Where Did Celtics Go Wrong?

May 4, 1983

JUST WHERE DID THE CELTS GO WRONG?

It is a city that's been weaned on disappointment.

It suffered Bucky Dent's shot over the Green Monster at Fenway Park in the memorable 1978 American League East playoff game with New York.



It agonized over Bobby Orr's rickety knees. It screamed as Chuck Fairbanks turned his back on a contract and a job.

But while the Red Sox lost in bewildering ways, while the Bruins lost their fire on ice, while the Patriots' coach took a detour along the road to the Super Bowl, one sports franchise in the city of Boston always rose above all of that:

The Boston Celtics - the class of the NBA.

Fourteen National Basketball Association championships were captured by their three-stage dynasty (built on the talents, respectively, of Bill Russell, Dave Cowens and Larry Bird). "Fourteen going on 15," the balcony sign at Boston Garden predicted this season.

Instead, after being swept, four games to none, by the Milwaukee Bucks in their quarterfinal playoff series, the Celtics are out of the playoffs earlier than they have been since the arrival of Bird in 1979-80. The last flag (1980-81) is tattered. The final citadel has been stormed. As they say on TV, "Goodnight, Beantown."

How did the first four-game sweep in Celtics' history happen? A few theories:

* Lack of versatility - This, in essence, was what Celtics coach Bill Fitch meant, when he said, "We're going to have to learn to play one-on-one basketball."

The Bucks have two bona fide superstars in Sidney Moncrief and Marques Johnson. The Celtics were reduced to one, the ailing (flu sidelined him for all of Game 2) Bird. Moncrief, a weight-room fanatic, possesses the strength and spring for a terrifying inside game for a guard. The 76ers, who now meet the Bucks in the tournament semifinals beginning Sunday at the Spectrum, believe Moncrief to be the most dangerous guard around the basket in the league.

Johnson, with the ball-handling skills of a guard, is a 6-7 forward who can start his move far out on the floor. He is almost as good as Julius Erving in the open floor. And in Junior Bridgeman the Bucks have a guard-forward with one of the most accurate outside shots in the NBA.

"We also have Brian Winters and Bob Lanier, who can create a shot on their own when the clock is inside 5 seconds," said Johnson.

The Bucks can play "big," with Lanier, Harvey Catchings and Alton Lister across the front line, or they can play small and fast, with Bridgeman, Catchings and Johnson on the front line.

The Celtics, though, were a one-note band, dependent on pounding the ball inside to their big men. The Milwaukee double-teams on defense limited Boston forward Kevin McHale, a feared pressure player, to just 29 shots in the series and a paltry nine-point average. Bird, meanwhile, shot just 26 for 59 in the series, while center Robert Parish played the high post and imitated a power forward for much of the sorry exhibition. As for Cedric Maxwell, he duplicated McHale, and took only 29 shots, averaging nine points.

* Lack of outside shooting - The reason the gang defense inside worked was the dismal play of the Celtics guards. Danny Ainge shot 18 for 44 and was totally psyched out by Bucks coach Don Nelson's Sunday morning blast: "He has gained the reputation of being a cheap-shot artist; innocent little Danny isn't so innocent." Milwaukee's obedient Rhinelanders booed Ainge every time he touched the ball after reading that, and Ainge's answer was a shortfall of courage in the face of the adversity.

Nelson, a former Celtic, thus played the Boston specialty - intimidation -far better than did the old masters of mind games themselves.

Of the other guards, Gerald Henderson shot 22 for 50. Tiny Archibald shot 14 for 48. And a word about Archibald: In the past, his poor performances could be attributed to comebacks from serious leg injuries and to being out of shape. Evidence suggests now that Archibald, who will be 35 when the next season begins, is washed up.

Quinn Buckner, seldom used by the baffling Fitch, shot 5 for 15.

"Out strategy was simple. We dared them to make the outside shots. And they only did in the first half of the second game," said Nelson.

* Fitch's coaching - He called his team "quitters" in the first game. He used Ainge to the point of exhaustion (39 straight minutes) in the second, even though Ainge rapidly cooled down from a 12-for-13 start. He didn't use his best outside shooter, Scott Wedman, when a three-point try was mandatory at the end of Game 2. He did use a previously inactive Wedman for the final period of Game 3, when Johnson posted up Wedman, no all-defensive team stalwart, mercilessly for seven quick, decisive points.

Fitch probably overcoached all year, playing around with multiple backcourt combinations, which encouraged grumbling about playing time, but discouraged cohesion.

* Lack of desire - "I just wonder where our damn hearts are," said Bird after Game 3, in as salient a discussion of the defeat as you will find.

* The future - Although general manager Red Auerbach would say only, "We are worried, but this is no time to panic," the fact is that major changes are in the offing. McHale is a free agent. Fitch is rumored to be considering either the Cleveland or Detroit jobs. Bird, one wild report maintains, will be traded to Indiana for the rights to Ralph Sampson, should the Pacers win the coin toss for the Virginia center with Houston. It could amount to a replay of the fiscal juggling act by Sixers owner Harold Katz, who unloaded other high salaries so he could afford the even higher salary of Moses Malone.

Significantly, Bird will be a free agent next year, as will Maxwell.

* The present - M. L. Carr, himself a free agent now, stood outside rainy Logan International Airport in Boston yesterday, holding a few (mourning?) flowers, and tried to describe the emptiness of a springtime without the playoffs. "It's like being in a class with all your classmates graduating and you don't," he said.