Jerry Sichting Still Remembered . . . as a Celtic

November 8, 2012

He played 10 years in the NBA, suiting up for five teams along the way. Since then, he has twice been an assistant coach for the Minnesota Timberwolves and also worked the bench for the Golden State Warriors and, for three years, Marquette at the college level.

After a brief respite during which he went to his Indiana hometown to serve as interim coach for Martinsville High School, he is now back in the NBA as an assistant for the Washington Wizards.

Sichting Finds New Life as Celtic

November 14, 1985

For five years, Jerry Sichting made the same futile trip.

There were the usual pregame chalk talks, the scrutiny of the opposition's likes and dislikes and then the trip out to the parquet floor for another pounding by the Celtics.

Did Y'all See Jerry Sichting on the Wizards' Bench?

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Washington Wizards announced today that Jerry Sichting will join Randy Wittman’s staff as an assistant coach.

Sichting brings 24 years of experience as an NBA player, coach and talent evaluator to the Wizards’ bench, including 11 seasons serving as an assistant both alongside and under Wittman with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"I’m obviously very familiar with what Jerry will add to our staff and I’m thrilled to have him on board," said Wittman. “His experience playing, teaching and evaluating the game will be valuable on the bench and on the practice court as we continue to develop our players and establish this team’s identity."

Sichting originally began his career with Minnesota in 1995-96 as the team’s director of scouting and player development before moving to the bench and adding assistant coach to his title for the next nine seasons (seven of which were spent alongside Wittman). After a stint as an assistant with Marquette University in 2006-07, Sichting returned to the Timberwolves for two seasons as an assistant under Wittman, who had been promoted to head coach. He returned to the front office as director of pro personnel in 2009-10 before joining the Golden State Warriors as an assistant coach for the 2010-11 campaign. Sichting most recently stepped in to coach Martinsville (Ind.) High School, his alma mater, following the abrupt retirement of the team’s head coach during the 2011-12 season.

As a player, Sichting averaged 6.9 points and 3.3 assists over 598 games and 10 seasons with Indiana, Boston, Portland, Charlotte and Milwaukee. He began his playing career in 1980 with the Pacers, and averaged a career-high 11.5 points per game during the 1983-84 season. Sichting went on to help the Celtics capture the 1986 NBA Championship, averaging 6.5 points per game off the bench. He returned to Boston after his playing career ended, spending four seasons (1991-95) as an analyst on the Celtics’ radio broadcasts.

Sichting was originally a fourth-round selection (82nd) overall by the Golden State Warriors in the 1979 NBA Draft out of Purdue University, where he was the captain of the 1978-79 Boilermakers squad that captured the Big 10 Championship. He was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.

Head Coach Sichting

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you may be remember one constant when it came to coaching recommendations:

Jerry Sichting

If an NBA team had a vacancy, and I liked the team, I urged the team to fill it by hiring the former Celtic guard. Best remembered for being sucker-punched by Ralph Sampson in the NBA Finals, Sichting had on OK career overall, but he had one year that was magical.


During the 1985-86 season, Sichting shot 57% from the field, 37% from 3, and .924 from the stripe. If you were alive and a Celtics fan for that season, you remember Sichting, as his contributions were consistent and undeniable. I figured he'd coach the same way he played, fiesty and smart, imploring his team to play ball in a lead-with-your-nose style.

Oddly, no NBA team agreed with me, ignoring my posts to make him their head coach, though McHale had him on the Timberwolves payroll for several years, and once in a while he stood on the sidelines as if he were an assistant coach.

Well my long wait is over.

Sort of.

Jerry was named head basketball coach of the Martinsville Artesians.

Sure it's a high school.

Yes, it's his alma mater.

And, true, the circumstances were a bit eyebrow raising (see comments section).

But I'm happy for Jerry.

Most importantly, you just don't know where it will lead.

Celtics Acquire Sichting

October 3, 1985
Section: SPORTS
SICHTING A CELTIC INDIANA GETS TWO 2D-ROUND PICKS


The Celtics yesterday put the finishing touch on their off-season reconstruction job, acquiring guard Jerry Sichting from the Indiana Pacers for two second-round draft picks.

The Celtics' house is in order. Three and a half months after losing the championship series to the Lakers, Boston has re-signed free agent Dennis Johnson and added Bill Walton, Sly Williams, Sam Vincent and Sichting in place of Cedric Maxwell, M.L. Carr, Quinn Buckner and Ray Williams.

