first time in the Baker League in Philly,'' Wohl said. ''My first game was somewhere near 21st and Chew, a little school building with a tiny gym that had two windows. It was a sweltering day, and they had packed as many fans into the place as they could because they were expecting Earl Monroe to make an appearance. I'll never forget the feeling of being in a sweatbox, walking outside afterward and having it feel almost arctic by comparison.''
Dennis Johnson, the Celtics' guard, says the heat might be on, but it might also have nothing to do with the temperature, inside or outside.
''The point is, emotionally it's going to be hot as hell for both teams,'' he said. ''That's all that counts. We've all been through it before. Now we'll just do it one more time.''
The Lakers have a couple of other significant issues to face. First, Magic Johnson is having recurring tendinitis problems in one knee, and backup forward-center Bob McAdoo is questionable with a strained Achilles' tendon.
''We have to go to Boston and win, that's all that matters,'' said Johnson. ''I don't care if it's so hot that nobody can breathe, we still have to win.
''We had to win Sunday, too, and Kareem just lifted everybody up. He had been sick all night, but he talked to us before the game, then went out and scored 30 points. Some people wait for the leader to say something, then say 'Follow the leader.' That's what happened.''
''The last game of the season,'' said the Lakers' Michael Cooper, ''could be in Alaska, or, for that matter, anyplace else. Any time, any place.''
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.
Larry v. Magic: Game 13 (part 4)
1984 NBA Finals Game 6
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
Bird Says Stern Wanted a 7th Game
One of Bird's first comments after Boston's 119-108 loss to the Lakers yesterday was, "(NBA Comr. David) Stern told a fan that the NBA needed a seven-game series, that the league needed the money. When the commissioner makes a statement like that to a fan, you know it's going to be tough."
Bird declined to say who told him about Stern's alleged statement, but his inference seemed clear: The league didn't want the Celtics to win Game 6 yesterday.
Bird reiterated the comment at least twice, saying, "When Stern makes a statement like that, things are going to happen . . . You just don't make statements like that and expect anything out of it. He's the commissioner and he shouldn't be saying anything like that.
" . . . The NBA wanted a seventh game because they wanted to make more money and they got their wish."
Stern was on a flight to Dallas and unavailable for comment. Late last night before boarding a cross-country flight Bird said: "There is no reason for me to lie. He said it. He's a man and he'll live up to it. He may say he said it in jest. But I'm out there trying to make a living and win a championship."
Larry v. Magic: Game 13 (part 3)
1984 NBA Finals Game 6
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
Kareem Lifts Lakers to Win
Early Sunday it appeared as if the Fates had conspired against the Los Angeles Lakers in their NBA championship series with the Boston Celtics. At 1 a.m. Laker center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's world was spinning all around him, his head rocking with his sixth—and by far worst—migraine headache in two weeks.
Abdul-Jabbar was in the starting lineup that afternoon at the L.A. Forum, but for almost three quarters he and the rest of the Lakers were reaching for Excedrin, Tylenol and smelling salts. The Celtics were on a roll, leading 84-73 and only 17 minutes away from being crowned NBA champions. To complicate matters for L.A., Magic Johnson had just left the lineup because his right knee was aching, and his replacement, rookie Byron Scott, had been so erratic in earlier games against the Celtics that for most of the time he had been riding the pine.
A gunner, Scott missed his first shot, but that was the last thing he and the Lakers did wrong. On his next attempt, Scott drilled a 16-foot jumper, and then he dunked on a fast break. After that, he fed James Worthy for a breakaway, and suddenly it was L.A. that was on a roll. Two more baskets cut Boston's lead to 84-83. With 6:41 to play and the score tied at 93, Scott buried a three-pointer, and the Lakers were off to the races.
The Celtics never recovered from Scott's explosion, and L.A. won 119-108 to even the series at three games apiece. Indeed, Boston scored only five baskets in the entire fourth quarter as the Laker fast break, which had disappeared after Game 3, made a triumphant return. Abdul-Jabbar, his headache only a bad memory, scored a game-high 30 points while grabbing a team-high 10 rebounds in 42 minutes. As always, the 15-year veteran led by example, but before the game he delivered a rare speech in which he exhorted his teammates to pull together. "That meant so much to us," Magic said. "When your leader has strength like that, you have to follow him."
L.A. coach Pat Riley refused credit for the masterstroke that inserted Scott into the game. He said he "wasn't making an adjustment but just groping." As for Abdul-Jabbar, Riley said: "Two trucks rolling on the top of his head wouldn't have kept him from going to the post."
With Sunday's game, the NBA set a record for encroachment into the baseball season. Basketball was never meant to be played in an un-air-conditioned 97° arena, as it had been in Game 5 on Friday night in Boston Garden, or on June 10, the latest date of any championship series game—breaking the June 8 record set in 1982. Or, for that matter, on June 12, when the seventh game was to be played back in the Hub.
Actually, the Celtics and Lakers haven't just been playing basketball; the series turned into a sports festival of sorts. There was the track meet in Game 3, with L.A. fast-breaking to a 137-104 rout. Then Boston used full-contact Australian rules football very effectively to win Game 4 129-125 in overtime. In Game 5 Boston parlayed the insufferable heat and some efficient basketball (finally!) to win 121-103. And on Sunday, there was some early Celtic efficiency that was ultimately overcome by some late Laker pyrotechnics.
"People should have expected a seven-game series because what you have here are two quality teams," said L.A. assistant coach Dave Wohl. "But each win has brought such exultation and each loss such deflation that everyone has gotten caught up in that instead."
True. After the Lakers blew them away in Game 3, the Celtics were thought to have nary a ghost of a chance in Game 4 at L.A. on Wednesday. Even some Celtics were convinced that the Lakers had exorcised the fight right out of their team. "It's probably too late now," said pugnacious Boston sub M.L. Carr, "but what we should've done right from the start was set Worthy or Magic or someone on his can and then we should've done it again so they would've known what we meant. Then maybe they wouldn't have been so fearless going inside."
