C's Open Season #37 with a W

October 30, 1982

C's Open Season #37 with a W

The incentives had to come from within. There were no banners, no John Kiley on the organ, no 15,320 maniacal Celtic supporters.



But some team has to open its season in Richfield, Ohio, a/k/a home of the Cleveland Cavaliers, a/k/a the NBA's Banana Republic. So Larry Bird and Co. came to the House that Nick Mileti Built last night and methodically defeated the Cavaliers, 104-93, officially opening the Boston Celtics' 37th season.

It was the classic mismatch everybody expected: the NBA's best vs. its worst, a Rolls-Royce vs. a Corvair, the Boston Symphony vs. Uriah Heep. The Celtics won a league-high 63 regular-season games last year, while Cleveland took a league-low 15. Neither team has changed much since last spring, so it figured that the Cavaliers, who closed the 1981-82 campaign with 19 straight losses, might go for 20 last night.

"It was somewhat of a typical first game," summed up Quinn Buckner, who teamed well with Tiny Archibald. "We got a good lead, weren't able to sustain it, and they came back pretty good."

"I'm satisfied," added Bill Fitch. "We opened on the road and had a lot of questions. We played our top 11 men for a good deal of time. Of course, we have some things to improve on."

Never one to gush, Fitch had to be happy wth his backcourt. Archibald scored 14 points, doled out six assists and teamed well with both Danny Ainge and Buckner. Ainge and Buckner combined to hit 12 of 17 floor shots, and Boston's preseason ballhandling woes vanished for the night. The Celtics committed only 15 turnovers.

Scott Wedman (10 points, all in the first quarter) kept the Cavaliers close in the early going. There were seven ties in the first period before the Celtics took the lead for good with an eight-point run late in the quarter.

After Wedman tied it, 20-20, Cedric Maxwell got things going with a Maxwellian post-up basket. In succession, Ainge (7 for 9 from the floor) followed with a 12-foot banker, Robert Parish (22 points, 12 rebounds) hit a foul-line jumper and Bird scored on a breakaway layup. Cleveland never got closer than seven again.

Boston led by nine after one, 11 at the half and 17 after three quarters. The lead peaked at 90-68 when Buckner (11 points, 5 for 8 from the floor) hit a spinning foul-line jumper with 10:40 left in the game. The best late moment was Bird's 12-foot lefthanded hook from the right corner.

En route to a team-record 45 free-throw points, Cleveland made a garbage- time surge in the fouth quarter, closing the gap to 98-90 with 2:01 left. James Edwards, who wears goggles and is 7 feet tall but has little else in common with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, led the Cavaliers with 25 points and 16 rebounds, although a Cleveland victory never seemed possible.

The disappointing crowd of 8633 spent most of its late-game energy imploring Fitch to play local favorite Darren Tillis, a former Cleveland State great. Tillis made his NBA debut with 15 seconds to play and managed to miss his first shot before the final buzzer.

Another rookie, a kid by the name of John Bagley, got his first taste of the big leagues and played a respectable 22 minutes, scoring nine points.

Tom Nissalke, Ted Stepien's fifth coach since opening day last year, said, "We didn't execute well, but we could have laid down and made it a 30-point loss. We got back."

The Cavaliers are still one loss away from the NBA record. League historians have discovered that although the 1973 Sixers hold the record (19) for consecutive losses in a single season, the Detroit Pistons of 1979-80 and '80-81 hold the two-year mark of 21. Cleveland should tie it in Richfield tomorrow night against the Bucks.