Sichting was the final piece. DJ and Danny Ainge are Boston's starting guards, but the Celts wanted a veteran third guard to take some of the heat off rookie Vincent.

"Hopefully I can provide some leadership on the floor," Sichting said before flying to Boston last night. "My strengths are my outside shooting and my ball handling."

Indiana's 6-foot-1-inch, five-year veteran fills Boston's need for an experienced shooting guard. A lifetime 50 percent pro shooter, he rarely turns the ball over and averaged almost six assists per game in 1983-84. Last year the Pacer captain shot 52 percent and averaged 11 points. His lifetime free throw percentage is a scintillating .852.

"I feel about four or five years younger," Sichting said after the trade was announced. "It's finally over and now I can get to work again. This is what I'd wanted and hoped for most of the summer. I thought it might happen and now it has."

Sichting is a native Hoosier who played his college ball at Purdue, but he'd grown weary of Pacer management and Indiana's losing records. He was a free agent this summer and inked a four-year, $850,000 offer sheet with the Celtics. The Pacers matched the offer last Friday, and asked Boston for a first-round draft pick in exchange for Sichting. The Celts offered two seconds and Indiana waited until yesterday to accept.

"This is what I thought was reasonable compensation all along," said Boston general manager Jan Volk. "So I'm not sure what happened."

The Pacers requested that the specifics of the two picks not be disclosed. However, one of them will not be Boston's 1986 second-rounder, which was shipped to the Knicks last season for Ray Williams.

Sichting, who did not report to the Pacers' camp, is scheduled to practice with the Celts today and could play in Boston's first exhibition at Boston Garden, against the Philadelphia 76ers, tomorrow night.

Like everyone else who's joined the Celtics lately, Sichting said it was nice to be playing for a winner.

"That's a whole new ballgame and it's what every player should play for," he said. "The opportunity to play for a contender is what I'm excited about."

Playing with fellow Hoosier Larry Bird also has some appeal.

"They have a lot of good players besides Bird," noted Sichting. "But Larry seems to make everyone he plays with a better player and he'll probably make me a better player."

The acquisition of Sichting means that (barring injuries or a mood shift by Sly Williams) there is only one job open on the roster. Rick Carlisle, Carlos Clark and David Thirdkill are the frontrunners for the final spot. Rookie hopefuls Ronnie Williams, Rick Lamb, Andre Battle and Tracy Mitchell face an uphill battle . . . Bird was white hot during yesterday's early scrimmage. He also unveiled the lefty jump hook he's been working on.

Wedman, Walton, & Sichting: Do I Hear a Challenge to Their Throne?

Perhaps the most celebrated second unit in Celtics history, the 1986 reserves, played the starters better than most opposing teams. That pattern could be replayed this season. “It is happening,” coach Doc Rivers said. “Our second team is good. I think it was like that two years ago for us too. They just didn’t take any crap from the first unit. That’s when you have a bunch of veterans on your second unit.

“I played on a team with the Spurs late in my career and it was myself, Terry Cummings, Moses Malone, Chuck Person. I mean, that’s an old team coming off the bench. We routinely gave it to the first unit, and even if they were beating us, we physically beat ’em down because we could."

LINK

As I said during the game, the Rockets didn't look like they belonged on the floor with the Celtics' first unit, and that didn't change when the Celtics' reserves took the floor. Scott Wedman, Bill Walton, and Jerry Sichting actually started slow during the 1985-86 season, but began showing signs of life at mid-season, and then really hit their stride down the stretch. In one game, KC Jones actually started his bench and won. At the end of the year, the Celtics' best reserve--Bill Walton--was honored with the NBA's Sixth Man Award.

Could the 2009-10 Celtics' bench give them a run for their money?

Carlisle Recalls the 1985-86 Practices

“The ’86 team became a great team the instant we acquired Bill Walton,” Rick Carlisle said this week from his largely-unfurnished office overlooking the American Airlines Center practice court. “His presence allowed other role players like myself, Jerry Sichting, Scott Wedman, Greg Kite to play at a higher level. All of a sudden our practices became very competitive.”

A count was kept on the board in the locker room of the daily scrimmages between the second team (Green) and the starters (White). Despite the presence of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish on the White, the results were surprisingly even.

Read more.

Race and the '86 Celtics

Los Angeles Times
May 28, 1986
Boston Garden Could Pass for White House
Scott Ostler

BOSTON Don't bother trying to adjust the tint and contrast knobs on your TV set when you watch the Celtics and Rockets play, sports fans.