If the thought of someone taking out either the 6'9", 215-pound Johnson or the 6'9", 219-pound Worthy seemed ludicrous, then going after 6'8", 220-pound forward Kurt Rambis had to seem only slightly less appealing. Yet that's just what 6'10", 225-pound Celtic forward Kevin McHale did midway through the third quarter of Game 4. After taking a pass from Magic for what looked to be a routine fast-break hoop, Rambis was lassoed around the neck in midflight by McHale, and McHale made no attempt to make Kurt's landing a happy one.
Both benches emptied, and although no blows were landed, Carr's point had been made. At the time, the Lakers held a 76-70 advantage. A minute and a half later Celtic forward Larry Bird was jaw-to-Adam's-apple with Abdul-Jabbar after the Lakers' Big Stick had nearly decapitated French Lick's Hick with a helicoptering elbow after gathering in a rebound.
Following that, the game became one of those ugly, Eastern Conference affairs that the Celtics love and the Lakers can't stomach. "The incidents definitely helped them and hurt us," Magic said later. "Now we know that if they have to elbow, smack us or slam us to win, they'll do it."
Despite the mayhem, Los Angeles still seemed ready to put the Celtics away—as in a three-games-to-one deficit. With 56 seconds to play, Magic converted two free throws for a 113-108 L.A. lead, and the Forum was rocking. But Boston center Robert Parish, a no-show in L.A.'s earlier wins but effective (25 points, 12 rebounds) in this game, grabbed a rebound and converted a three-point play to cut L.A.'s lead to 113-111. Twenty-three seconds later, Abdul-Jabbar fouled out trying to take down an offensive rebound over Bird, who tied the game at 113-113 with his two free throws.
Now, with 16 seconds left, the Lakers and Magic had a chance to redeem themselves for the last-shot snafu that probably cost them a victory in Game 2, which the Celtics had won in OT. The Lakers set up a two-man isolation, Magic and Worthy this time, Kareem having fouled out. Again, Magic dribbled off about 10 seconds but, unlike in Game 2, when he frittered away the last ticks, this time he attempted to lob the ball to Worthy. His weak toss was first flicked away and then stolen by Parish, who—in an excellent defensive adjustment—was guarding Worthy and had almost forced him to the sideline. The Celtics had two shots to win in regulation, but Bird's 23-footer rimmed and McHale's four-foot follow bounced out, reducing him to floor pounding.
With 35 seconds remaining in overtime, and the score tied at 123, Magic once again failed to come through. Johnson, an 81% free-throw shooter in the series, had two free throws, but missed both. Bird responded with a basket, and Carr, adding insult to insult, later stole a Laker inbounds pass and dunked for the clinching points.
Mindful of McHale's lassoing of Rambis, Riley was quick to brand the Celtics as nothing more than common thugs, but the Lakers were hurt more by the reemergence of the Celtics' two most maligned players, Parish and Dennis Johnson, who broke out of a two-game slump with 22 points and also slowed Magic to a walk. Both players had caught so much flak from the Boston fans and media that even the Lakers felt a bit sorry for them. "It just goes to show how the system operates," said Worthy. "They've been playing their hearts out while McHale has been next to invisible, but no one's said anything about him."
Johnson, who in the past has been known to complain about lack of PT, has been a strong, silent type. "There have been occasions—usually in a heated postgame atmosphere—when I've said things to people that have gotten me in trouble," said DJ, "but that's only because I've got this crazy little thing about wanting to win. That hasn't been a problem here because I've got a coach and teammates who want to win as much as I do."
In Boston, as he did in Seattle and Phoenix, DJ has added something to a winning situation. Boston acquired Johnson, five times a member of the NBA's all-defensive team, last June for one reason: to shut down big guards like Philadelphia's Andrew Toney and Milwaukee's Sidney Moncrief. Johnson came through, holding each below his regular-season average.
For the first 14 quarters against L.A., though, Johnson spent most of his time guarding Michael Cooper, a swingman, or Worthy, not Magic, who at 6'9" is the quintessential big guard. But before Game 4, Boston coach K.C. Jones told Gerald Henderson and Johnson, his starting backcourt, to switch assignments if they wished, and they wisely did so for good at the start of the second half. Because of his upper-body strength, DJ is able to muscle Magic away from the center of the court, limiting his effectiveness. And, as a result, DJ, who played just 14 minutes in Game 3, put in 50 minutes in Game 4.
In Game 5 in Boston Friday, any talk of a Laker retaliation for McHale's mugging or of continued roughhousing by the Bruins—er, Celtics—was lost in the heat and humidity. Players on both teams were administered oxygen, and referee Hugh Evans became so dehydrated that he collapsed. At halftime, the Celtics showered and changed uniforms.
L.A. never got its running game off the ground (for the night, the Lakers scored just 15 points off the break, compared with 52 in Game 1), and its half-court offense was atrocious. L.A. shot just 42.8%, its worst in 20 playoff games this season. Credit the Celtics as well as the climate because they forced the Lakers to take all sorts of improbable shots. At one point in the first quarter Kareem, who was having enough troubles shooting his sky hook righthanded, tried one with his left and missed miserably. The Celtics had counted on the heat to wear down the 37-year-old Abdul-Jabbar, and that may have helped account for his seven-of-25 shooting. "To appreciate what it was like out there," Kareem said, "try taking a sauna with all your clothes on, then do 100 pushups and run up and down the court for 48 minutes."
Strangely enough, Bird said he found it cooler out on the floor than sitting on the bench with his teammates fanning him with towels. For the first time in the series, Bird was in his element. Entering the game he was the series' leading scorer (27.5 average) and rebounder (13.7), but his performances had been merely workmanlike—for him. His 29-point, 21-rebound effort in Game 4 was an example of inside grittiness, not long-range beauty.
That changed Friday as Bird bombed the Lakers for 34 points on 15-of-20 shooting, including a pair of three-pointers. After one second-half jumper, Bird smiled slyly and blew on his fingers as he backpedaled on defense—his way of saying that this night he finally had it. "There's no other forward in the game like him," Wohl said. "He's like Kareem in that you have to change your entire defense to play him or else he'll automatically get his 30."
