Get Ready for Dr. J versus Larry Bird

Mr. Bird, meet Dr. Erving.

Gentlemen, start your engines.

I see them alone on this Garden basketball court tonight. None of the other players has appeared. There has been a last-minute change in the NBA playoff structure. Larry will play The Doc for the Eastern Conference title. Period. Nobody else involved.

"OK with you, Larry?"

"Fine, Doc, if it's OK with you."

There will be a scheduled seven nights of this, the series moving back and forth between Boston and Philadelphia, mano a mano. Sellouts every night. First man to win four games designated as the champion. No holds - absolutely no holds - barred. No referees. No horns. No time clocks. No interference.

"OK, Larry, can you dance?"

"Sure. I dance well enough to make you sit down."

I see Bird dancing in a vigorous country stomp. A little strange to the Eastern eye at first, but better and better the more you watch. Energetic, but economical at the same time. Surprising, every move. None the same. Head movements. A herky-jerky rhythm, perhaps, but a rhythm in itself. The Doc, in turn, glides. He is bossa-nova smooth. Butter applied to a piece of bread with an even turn of the wrist. Smooth and smooth and smoother.

Dance! The two men go around and around the court. They never stop. Dance! The eye follows one for a time, then follows the other. Around and around, the eye cannot make up its mind. They both are good, too good. Enough!

"OK, Doc, how are you at poetry?"

"I turn an iambic pentameter here and there, my friend. I'll give it a try. I should be able to handle your lame nursery rhymes."

They each pull out notebooks and felt-tipped pins from their gym bags and begin to scribble. As each man completes a page, he reads it to the crowd. Larry's poem describes Midwestern life. The images of the farm and open spaces are brought out. Sunsets. Color. Harvest and rebirth. The Doc describes the city. The romance of city lights, the excitement of metropolitan hustle. The characters that can be described, just sitting on the other side of the subway car. Enough! The crowd cannot decide.

"What next? You ever pitch baseball cards, Larry?"

"Just a bit. Just enough to show you how."

The two men squat at center court and pitch toward the Celtics' championship banner hanging from the press table. Larry's style is exuberant. He bounds into position, uses body English once he releases the card. The Doc is slower. He rests those well-traveled knees. Only on the toughest shots is there a flourish, a grand flourish. One pitch. Two pitches. A half dozen. All the cards somehow land in the same place. Leaner is followed by leaner. Against-the-curtain is followed by against-the-curtain. Again and again. Enough! There is no difference.

"How about . . . ?"

"Sure."

The contests continue. The two men blow up balloons, as big as anyone has ever seen a balloon, but still the same size. Tie. The two men polish halves of the parquet floor, each with his own style and his favorite household wax, the results absolutely the same. Tie. The two men hit golf balls into the sky boxes. Tie. The two men juggle, paint pictures, carve turkeys, do double crostics, tie knots, whistle, program computers, drink large quantities of beer, always with a unique twist, always with great competence, always with the same result. Tie.

A basketball is rolled onto the floor.

"Would you like . . . "

"After you. Make it, take it . . . "

I see, I guess, a game that never ends. Or a game that the spectator wishes would never end. This is the perfect matchup, is it not? The rural against the urban. The young against the mature. The best against the best at this very moment. Head, directly, to head. There is the promise, whenever these two men meet, of a succession of banjo riffs, drum solos, whatever, one after the other, each as good as the last.

It is a disservice, perhaps, to Larry Bird and to The Doctor, to each of them - and to their teammates - to highlight this one part of a team game, one fifth of the action, but how do you control yourself? They are the show. They are the best show. The playoff series that unfolds tonight is Larry Bird at one end, deep from the corner or weaving through the traffic, faking and moving, matched against The Doctor in full flight, arms above the rim, in front of everyone or through everyone, Larry and The Doc, back and forth. In your face? In your face! Tie.

"Did you ever try darts, Larry?"

"Sure . . . "