The Boston Celtics really do have a lot of white guys on their team. An astounding number, all things considered.

Eight white players on a 12-player roster. Three white starters. During one point early in the first half of Game 1 of the NBA championship series Monday, the Celtics had five white players on the court.

Then they made a substitution. Larry Bird checked in and the Celtics still had five white guys on the court.

So what? Aren't we a little too sophisticated and progressive here in America in 1986 to be counting colors?

Maybe, but the truth is our society isn't as colorblind as the idealists among us would like to imagine.

And the anachronism of a mostly white team dominating a mostly black sport is something that is noticed and commented upon by players and fans.

As Boston Coach K.C. Jones says: "It's a white team in what is perceived as a racist city."

The Celtics would make a neat little study for a sociologist. I'm just a columnist, so I'll just tell you what people told me, and what I think about all these white guys on one team.

First of all, people do talk about it.

"You hear it all over the place," says K.C. Jones, who is black, and who has final say on personnel matters. "You hear people say, 'You need more blacks on the team. What are you going to do about this situation?'

"It sounds like they're going to take me to court or something. . . . It would be a big deal if I did this on purpose, but I'm just trying to get the best basketball players I can, whether they're green or blue."

Where does Jones hear this kind of criticism?

"You hear it in barber shops, as you go around. . . . A lot of blacks (Celtic fans) have gone over to Philadelphia or L.A. teams."

It's difficult to say exactly at what point the beauty of racial pride crosses over to the ugliness of bigotry.

For instance, is it bad that scores of Latino baseball fans in Los Angeles rain their affection upon Fernando Valenzuela above all other Dodgers?

Is it bad that a segment of white sports fans in Boston have jumped on the Celtic bandwagon because the team's leader and superstar, Larry Bird, is white?

Since Bird has come on the scene in Boston, the Celtic fan base has expanded considerably. Before Bird, Boston Garden sellouts were rare, even during the glory years; now, any available ticket is rare.

"If Bird were Magic (Johnson), the Celtics wouldn't sell out," says Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, a long-time Celtic expert and observer.

"There wouldn't be the fanaticism, no question. And it would be the same in any city in America."

But Bob, what about Magic Johnson's enormous popularity in Los Angeles?

"They (the Lakers) didn't sell out every game and have a waiting list for season tickets," Ryan says. "If you take Bird off this team and make it a 55-win team, they'd average 12,000 (in 14,890-seat Boston Garden). The fanaticism will disappear the minute he goes."

That might be partly due to the fact that Bird, regardless of skin pigmentation, is one of the two or three greatest players ever to lace up a sneaker.

Still, Boston does have that image, of not being the nation's flagship of racial harmony and brotherhood. When K.C. was a Celtic player, a popular star, he couldn't buy a home in Framingham, and Bill Russell couldn't buy a home in Lexington. Sorry, fellows, no blacks allowed in the suburbs.

Cedric Maxwell, who was in effect traded to the Clippers for Bill Walton after last season, was an outspoken critic of the city. Maxwell says now of Celtic center Robert Parish: "In Boston, he's always going to be a scapegoat because he's got four strikes against him--he's black and he's playing with three white superstars in Larry, Kevin and Bill Walton."

That's one man's viewpoint, and maybe the city of Boston isn't the racist hotbed some make it out to be. But sports-wise, the town's two favorite teams have always been the Red Sox, for many years the whitest team in baseball, and the hockey Bruins.

And now, of course, the Celtics.

"There's an element of the Boston crowd that loves the fact this team is white," Ryan says. "That would be true of every city in America. I'll tell you, and this is absolutely unsupportable, just my observation--the number-one most favorite act on the court is when (Kevin) McHale (a white Celtic forward) blocks any black guy's shot. They (the segment of Garden fans) go crazy. They love seeing that."

The obvious question is, did the Celtic front office do this on purpose? Did they build a white team in order to draw fans?

If so, that would make team President Red Auerbach somewhat of a racist.

"I would accuse Red of just about any crime I could think of," one veteran NBA writer said. "But not that."

Red is the wrong person to ask. He's the wrong person to ask anything. Red is the world's grumpiest man.

I asked him if people think the Celtics got white by design.

"I don't give a bleep what people think," Red said, which is something they can chisel on his tombstone someday.

"We do what we have to do," he grumped. And that's all he cared to say on the matter.