Back in the air-conditioned Forum on Sunday, Bird had 17 points at halftime, as Boston led 65-59. Grinding it out down low, Bird set the pace for the game as well as his teammates. In fact, the only Laker highlight in the first half occurred at 7:09 of the first quarter when Worthy evened the tag-team championship at one fall apiece by fouling the fast-breaking Cedric Maxwell into the basket support.
At the start of the third quarter it seemed that L.A. was determined to live or die by the hook of Abdul-Jabbar, whose migraine had cleared up an hour before game time. Despite his troubles ("There were just a lot of things working against me, but mainly it wasn't falling. It's hard to analyze in the heat of the moment," he said later), Abdul-Jabbar scored eight of L.A.'s first 14 second-half points, and then Scott came into the game for the first time. "The game was a lot of fun until then," said Jones. "Bird, Johnson, Henderson, everybody just started missing at the same time, and they started rebounding and running and jumping and dunking the ball."
And in the middle of it all was Kareem. "You hear a lot about Celtic pride and tradition, but we've got some of that here, too," he said. "There was never any question that I was going to play; I was just going to have to be sick. I couldn't hold my breakfast, so maybe it was vapors I played on."
And it was the Celtics, not Abdul-Jabbar, who were running on empty when Sunday was over.
Larry v. Magic: Game 13 (part 2)
1984 NBA Finals Game 6
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
36-12 Run Buries Celtics
Champagne and the NBA championship trophy were stored in the Los Angeles Forum, but they weren't awaiting the Lakers.
LA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who had an NBA championship series-record sixth migraine, vomited in the locker room before this sixth game. Would he play?
"It got quiet because all of us knew he was suffering," said guard Michael Cooper. "You know he's going to have enough noise out there on the floor. I think everyone just tried to make it as easy as possible for him in the dressing room."
Jabbar interrupted coach Pat Riley's pregame speech to talk to his teammates. "You hear a lot about Celtic tradition and Celtic pride," Jabbar would say after he had scored 30 points with 10 rebounds. "We have some proud athletes, too. They're not the only team with pride."
The physical play of Game 4 resurfaced on this Sunday afternoon in air- conditioned Los Angeles. James Worthy, who had missed an important free throw at the end of that game and had seen Cedric Maxwell give him the choke sign, started it. Worthy broke up Maxwell's breakaway layup and almost broke Maxwell's neck. Worthy shoved Max from behind, driving him into the basket support. Other Celtics restrained Max from chasing Worthy.
"That's their style," Worthy said. "They don't give you any respect. They abuse you physically and mentally . . . It's not a way I like to play basketball. But if they're going to do these things to you, you're going to have to do the same things to them or they'll eat your lunch on you."
"I don't think what he did to Max was anything near what McHale did to Kurt," said Riley, who had called the Celtics "thugs," and McHale's foul the "cheapest shot" he'd ever seen. "Worthy didn't grab him around the neck and throw him to the floor."
"Worthy's play was worse than what Kevin did," answered Celtics president and general manager Red Auerbach. "At least their guy (Rambis) saw our guy coming. Max couldn't see anything coming."
"As long as they're able to dish it out and take it," said Maxwell, "that's fine."
The Celtics didn't seem upset by the developments. Guards Gerald Henderson (22 points) and Dennis Johnson (20) combined for 12 jumpers, and the Celtics had built a 65-59 halftime lead to 84-73. Then Riley replaced Magic Johnson (21 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds) with rookie Byron Scott. "With Mac gone (Bob McAdoo had left with a sore Achilles tendon), we needed some shooting," Riley said.
Fifty-two seconds later, Scott popped from the corner. He broke away for a jam. And the Celtics missed seven straight shots and scored but two field goals in 12:57. The Lakers went on a 36-12 run that covered 15 1/2 minutes.
"I just didn't get the ball enough," Larry Bird (28 points, 8 of 11 field goals, 17 rebounds, 8 assists) would complain. "I just wanted the ball in my hands, especially when the 11-point lead was going down. I knew I had my game in control. Their defense wasn't doing any better today than any other time in the series. I was making things happen when I had it, and I wasn't getting it when we needed it."
So the Celtics blew the game that could have won the championship, 119-108. Later, Maxwell was quoted as telling DJ, "Let's kill them on Tuesday. Let's kill those freaks."
A fan threw some liquid at Boston forward M.L. Carr, leaving him with an eye irritation. "The guy evidently fixed a concoction to get us with," Carr said.
"Fans in the 20th row were throwing stuff," Bird said. "Not only is it dangerous, but it can hurt their own team because people at the Garden might do the same thing."
Bird was also upset with first-year NBA Comr. David Stern. "Stern told a fan that the NBA needed a seven-game series because the league needed the money," Bird said. "When the commissioner makes a statement like that to a fan, you know it's going to be tough. Things are going to happen. He's a man, and he'll live up to it. He may say he said it in jest. But I'm out there trying to make a living and win a championship."
He would have another chance Tuesday in Boston.
Larry v. Magic: Game 13 (part 1)
1984 NBA Finals Game 6Celtics Almost Win in 6, But Lakers Rally from Behind
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
The Celtics smelled champagne. Red Auerbach had a telephone pole-sized stogie begging to be lighted.
And then the Lakers showed what they are made of.
After watching their great center vomit before game time (a Bill Russell chapter from the book of Celtic folklore), then falling behind by 11 points in the third quarter, the Lakers outscored Boston, 30-10, then cruised to a 119-108 victory in Game 6 of the NBA finals.
The cataclysmic Game 7 is tomorrow night in the Boston Garden, and hoop historians from around the globe have been summoned to evaluate and determine if this might be the NBA's finest hour.
Boston fans will cringe when they think of yesterday's giveaway, but it seems as if this special series deserves a seventh game. Who knows? Maybe it'll go nine games. Or 11. Is it possible that the Celtics and Lakers could play every other day from now 'til Labor Day without a clear winner emerging?
The Celtics had Bostonians planning a Tuesday parade when they broke to an 84-73 lead yesterday. Then the big chill struck. Larry Bird (28 points, 14 rebounds, 8 assists) stopped getting the ball, Boston missed seven straight shots, and Byron Scott and James Worthy (20 points) led a ferocious Laker charge.
