BIRD SAVES BEST SHOT FOR LAST
You shoot it with frosted fingers from the side of the driveway as you fall into the neighbor's snowy hedges. Or sometimes you shoot it alone in the gym with an imaginary clock ticking down and an imaginary crowd roaring.
Every basketball Jones who has ever played the game has practiced it hundreds of times, but it's rare that the opportunity arises, and even more rare when it works out exactly as it did in your mind games.
It happened yesterday at Boston Garden. Larry Bird, the homespun hick with the hungry heart, canned a fallaway jumper from the darkest corner of the Causeway street gym with no time left, giving the Boston Celtics a 128-127 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers and sending K.C. Jones on an all- expenses-paid trip to Hoosierland as the Eastern Conference's All-Star coach.
What started out as a mundane Sunday matinee became a game for the ages when Bird fired his shot-heard-'round-the-hoop-world from a spot that would have required him to pay for re-admission to the Garden.
It was life imitating art, straight out of "The Natural." Bird's Kohoutek comet seemed to freeze in mid-flight. When it finally came crashing through the net (for his 47th and 48th points), Portland coach Jack Ramsay fell to his knees, Johnny Most went into dog-whistle delirium, the Garden organist struck up the Hallelujah Chorus and 14,890 said, "There goes the best there ever was."
Put it next to Doug Flutie's "Flood Tip" moonshot over Miami. There will be more important games and a couple of better individual efforts but there won't be any better finishes in this or any year.
Bird's game-winner came after he caught an inbounds pass from Dennis Johnson with two seconds left. He was covered by Portland rookie Jerome Kersey, then Clyde Drexler came over to help out after DJ got the pass in. Bird took Kersey into the corner, faked, leaned in with his shoulder, then let it fly as he backpedaled out of bounds. The clock expired while the ball was in flight.
Bird was the only option on the final play. Jones had started to draw up a play in the final timeout huddle, but Bird went into his John Wayne routine, erased the board and said, "Give me the ball."
"You're just glad to have the opportunity and the confidence to take the last-second shots," said Bird, who had 10 rebounds and seven assists to go with his 48 points.
"With two seconds left, there's not much you can do. You get it, you make your move and you let it fly . . . After I shot it, I thought it was going to hit the side of the backboard."
"It didn't know where it was going," said center Robert Parish (30 points, 12 rebounds), who was under the basket. "It just kind of froze up there."
Drexler, who forced the situation with a dazzling display down the stretch, said, "I looked at it, thinking, 'When is the thing going to come down?' When it came down it was right in the basket. I wish it had stayed up there."
So much for freeze-frame fame. Here's what happened in the first 47 minutes, 58 seconds:
The Celtics led, 30-29, after one, but Portland enjoyed a 4 1/2-minute, 19-2 run to take a 42-30 lead early in the second. Bird brought the Celtics back with a 17-2 surge and Boston led, 59-56, at intermission.
The Jekyll-Hyde pattern continued after halftime. Parish led a 10-0 Celtic onslaught, but Portland clawed back to within three at the end of three.
The three-quarter pole was significant for numerologists. Everything was in Boston's favor, starting with the Willie Hernandez factor, which showed that the Celtics were 30-0 in games they led after three quarters. Meanwhile, it was noted that the Blazers were 1-14 in games decided by fewer than eight points.
When Parish and Bird shot the Celtics to a 116-108 led with 3 minutes left, the Celtics looked safe. Portland center Sam Bowie had fouled out, leaving Ramsay's Flying Burrito Brothers without an anchor.
The Blazers charged back, scoring 19 points in 2:43.
A thunderous dunk by Kersey (off a nice feed from Drexler) cut Boston's lead to two with 55 seconds left. Then Kiki Vandeweghe (22 points, but his man scored 48) rebounded a Kevin McHale miss and the Blazers called time with 26 seconds left.
When play resumed, Drexler went one on one against DJ, came off a Mychal Thompson pick and hit a spinning turnaround as he was fouled by DJ. Drexler's free throw gave Portland a 125-124 lead.
The Celtics called time and set up a play for Bird. Boston's MVP responded with a lefty shot off the drive, a shot that went though the basket as Hue Hollins prepared to call goaltending on Steve Colter.
Down by 126-125 with nine seconds left, Portland called time again. After the pause, Drexler and DJ staged another mano a mano, with Drexler hitting another in-your-face jumper.
"The coach gave me the freedom to create and I just created," said Drexler.
Portland's bench exploded as the Celtics called time with three seconds left. The struggling Trail Blazers were on the verge of their biggest victory of the season.
DJ's first inbounds pass (from midcourt) was deflected out of bounds by Kersey. That knocked a second off the clock but also moved the next inbounds play closer to the basket. That pass found Bird, and Bird's mortar found the bucket.
"I don't know how the pass got there," shrugged Ramsay. "It was as close to impossible as you can make it."
"Impossible" would aptly describe Bird's final-shot attempt, but as McHale noted, "Why have 46 and lose when you can have 48 and win? He just dropped a bomb on 'em."
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