May 22, 1985
Section: SPORTS
IT'S 'CORNBREAD THE CRIPPLE,' ACCORDING TO BARKLEY
Ian Thomsen, Globe Staff
PHILADELPHIA
Charles Barkley paused while dressing yesterday to rename Celtics forward Cedric Maxwell.
"Cornbread the Cripple," Barkley said.
And though Maxwell underwent knee surgery this season, his mouth was undamaged. "Their pulse rate is just going lower and lower," Maxwell said of the 76ers after they had beaten the Celtics, 115-104, Sunday to trail, 3-1, in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final series. "You'd better call in the priest, because they're almost dead. We're going to put them out of their misery come Wednesday."
He was talking about Game 5 tonight (8, Channel 4).
"Well, boys, we've got 'em in the grave now," Maxwell said. "Wednesday night will be a mercy killing."
"Mercy killing?" Barkley said yesterday, rubbing his nearly bald head in the 76ers' locker room. "Him trying to guard one of us with his bad knee is mercy. Whoever he's guarding, that's who we look for. We hope and pray he gets in the game. We're foaming at the mouth hoping he gets in the game. He's just in the way."
Not that the 76ers are upset with Maxwell.
"Nothing he says can bother us," said Barkley, the 76ers' rookie forward from Auburn. "It makes you want to play harder. But it gets to a certain point - you become a jerk by bragging so much. I don't mind getting beat, but they don't have to go around boasting and bragging. They don't have to tell people they've got a good team. Who do they think they're playing? A high school team?
"I was talking to my mother; she was at the game Sunday. Some guy in the stands told Bird, 'See you next Friday.' And Bird said, 'You have a better chance of seeing God.' Now, stuff like that is not necessary."
"Tell him God might be there," said Barkley's teammate, George Johnson. "Tell him He might be in the stands cheering for us."
"I hope so," Barkley said. "We need Him."
Barkley looked at his other teammates.
"I mean, I couldn't believe it," Barkley told them, wrinkles rising from under the shortest of crew cuts. "When they got the technical for only four players on the floor (in the fourth quarter Sunday), Bird told the ref, 'We don't need but four to beat these guys.' That tripped me out."
But the 76ers have been fighting back. When Maxwell checked in as the fifth Celtic after the technical, the Sixers' bench told him, "You can't count that high."
"Maxwell said he would be endorsing the playoff check on Sunday," George Johnson said. "Well, either it was a delayed deposit or that check bounced."
Julius Erving - having returned from leg exercises in the training room - was quickly surrounded and asked about Maxwell.
"What do you want me to say?" Erving said. "I'm not going to get in a debate with a guy who really has not been a factor in the series. He and M.L. (Carr) do a lot of cheerleading. I guess they have a lot of energy. They might as well talk. Their guys on the floor who have been putting in the minutes - they've been very professional and complimentary of us in the series.
"When they put in the guys who are laughing and talking about mercy killings, they're not thinking about basketball. They're thinking about laughing and joking and playing games."
In a calmer moment, George Johnson added, "Max is a comedian. He's a sportsman in the true sense - he likes the rivalry and the taunting. If it were 3-1 our way, we'd be pretty boisterous, too. We'd be free with the levity, with the remarks aimed to cut at people, the ones that make them livid."
"I wouldn't be doing all that," disagreed Barkley, still in the locker room. "If we were up 3-0 I wouldn't be saying all that stuff."
"Yes you would, Charles," a teammate said. "I know your personality. You'd be saying all that if you were up 2-1."
"You'd be talking about the last one shutting the locker room door and turning off the lights," George Johnson said.
"No," Barkley said. "I'd be saying it's over and all that. But I wouldn't be trying to egg people on."
Almost ready to leave, he was asked where he was going.
"I'm gonna get a haircut," Barkley said.
A haircut. Even Moses Malone laughed at that.
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