Try this: LA held the Celtics to two field goals in 12 minutes, 57 seconds and outscored the Celtics, 36-12, over a stretch of 15 1/2 minutes.
"You hear a lot about Celtic tradition and Celtic pride," said LA center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (30 points, 10 rebounds, one migraine, several trips to the upchuck trough). "We have some proud athletes, too. They're not the only team with pride.
The Celtics had proved their machismo in two overtime wins and Friday night's Summer-in-the-City blowout. Meanwhile, folks were suggesting that the Lakers be moved to the Philippines and renamed the Manila Folders.
Yesterday's first 31 minutes offered no hint of hope for LA. It was Boston's game. Gerald Henderson (22 points) and Dennis Johnson (20) buried one long jumper after another. Meanwhile, Bird fought his way to 17 points and 10 rebounds in the first half, and the Celtics closed with a 7-0 run and a 65-58 lead.
Perhaps the most significant moment of the first half came when Worthy dealt Cedric Maxwell a Jack Tatum shot as Max tried to score on a break. Instead, Maxwell was pushed into the support post and came up swinging. He was restrained, but the Laker message was clear.
"They do it to us, they've got to expect something back," said Worthy. "They've been verbally abusing us, and Maxwell made the choke sign (toward Worthy during Game 4). That's not professional."
The Lakers got bad news at halftime when it was learned that Bob McAdoo would not be able to play any more due to an injured Achilles tendon.
Boston's best basketball of the day came at the start of the second half. From 71-69, the Celtics ripped off 10 in a row. After Abdul-Jabbar interrupted the break with a tap-in, DJ hit a transition jumper and it was 84-73 with five minutes left in the third.
"We had the game," noted Henderson. "We just gave it to 'em."
Things started to happen for LA when rookie Scott replaced Magic Johnson (21 points, 10 assists). Scott was on the floor with Michael Cooper, Jamaal Wilkes, Abdul-Jabbar and Worthy.
First, Scott scored on a second-chance shot. Boston's next three possessions yielded a DJ turnover and missed shots by Maxwell, Henderson and McHale (two taps). LA responded to each with a fast-break basket - one by Scott, two by Worthy.
When Wilkes hit a jumper after Cooper rebounded a DJ miss, it made it 10 straight and cut the margin to 84-83. It looked like the Celtics were panicking when Danny Ainge tossed up a pathetic airball. LA could not convert after Ainge's mistake, and Max broke the scoreless run with one of two from the line.
Bird hardly touched the ball while the Lakers were surging, and he was somewhat upset afterward.
"My own teammates just wouldn't give me the ball," said Boston's MVP. "I would have loved to have had the ball when we were up by 11 points. I know I could have made something happen."
Boston's lead was trimmed to 87-83 at the end of three. LA opened the fourth with eight straight, and the Celtics never led again.
Worthy started the final quarter with a power drive and two free throws. After a TV timeout, Scott stole a Bird inbounds pass and broke downcourt for a layup. Then Robert Parish missed, Kurt Rambis scored on a fast-break followup and it was 91-87.
Boston tied it twice, but at 93-93, Scott buried a three-pointer. That brought out Dancing Barry and started a 10-1 run that thrust LA into the comfort zone. Cooper, Worthy and Scott kept the Celtics under the Lakers thumb for the rest of the day.
KC JONES: A QUIET, EFFECTIVE MENTOR
1984 NBA Finals
K.C. Jones is probably never going to get the credit he deserves.
The Celtics have a chance to win flag No. 15 today or Tuesday. One more victory means that Jones will join Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn and Bill Fitch in the elite group of Celtics coaches who have won NBA championships.
If Boston should lose the next two, it won't change the fact that Jones was the man who picked up the shattered pieces of 1983 and returned the Celtics to the finals.
"K.C. doesn't get the credit because he's soft-spoken," said Auerbach.
True. Jones is not a self-promoter or a media manipulator. He is often boring copy. Despite his major role in one of the most exciting NBA finals in memory, Jones has managed to set a record for fewest printed comments from a head coach.
There are those who believe that the Celtics are winning despite K.C. Jones. They think that anyone could coach this talented team.
Wrong.
"I think he's an excellent bench coach, and he has been all year," said Auerbach. "His great forte is that he gets a feeling for a game and makes good moves."
Jones will never be accused of overcoaching the Celtics. He prepares thoroughly, then steps aside and lets the players play. He's big on communication and small on ego.
The Dennis Johnson-on-Magic Johnson case is a perfect example. Early in the series, it was decided that Gerald Henderson would have to guard Magic. The strategy failed, and Jones was big enough to face the facts. He did something most coaches would never do. He left it up to the players.
"Case just left it up to us," said DJ. "Gerald and I talked and agreed that it was too much for him to try and push the ball up all the time, and still guard Magic. Plus, I know Magic as well as I know any player."
Since the switch was made, DJ has held Magic to 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting with nine turnovers in six quarters.
There are NBA coaches that would stick needles in their eyes before admitting a mistake or letting players dictate strategy. Jones is not one, which is one more reason why he is the perfect coach for this team at this hour.
The Celtics are in the market for a full-time scout. Red Auerbach's "retirement" requires that the Celtics have a Del Harris-type who can scout the league and the college circuit. Auerbach will continue to make his presence felt, but doesn't have the desire to beat the bushes at this juncture of his career. Meanwhile, Jan Volk will ascend to the general manager's throne, but makes no attempt to portray himself as a judge of basketball talent.
It's also possible that Boston might be losing its most-experienced scout on the coaching staff. Assistant coach Jimmy Rodgers is being mentioned for the Cleveland opening. Rodgers is remembered fondly for his years as Bill Fitch's assistant in Richfield. Other names on the Cleveland rumor mill: LA assistant Dave Wohl, ex-LA and Chicago coach Paul Westhead and George Karl.
K.C. Jones is probably never going to get the credit he deserves.
The Celtics have a chance to win flag No. 15 today or Tuesday. One more victory means that Jones will join Red Auerbach, Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn and Bill Fitch in the elite group of Celtics coaches who have won NBA championships.
