Another Chapter for Bird-Erving

May 16, 1985

It is waiting for him now. The eye cannot detect it yet, but it is right there waiting for him.

It is in his elbow, which has stayed sore too long. It is in his ankle, which now stays swollen too long. And it is in his fingers, which stay stiff too long. It is lurking there now . . . waiting, always waiting.

If you are outside Larry Bird's body you don't notice these little changes because you don't feel them. But if you are inside that body you know something is slipping away now with every shot you take.



"Julius Erving plays a different type of game now than he did a few years ago," Bird said yesterday after the Celtics worked out at Boston Garden. "Everybody senses it. There are 17-footers he won't take now because his role (in Philadelphia) is different than it was when he did the scoring.

"It's amazing for me to look at him and think that he's on the way out. He's still one of the greatest players in the game. He can score if he wants, but because he's aged now it's not how many he scores, it's when. And believe me, it's starting to happen to me, too.

"I can feel the difference between now and three years ago. People don't think about that until you're near the end. They take you for granted, but I know in five years I'll be done."

For Bird, who at 28 is in the midst of perhaps his greatest season, the changes have not truly been in his shooting, although of late his problems have been obvious. His recurrent elbow problems have reduced his shooting efficiency to the point where he has gone more to his left hand and less to his long-range jump shot.

The result thus far has been too many nights like Tuesday, when he was 8 for 23 in the Celtics' 106-98 win over the 76ers which gave Boston a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals. That shooting performance dropped his playoff percentage to just .478, including .439 in his first two games against the Sixers, a team against whom he shot .598 in the regular season.

Such problems, however, are correctible because they are traceable to the bone chips floating in his elbow. But there are other things that are not so easily correctable because you cannot see them yet. You can only feel them.

"Yeah, I've changed quite a lot since I came to Boston (six years ago) and I don't like it, either," Bird said. "It upsets me when someone calls me 'mister.' I'd like to stay a young boy. I still like to act like a kid.

"This is the first year I noticed things. In college, if I sprained my ankle I'd be back in two days. Now it lingers. If I sprained a finger I'd shake it off. Now when it happens I know something's broken inside. And I don't shoot as much before a game anymore.

"I used to take 300 shots before a game, but now if you feel (his elbow) getting stiff you got to quit. There's just so many times you can run up and down the court."

Clearly that is so, as Dr. J is learning now and as Bird will learn soon enough. But for all his aches and pains Larry Bird still knows that even on the nights when his elbow refuses to work there remains a time for him.

"Last night (in Game 2) it was obvious my right hand wasn't working," Bird said. "I'm not shooting as well as I'd like, but I don't just rely on my jump shot. They started giving me my left hand, so I went to it.

"You can hold me down, but I don't think you can hold me down for four quarters. The fourth quarter is my quarter. I still feel I can take over a game. If it's a close game I still want to take those shots (at the end). It's like (Andrew) Toney with them. He didn't shoot well Tuesday but we kept waiting for him to break loose. We had to respect him.

"I'm not shooting well, but I think they have to respect me. If I hit the first two in the fourth quarter it could be all over pretty quick because I'm still capable of scoring 15 points in a quarter if I'm on a roll."

He has not yet been on that roll against the Sixers and there is always the chance that his elbow will prevent him from taking over Game 3 in the Spectrum Saturday or Game 4 on Sunday as he has so many others. But even as Bird talked about the aging of his athletic life while he rubbed the sole of his green sneaker in that familiar way he does, it was difficult to think of him as ever getting too old to hit the jumper with the game on the line.

In fact, even with a sore elbow and an aging vision of Dr. J before him, it really wasn't possible for him to think about it for long. Not with more immediate things at hand.

"The elbow is a very minor problem right now," Bird said. "Since I had it drained it's been a lot better. This is the playoffs. One or two little injuries can't stop you. They are not a factor now.

"People like to talk about who is the best in the game. There's Isiah (Thomas) and Magic (Johnson) and me and Bernard (King). It's hard to say who the best is. I just want to be the best player on the best team that wins championships because if you don't win the championship you're a failure.

"Then I'll go home and work to get better. They say there's a point where you can't get any better . . . but I don't know about that. I just know when I go a couple weeks without playing basketball it gets a little nerve-racking."

And as long as it does, they won't be calling him "mister" in places like The Spectrum.