Cowens Carries Bucks Past Celtics

11/11/82

Cowens Carries Bucks to Victory over Celtics

Rita Kissane was wearing two different shades of green. The green on the lucky shoelace around her neck was the familiar Kelly green, a line of little Boston Celtics shamrocks. The green sweater she wore, however, was a much darker green. A different green.

A Milwaukee Bucks green.



"I just don't know which way I'll go," the 27-year-old banking analyst from Arlington said last night. "I love the Celtics and I hope they do well, but if it's a close game at the end . . . I just don't know."

She sat in her familiar seat underneath the basket at the West end of the Garden and the little emotional battle was obvious. Dave was back. Dave. This wasn't an exhibition game like the last time, but a real-life regular gang war between the Boston Celtics and the Milwaukee Bucks . . . and Dave.

What to do?

From the time she was 13 years old, Rita Kissane has regarded David W. Cowens, professional basketball player, with approximately the same amount of affection that Frank Perdue shows a good Cornish game hen. She is, was, and forever will be the foremost Dave Cowens fan in this entire world.

Her bedroom, even now, is a Dave Cowens shrine. She still has the 15 autographed copies of Dave Cowens pictures on the walls. She still has the bloodstained towel he used to wipe his face after a long-ago fight with Buffalo's Bob Kaufmann. Every night she still goes to bed with a pair of size 16 green sneakers balanced on the headboard. Dave's sneakers.

"I have shown some signs of getting over it, though," Rita Kissane said. "I did throw away the gum wrappers."

The gum wrappers?

"He would put a piece of gum in his mouth while waiting for someone to shoot a foul shot and he would throw the wrapper to the side of the court," Rita Kissane said. "When the action would go to the other end, I'd sneak out and pick up the wrapper. And save it."

There is only room for one sort of relationship like this in any girl's life - Rita Kissane was a freshman in high school and Dave Cowens was a Celtics rookie when she collected that first autograph - and that was why she was troubled here. She might be a Celtics fan every other night of the year, stringing banners around the Garden balconies with her friends, but this was different. Dave was Dave.

He was back and he was a Buck and she simply couldn't forget.

"I just hope he plays well," Rita Kissane said. "I hope he plays well and the Celtics play well and if it comes down to the end, well, I just don't know. Dave is Dave."

Her man came into the game off a string of up-and-down performances in the Bucks' first six games. He is 34 years old, returning to the sport after two years' absence, and he is going through the necessary phase of reacquainting himself with the fine points.

"Every game I remember something different," was the way he put it. "Some little thing I once knew, but had forgotten."

He was late for the game, driving from his home in Needham, caught in a monster downtown traffice jam that reminded him for two hours he was back in Boston. He didn't shuffle into the Bucks dressing room until 10 minutes after 7. Twenty-five minutes later he was back on the familiar court, playing the familiar game, but running in the opposite direction.

"It's nice just to come back," he said, "to see all those faces around the court. All those friends. That's been one of the most pleasant parts of all this - to realize that all these people are your friends. No matter what."

His schedule these days is to start and play most of the first quarter, sit out the second, then return for the third. How much he plays in the fourth quarter, after another rest, is determined by the game situation.

This first quarter, back at the Garden, was rough. His defense wasn't bad as he banged and chased Cedric Maxwell around the floor, but his offense was gone. Three shots. Three misses. Three absolute bricks. He sat on the bench and thought what he was doing.

"It's what you do all the time," he said. "Sit down, think and think and then at the end say, The heck with it, let's just go and go playground. Let it roll.' "

The third period came and roll he did. The jumper suddenly was working again, the old textbook 18-footers. He was hitting one, and then another and then a third and fourth. He was making himself noticed underneath the basket. He still was tracking his man on defense as the Bucks sputtered to a lead, then fell back to an 81-81 tie at the end of the period.

"The thing I remembered tonight concerned rebounding," Dave Cowens said. "You can't just stand there and wait for the ball to come down. If you do, you'll never get it. You have to be moving all the time, setting yourself up for the rebound. Moving before the shot even is made so you can get yourself free."

There were minutes and 46 seconds left in the game when the situation determined that Cowens should return a last time. The Bucks had a 96-95 lead. He replaced forward Steve Mix and, well, just took control. Simple as that.

Dave was Dave. How better to explain it? He was vintage Cowens in that final stretch. Every time the Celtics missed a shot, he was in the middle of the crowd at the basket and the ball was his. He was diving, lurching, crashing into the press table and disappearing behind the Budweiser Light sign.

At the end of the stretch, he had collected four rebounds and the final Celtic shot fell into his hands and he held the ball as the buzzer sounded. The Bucks were 105-101 winners, the first team to beat the Celtics at home this year.

"What'd you think?" Rita Kissane was asked.

She was sitting in her baseline section alone. Her friends had deserted her in disgust for the way she had acted at the end. That's right. The test had arrived and the dark green had won.

"I thought the end was wonderful," Rita Kissane said in a faraway, emotional voice. "Just wonderful."