If Boston should lose the next two, it won't change the fact that Jones was the man who picked up the shattered pieces of 1983 and returned the Celtics to the finals.
"K.C. doesn't get the credit because he's soft-spoken," said Auerbach.
True. Jones is not a self-promoter or a media manipulator. He is often boring copy. Despite his major role in one of the most exciting NBA finals in memory, Jones has managed to set a record for fewest printed comments from a head coach.
There are those who believe that the Celtics are winning despite K.C. Jones. They think that anyone could coach this talented team.
Wrong.
"I think he's an excellent bench coach, and he has been all year," said Auerbach. "His great forte is that he gets a feeling for a game and makes good moves."
Jones will never be accused of overcoaching the Celtics. He prepares thoroughly, then steps aside and lets the players play. He's big on communication and small on ego.
The Dennis Johnson-on-Magic Johnson case is a perfect example. Early in the series, it was decided that Gerald Henderson would have to guard Magic. The strategy failed, and Jones was big enough to face the facts. He did something most coaches would never do. He left it up to the players.
"Case just left it up to us," said DJ. "Gerald and I talked and agreed that it was too much for him to try and push the ball up all the time, and still guard Magic. Plus, I know Magic as well as I know any player."
Since the switch was made, DJ has held Magic to 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting with nine turnovers in six quarters.
There are NBA coaches that would stick needles in their eyes before admitting a mistake or letting players dictate strategy. Jones is not one, which is one more reason why he is the perfect coach for this team at this hour.
The Celtics are in the market for a full-time scout. Red Auerbach's "retirement" requires that the Celtics have a Del Harris-type who can scout the league and the college circuit. Auerbach will continue to make his presence felt, but doesn't have the desire to beat the bushes at this juncture of his career. Meanwhile, Jan Volk will ascend to the general manager's throne, but makes no attempt to portray himself as a judge of basketball talent.
It's also possible that Boston might be losing its most-experienced scout on the coaching staff. Assistant coach Jimmy Rodgers is being mentioned for the Cleveland opening. Rodgers is remembered fondly for his years as Bill Fitch's assistant in Richfield. Other names on the Cleveland rumor mill: LA assistant Dave Wohl, ex-LA and Chicago coach Paul Westhead and George Karl.
Larry v. Magic: Game 12 (part 15)
1984 NBA Finals Game 5
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
PERSPIRATION, INSPIRATION
The summer days of French Lick, Ind., came back to Larry Bird on Friday night. Hot days on macadam basketball courts.
The sun was beating down. The basketball was in his hands. The game was brought down, distilled, to its elemental nature. Stay all day. Play all the way. Bop till you drop.
This one was for the Michelob Light.
"Did the heat ever bother you?" Larry Bird was asked in the Celtics' locker room after their 121-103 rout of the Los Angeles Lakers in the steambath at Boston Garden.
"Nah," the Celtics' star replied. "I play in this stuff all the time back home. It's like this all summer."
You somehow could see him in the outdoor heat on the outdoor court. Doing exactly the same things. Hitting the same shots. Spinning and elbowing his way to the basket ("Foul? You're going to call a foul for that?"). Everyone else falling away, game by game, grabbing towels and sitting down next to a chain- link fence in a sweaty lump. One guy left. Still ready to play some more.
Larry Bird. Standing in the sun, the little waves of heat coming off the ground around him.
"I just wanted to get out there and play," Larry Bird said after his 34- point, 17-rebound night. "I never wanted to leave the game. I was tired at the half, but I came in here and we took cold showers,put on clean uniforms and I was ready to go again. I felt great.
"It was like we were starting a new game. I had to loosen up all over again."
What did he say when he went home at the end of last year, when the finish was those dismal four straight losses to the Milwaukee Bucks? He was going to dedicate himself to basketball. He was going to Indiana to play and play and be ready to play some more when he returned to Boston.
This was the far end of that dedication. He not only still was playing, he was bringing his teammates with him.
"I've never seen him as intense as he was tonight," Kevin McHale said Friday. "Never."
Make no mistake. If the Celtics finish their business this afternoon at the Fabulous Forum, finishing off the faster, smoother Lakers in this best-of- seven series, this is Larry Bird's title. He surely has had some help, but he has been the force behind the entire production.
He has set the never-give-up tone. When his actions didn't do the job, when the Lakers ran to their 2-1 advantage, he simply switched to words. He called his teammates "sissies" and men in need of "heart transplants." There has been a lot of talk about how tough the media was on this team when it was losing. Larry Bird was even tougher.
He has cajoled and kicked. Led by example and innuendo. When the 90- degree night arrived, he was able to kick up his effort even another notch. He even had the entire bench involved, the people who weren't playing.
Has there ever been a pro basketball bench that resembled the Celtics' bench on Friday night? There was M.L. Carr with that basket-woven fan he obtained from some guy in the stands, fanning the heat away from every starter's face. There were assistant coaches Chris Ford and Jimmy Rodgers, pounding backs, shouting encouragement as if this were the final game for the Suburban League title. There were the ballboys, running around with iced towels and cups and cups of drinks.
"For the first time since I've been here, the ballboys really did their jobs," Larry Bird said, noticing it all. "They really had those towels ready. They really were working."
The tunnel vision, the directedness of the 27-year-old man has been something special from the beginning of these playoffs. His bad games - when the shots haven't been falling - have been as good to watch as his good ones. Maybe even better.
He has fought the very percentages of life in those bad games. Everyone has a bad day, right? Everyone has those days when hammer invariably hits thumb, foot invariably trips over curbstone. Larry Bird has kept hammering and running. Forcing his luck. Making it change.
"In the overtime of the fourth game, he comes back to the bench and says, Get the ball to me and I'll drop it in,' " M.L. Carr said, talking about one of those fighting, forcing games. "Everybody goes back on the court. We get the ball to Larry. Whew. He just drops it in with 16 seconds left."
