January 31, 2011
Larry Bird goes bonkers in third quarter. Team keeps head and puts away game with 14-2 fourth-quarter run (remember the 17-2 spurt on Tuesday in Chicago?). Six men score in double figures. Gerald Henderson, as in "He's-the-equivalent-of-a-first-round-draft-choice" Gerald Henderson, buries Cavaliers in the second half.
The Celtics keep on keepin' on, folks. The Cleveland Cavaliers huffed and puffed and tried like hell, but the Atlantic Division-leading Boston Celtics played like winners down the stretch last night, turning an 80-78 deficit after three quarters into a pair of 10-point fourth-quarter leads before playing keepaway well enough to ensure a 110-103 triumph at the Garden.
A crowd of 12,126 had hung in through a very boring first half (55-54, Cleveland), hoping that the Celtics would do something to justify the ticket price. They didn't have to wait long as Bird, who had labored through a 2-for- 11 first half, stepped into the phone booth for Period Three.
It was Larry Bird against the world for a stretch of 4:25 in that quarter. An aroused Bird scored 13 consecutive Boston points from 65-59, Cavs, to 77-72, Cavs. Included in that string were nine points on the offensive boards, where Bird had four of his nine third-period rebounds.
"The shots just wouldn't go in during that first half," Bird said. "I wasn't doing anything well. I decided that I could at least get some rebounds."
Though the Celtics still were trailing when Bird's dramatic run ended, two things had been accomplished. The first was that the team had not been blown out onto Nashua street by the Cavaliers. The second was that the crowd was now in the game.
The Garden therefore had been transformed from the reading room at the BPL to a legitimate pit, and the customers really let loose then Bird stole the ball and fed Henderson for a fast-break layup that tied the score at 80 to start the final period. Rick Robey promptly swiped that in-bounds pass, leading to a curious sequence in which Tiny Archibald and 6-foot-7 leaper Kenny Carr wound up in a jump ball. Cleveland coach Stan Albeck called time, and when play resumed, Carr knocked the tap out of bounds to Boston, despite the fact that Boston had conceded the tap. Bird then threw in a jumper to put the Celtics ahead.
Two Austin Carr baskets regained the lead for Cleveland before a combination three-point play (Henderson corner jumper and a Cedric Maxwell foul shot derived from a Kenny Carr loose-ball foul) propelled the Celtics to that 14-2 run and a 96-85 lead with 6:15 left.
That burst culminated with two big plays, the first being a Henderson baseline explosion following a Boston timeout, the second being a Robey power-move three-point play on a Bird penetration handoff. An offensive foul for clearing out might very well have been called on this play, but by this time it was as if referees Wally Rooney and Hugh Evans had signed up for the Celtics' Booster club, and Albeck knew better than to expect that call.
The Cavaliers never quit, but their self-destructive nature betrayed them, as it has so many times this year. At 98-90 (3:42 left), for example, a poorly looped pass from Foots Walker to the sizzling (27 points on 12-for-20 shooting) young Mike Mitchell was picked off by Maxwell and turned into a fast-break popper by Chris Ford. Even worse was a sloppy Walker fast-break pass at 100-95 (2:05) that was deflected by Robey (16 points, 10 rebounds) and that resulted in a driving three-point play by Archibald. And later on, the Cavs would not foul intelligently. Talent is not a problem for the Cavs; unit poise definitely is.
And so the Celtics increased their Life After David record to 4-1 and their season's count to 39-13. This was strictly one of those "I-seen-my-dut y-and-I- done-it" games, and when it gets to be Jan. 30 in the NBA, you take 'em any way you can get 'em.
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