An example of his fine-tuning came after the second game in Boston, the series tied, one game apiece. To handle the long layoffs imposed by television between those games, Larry Bird had decided to do extra running after practice, thumping out laps around the Garden mezzanine while his teammates took showers and were interviewed. To do this, he was skipping the normal extra foul shooting he does.
He had missed some important foul shots during the first two games, the ball rolling off his fingers flat and dead.
"That's it," Larry Bird decided. "My foul shooting's hurting us. I'm going back to my normal routine. More foul shots after practice day."
"How many will you take?" he was asked.
"Somewhere between 100 and 150 every day," Larry Bird replied.
How many foul shots has he missed since then? One? Two? How many? He has battled his foul shooting back into step the way he has battled the other parts of his game, indeed, the rest of his team's game into step.
The more you look at Friday night's win, the better it becomes. There was Larry Bird, saddled with defensive whiz Michael Cooper for four games, taking Cooper now to every part of the court. Embarrassing Cooper every place he could be embarrassed. There were the rest of the Celtics, following Larry Bird's lead through the night, stronger and stronger. There were the Lakers. Lumps on the bench. Gasping for oxygen. Gone. Finished.
One more win today and Larry Bird will have done exactly what he said he wanted to do over a year ago. One more win.
"I'd like to get it finished," Larry Bird said Friday night. "I'd like to get it over with."
This one's for the Michelob Light.
Larry v. Magic: Game 12 (part 14)
1984 NBA Finals Game 5
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
CELTICS' TURNABOUT TOOK BETTER THAN FAIR PLAY
The 1984 NBA championship series has been completely turned around. Whether that change isunalterable is now up to the Los Angeles Lakers.
Remember what this entire exercise is. It's a seven-game series for the bragging rights to the entire basketball world - Soviet Union, Italy, Yugoslavia and People's Republic of China included. There is a distinct connotation to the word "series." It has to do with the ongoing flow of events, and the adaptation of the principals to those events. The reason the Celtics are leading this series, three games to two, is that they have made their adjustments and the Lakers have not. There is also the fact that Larry Bird can only wear one uniform at a time, but we'll get to that in a moment.
Remember the Lakers' fast break? The Celtics do. They respect it so much they were determined to find ways to stop it. In Sunday's Game 3, the Lakers ran the Celtics for a whopping 58 fast-break points, successfully completing 28 of 32 fast-break attempts. The final score was 137-104, LA, and the Celtics were deeply embarrassed.
In the past two games, the Lakers have run for 43 fast-break points. But 25 of those were in the first half of Game 4. In fact, 17 were in the first quarter. Thus, the Lakers have scored but 26 fast-break points in the last 77 minutes of play, after scoring 75 in the preceding 72. This cannot be an accident, nor does it signal a change in the Los Angeles offensive philosophy.
It means the Celtics have found the keys to neutralizing Los Angeles' preferred method of attack.
The first improvement has been Boston's own offense. In Games 1 through 3, the Lakers were burning the Celtics with fast breaks out of Boston misses far more than from forcing turnovers. LA was not extending its defense; rather, it was packing five men inside the foul lane, daring the Celtics to force the ball inside to the likes of Robert Parish, Larry Bird or Kevin McHale into the teeth of the defense, or challenging the guards to take available outside shots.
In the beginning, the Celtics were continually indecisive. Starting on Wednesday, however, they began to see things more clearly. Perhaps they viewed the tape of Scott Wedman's winning overtime basket in Game 2 and realized that it had emanated from crisp, around-the-horn passing. Bird looked at a shot on the right wing, faked and passed to Gerald Henderson at the top of the key. He, in turn, looked for a shot, faked and passed to Wedman on the left baseline. Wedman knew exactly what to do. He drilled a 13-footer.
In Game 4, the Celtics emulated this approach. They made the extra pass and sometimes the extra pass after that. The Lakers found that instead of chasing one man they were chasing two, or even three. Dennis Johnson and Henderson shot with confidence, especially in the second half. Of equal importance was the fact that the men inside knew what was going on. They were more alert to offensive rebounds, since they had a clear idea of the time and location of their guards' shots. The Boston total of 27 offensive rebounds was due more to anticipation and hustle on the part of Bird, Parish and McHale than to any alleged thug tactics; you can take that to any financial institution you choose.
On Friday night, the Celtics broadened their game. First Quinn Buckner and then Johnson faked passes inside to posting-up big men, faked jumpers and drove down spacious boulevards for baskets. This gave the Lakers a new worry.
A lot was made of Boston winning Game 4 despite shooting 43 percent from the floor. The 27 offensive rebounds, good for 32 points on second shots, made up for the poor percentage. In Game 5, the Celtics didn't need as many offensive rebounds. With Bird shooting 15 for 20 (an act of nature nobody can take credit for) and with the Celtics again demonstrating excellent shot selection, they shot 52 percent from the floor.
By putting the ball in the basket, by having better defensive floor balance as a result of their more intelligent offensive approach and by simply making a point of getting back better on defense, the Celtics have prevented the Lakers from fast breaking.
And what has been the Lakers' response to this newly diversified Boston offensive approach?
Nothing. Zilch. Nada.
Score one for K.C. Jones and his coaching staff, and score one for the inherent basketball savvy of the Celtics, who realized that when engaged in a seven-game series, it helps to be flexible mentally as well as physically.
"We're adjusting more to their offense, and also to their defense," claims Cedric Maxwell, who has emerged as the Celtic with the most bravado in this series. "It took us time to get used to their rhythm of playing, because we didn't have to play a team with that style in over two months."
It's a simple case of a smart team learning what it would take to defeat a physically gifted team that depends inordinately on one facet of the game. The Lakers are capable of playing halfcourt basketball, but their self-image is that of a Ferrari, not a two-door sedan. They don't like having to play halfcourt basketball all the time.
The next Lakers' problem in this series is their entire mental state. They must believe the series should have been over in four games. There but for the Henderson steal of James Worthy's pass goes Game 2. There but for Parish's great three-point play, Magic Johnson's bad pass and two missed free throws and Worthy's missed foul shot goes Game 4. The Lakers arrived in Boston upset with themselves about the very fact there was a Game 5.
"Our close-game highlights have been positive," suggests Maxwell, "while theirs have been negative. They're in a position where they have to think What's happening?' I was listening to the radio in LA the morning after the third game and a guy was saying that The Fat Lady isn't singing yet, but she's warming up.' Well, she'd better be resting her vocal cords."
The shattered Lakers' psyche was surely not prepared for the conditions under which the fifth game was played. They arrived late Thursday afternoon at Logan Airport to play the game they believed should not even have been necessary, and what did they find? They found stifling heat (temperatures like Phoenix, with accompanying humidity). They found traffic equivalent to Thanksgiving weekend. It was like a scene from "The Year of Living Dangerously."
The Lakers found police preventing their bus from parking in front of the terminal. They piled into cabs instead, and it's fair to speculate that the seeds for 37-year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 7-for-25 effort in Game 5 were planted when he stuffed his 87 inches into the back seat of a Boston cab. They couldn't have found more hostile conditions if they had landed in the middle of a Moscow heat wave.
Then came Friday night, and for that you are referred to Leigh Montville's Saturday column. It's all there.
We are also being told by the Celtics that they have banded together to answer the critics, specifically the members of the press who, they feel, had vilified them earlier in the series. Well, that's fine, if that's the crutch they needed.
The record only shows that Parish, Target A, and Dennis Johnson, Target B, have each played superb games in their last two outings. Robert has battled Kareem gamely, and he was never more noble in a Celtics' uniform than he was on Friday night, when he withstood the heat and debilitating leg cramps to outplay Kareem in that crucial game.
As for DJ, who was really only slapped on the wrist following his 14- minute washout in Game 3, his play in the past two games, wherein he has been a two-way player of the first magnitude, adds luster to his reputation as a noted money player. Bostonians were assured that the best of DJ would surface in the playoffs. Unlike Rick Blaine, who went to Casablanca "for the waters," Bostonians were not misinformed.
Finally, there is the omnipresence of one Larry Bird. Is he better than Magic? Who really cares? He is, unarguably, a treasure. What he did in the Cairo-like swelter of the Boston Garden on Friday night may not be fully appreciated until the series is over. Then, in the sober afterthought of postseries analysis, people may realize that Bird's was a triumph of will and heart over the forces of nature, just as much as it was a tribute to the thousands of hours spent in a lonely Indiana gym honing his skills.
The job is not yet complete. But the Celtics have already made their point. They have challenged the flashy Lakers to a complete battle of mind and muscle. In so doing they have guaranteed that the 1984 NBA champion, whatever its identity, will have a prize truly worth savoring, which is not always (or even normally) the case.
We all wanted a memorable championship series. Can anyone doubt we're getting it?
Larry v. Magic: Game 12 (part 13)
1984 NBA Finals Game 5
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
Celtics Confidence Never Wavered
Plans for the victory parade through the streets of Boston have already been drawn up.
"If we win today, we march Tuesday," Todd Rosensweig, the Celtics' director of marketing and communications, said several hours after the Celtics routed the Los Angeles Lakers, 121-103, Friday night.
The victory gave the Celtics a 3-2 edge in the four-of-seven-game National Basketball Association championship series and an aura of confidence heading into Game 6 today at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif.
As they gathered at Boston's Logan Airport yesterday for their flight to Los Angeles, they were assuring their fans, "We're going to get is over in six."
The Celtics, who are seeking their 15th N.B.A. title, have history on their side. Their last five championships have been won on the road.
Lakers' Plan Differs
The Lakers had other feelings as they boarded the team bus for the ride to the airport.
"How are you?" a friend asked 37- year-old Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who struggled through a 7-for-25 shooting performance.
"I'll be better tomorrow," the Laker center said.
"We'll be back here for Game 7 Tuesday night," Earvin (Magic) Johnson said.
"Then we'll pray for rain," Coach Pat Riley added.
The reference by the Laker coach was to the oppressive heat and humidity in the antiquated Boston Garden, where the temperature read 97 degrees at tipoff and hovered near that for the rest of the game.
The heat sent Abdul-Jabbar to the oxygen cannister several times, and it hindered Magic Johnson's ability to get the Lakers running. Dennis Johnson asked to be taken out of the game, and Larry Bird almost passed out near the end.
But for the 42 minutes Bird played, he was outstanding, scoring 34 points on 15-for-20 shooting from the field, and grabbing 17 rebounds.
"The Birdman was sensational," said M. L. Carr, Boston's reserve forward. "It was just like a repeat of the seventh playoff game against the Knicks when he scored 39 points."
Two 3-Point Shots
That may be true, but Friday night, especially during his 11-point third period when the Celtics broke open the game, his performance appeared more well-rounded. He tossed in a pair of 3-pointers and hit a half-dozen long jumpers, overcoming the defensive efforts of Michael Cooper, Kurt Rambis, Jamaal Wilkes and James Worthy. But the best of all came when he faced up to Worthy on top of the key, faked right and went left for a 3-point play.
"It was an emotional game," Bird said, "One we needed and had to have."
There was more than just Bird in what Dennis Johnson referred to as "our best game of the series."
"This is the first game over all that we played our game," the Celtic guard said. "We set the tempo, slowed them down and controlled the boards." Johnson contributed 22 points.
After Los Angeles embarrassed Boston, 137-104, last Sunday and took a 2-1 series lead, the Lakers and Magic Johnson, who makes them run, created doubts that the Celtics could survive the blistering running game.
Johnson Blamed
Much of the blame for the two Celtic losses was placed on Dennis Johnson for his poor defense and poor outside shooting, especially when he contributed only 4 points and made two of his eight shots in the third game.
"Everybody kept saying, 'Let's make D. J. a scapegoat,' Johnson said. "I had bad games and took the hatchet for them. Nobody's going to rebroadcast or rewrite it now."
The criticism has stopped. Banners and signs at the Boston Garden have proclaimed him their new hero. All because he has found his shooting touch and shut down Magic Johnson.
At halftime of Game 4, Jones finally reverted to the Johnson and Johnson matchup most everyone had expected when the championship series began. Magic Johnson only got off five shots in the second half Friday night, when he was limited to an insignificant 10 points on 3-for-9 shooting.
At the same time Dennis Johnson has responded offensively. He has scored 44 points and handed out 20 assists in the last two games. Questioners hounded him Friday night, repeatedly asking, "What are you doing to Magic?"
The freckle-faced Dennis Johnson smiled, walked away and said, "I didn't do anything." "He has done a lot," Carr said.
Meanwhile, in the Laker dressing room, Riley said, "We'll make a few adjustments, not many."
Any adjustments would have to include getting the Lakers to run again, keeping the Celtics off the boards and hoping Abdul-Jabbar's sky hook finds its mark.
The Celtics are 9-0 when they have had a 3-games-to-2 lead in a championship series. . . . Nine of the last 11 championships have been won by road teams. . . . The Lakers, who entered Friday night's game shooting .544 from the field in the playoffs and .546 in the championship series, had their first sub-50 percent shooting game. They shot .428.
Larry v. Magic: Game 12 (part 12)
1984 NBA Finals Game 5No Sweat for Celtics
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Summary
Larry v. Magic: Game-by-Game Media Coverage
It was like the Fourth of July on the Esplanade. Through the steamy heat and haze, the maestro worked his magic and a storied Boston institution thrilled the assembled masses with a traditional performance of harmony and brilliance.
The Boston Celtics have taken their great expectations to the edge of flag 15. On a night on which a Bermuda air mass transformed the Causeway street train station into a fountain of sweat and Laker sorrow, the Celtics defeated theLos Angeles Lakers, 121-103, to take a 3-2 lead in the NBA best-of-seven championship series.
The victory was orchestrated by Mr. White Heat, Larry Bird. Bird broke out of a four-game shooting slump with 34 points (15 of 20 from the floor). He added 17 rebounds and controlled the night. He was equal parts of Arthur Fiedler, Bobby Orr and Andrew Wyeth. His teammates, especially Dennis Johnson, were similarly inspired and creative.
It was a game marked by absence of malice and of LA running, plus a sudden surge of Celtic board strength and defense. The Celts outrebounded LA, 51-37, and held the Lakers to an unthinkable shooting percentage of .428 (39-91).
Laker coach Pat Riley had portrayed the Celtics as nothing less than basketball's Hell's Angels after Game 4 in the Forum, but Bird and the oppressive heat were the most physical forces last night. Referee Hugh Evans left at halftime due to dehydration, Robert Parish sat out a stretch of the second half due to a leg cramp, and Bird was wrapped in towels when he wasn't playing.
The Celtics led by two at the half, but it seemed to be Boston's kind of game. The Lakers were held to nine fastbreak points in the first half, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (7 of 25 overall) struggled badly, and Dennis Johnson took the Magic from Earvin Johnson (9 shots, 5 rebounds, 13 assists, 9 points).
It started to get away from the Lakers when Boston opened the third with a 13-2 run, capped by a preposterous three-pointer by Bird. That made it 68-56. LA never got closer than three. Boston's lead was up to 21 when Bird scored on a pretty drive as he was fouled with four minutes left.
"The man who made the difference was Bird," said Riley. "He was just awesome. He made everything work. He was the catalyst, and that's what happens when great players come to the front."
LA's last ripple of a run came when Bob McAdoo (18) and James Worthy (22) rallied the Lakers to within three (68-65). However, K.C. Jones called time, and when play resumed, Gerald Henderson hit a 13-foot leaner and Bird socred off the break on a pass from DJ (22 points, 6 assists).
When the Lakers threatened, the inimitable DJ put his head down going to the basket for two. A DJ drive off the break made it 76-67 with 4:41 left in the third.
Danny Ainge came off the bench and hit a three-pointer to make it 86-75 with a minute left in the third.
The guys on the Celtic bench were helping in more ways than one. During every pause, the shock troops fanned the regulars with towels.
"The conditions were awful," said Celtic coach K.C. Jones. "Larry was about to pass out. He got a little dizzy."
Even when Bird sat down, the Celtics kept the heat on throughout the fourth quarter. When the Lakers closed to seven (95-88), Parish, Kevin McHale, and DJ ripped off seven in a row to make it 102-88 with 7:15 left. DJ's three- pointer (he made a jumper on the way down after being blocked and fouled by Michael Cooper) capped the drive.
While Parish (12 rebounds) contributed to Kareem's abysmal shooting night, the rest of the Celtics played with new-found confidence against the Lakers, who could not run . . . and Boston obviously was not going to need a fifth period to win its third game of the series. The Celtics lead reached blowout proportions when McHale hit two free throws to make it 111-93 with 4:28 left.
"We did a better job running the offense, running our stuff, and tried to be consistent at getting back on defense," said Jones.
"It was their night," Riley acknowledged. "They played a great basketball game, and we had problems with our shooting (worst of the playoffs). But you have to give both teams credit for holding up in a 48-minute steambath. They just held up a little better than we did."
"Overall, this is probably the best game we ever played," said DJ. "Everybody played well, offensively and defensively."
Jones cited the first half as crucial. "It was important that we stay close," said Jones. "We didn't want them to get another one of those big leads."
In the first half, the Celtics held the Lakers to nine fastbreak points. Bird had 8 points and 9 rebounds in the first quarter, 16 and 12 by intermission.
The pregame din was as loud as any all season. Scott Wedman (broken left fibula) watched the raucous proceedings from the sideline in streetclothes.
For the first time in the series, Dennis Johnson opened the game guarding Magic Johnson. DJ held Magic to five shots and forced five turnovers in the second half of Game 4 and did an even better job last night.
"I didn't shut him down," DJ said with a smile when asked about his defensive performance on the All-Star 6-9 point guard.
DJ gave the Celtics their first lead (24-23) with a transition jumper with 1:38 left in the first quarter. A turnaround by McHale (19 points, 10 rebounds in 21 foul-plagued minutes) put the Celtics ahead for good in the first minute of the second quarter.
When McHale scored on a fastbreak trailer jam, Boston had a 10-2 run and a 38-30 lead. Worthy and McAdoo, closed it to two by the halftime . . . then came the Green Wave in the heat wave.
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