Before anybody labels Red a bigot, however, there are a few facts to consider. The Celtics, under Red Auerbach:

--Integrated the NBA, signing the first black player, Chuck Cooper.

--Hired the first black coach, Bill Russell.

--Had the NBA's first all-black starting lineup (1964-65, the same season Philadelphia also had an all-black starting lineup).

--Were one of the first two teams (the Lakers under coach Fred Schaus being the other) to institute intentional interracial rooming on road trips, back in the early '60s.

Maybe none of this seems like a big deal, but the NBA wasn't always the racially enlightened oasis it is now. As late as the early '60s, the league had an unwritten racial quota--two blacks per team. And if a black wasn't good enough to start, he didn't make the team. The substitutes were white guys.

This was partly out of owner-perceived economic necessity. The owners then were small-time businessmen struggling to keep their teams alive, and they believed too many blacks would keep the fans away.

So into this unfortunate sea of bigotry sailed the brave Celtics with their attitude of damn the quotas, full speed ahead.

Isn't it funny, then, that this team is being saluted by some as basketball's version of the great white hope?

It's almost impossible to build a case against Celtic management. The white players they have are legit. Bird and McHale start for any team on the planet Earth. Danny Ainge was highly coveted by all NBA teams when he was first available and has developed into a fine guard.

Bill Walton could get a job right now coming off the bench in 22 other NBA cities. So could Scott Wedman.

Jerry Sichting fits his role as a part-time shooter perfectly. And the Celtics certainly don't sell any tickets by having white guys Greg Kite and Rick Carlisle sitting on the bench. I couldn't find a single person who thinks the Celtics got white by anything but coincidence or accident or pure chance.

But it's kind of a sore topic around the front office, this racial mix thing. When Sly Williams, a black reserve, was waived during the season, the Celtics filled his 12th man spot with David Thirdkill, a black.

"The Celtics were so sensitive to this race thing by then, that even if a white superstar had been available, they wouldn't have touched him," says a Boston sportswriter. "I really think that (race) was a consideration."

Crazy, isn't it?

But now that it's out in the open, now that we've noticed how white the Celtics are and discussed it like the clear-headed adults we all are, we can sit back and enjoy the rest of the NBA championship series and ignore this black and white business.

Right?

Bird Warns Sampson before Game 6

They are two teams on the same crowded platform. The Celtics still hold that 3-2 lead, but the Rockets are shoving, elbowing. "Boston has made a lot of good teams look bad in the Boston Garden," coach Bill Fitch warned, but his Rockets are no longer fretting over what the Celtics might do to them.

They seem to have forgotten what happened the last two games at the Garden. They are remembering Thursday night, 111 - 96 . "We're going to win the game the way we won last night," guard Robert Reid said before practice yesterday. "No tricks, no trick plays, no trying to go out and jump on one individual. (Jerry Sichting might question that statement.) We won't have the emotional lift from our fans, but we won't need the fans. The fans didn't push us to another level. We pushed ourselves. We initiated it from the beginning.

"I think we've found that eight to 10 minutes we've been looking for. I'm talking about those five- to six-minute periods when we wouldn't score and the Celtics would run away from us. We are minutes better. We've improved along the bench better.

"We came of age. We became a veteran team last night. We didn't make dumb mistakes. We played as a team. We looked for the next option. I've got a shot, but I've also got somebody open who's got a better shot. We more or less took a page out of the textbook from the Lakers and the Celtics."

Reid believes the next great rivalry was formed in the chaos of Thursday night. "Without a doubt, this Rockets team is going to be up for a while," he said. "We're going to want to have a lot of Western Conference banners up in our rafters. And if the Celtics are going to be the best team in the East, they're going to have to come down here and get by us."

Ralph Sampson and Reid agree the emotion of the second-quarter fight only added to a Rockets fury that began with the opening tap. They say they would have won without the incident, but it helped elevate their game to the necessary championship level. "We just came to win, to play hard," Sampson said. "Later on in life, we'll look at it and maybe we'll say we grew from it and we learned from it."

With one punch, the rivalry has swirled around Sampson. "I love it," he said. "It means a little bit more pressure, intensity. I can draw from that. I like it when people cuss me out, boo at me."

Told that Larry Bird had warned him to wear a hard hat into the Garden, Sampson said, "I've got a Puma baseball cap. That should work."

Clearly, the Rockets have changed from a team that last week seemed almost timid against Boston. Now they are a group anxious to forearm the Celtics against a wall. "I'm sure they took us lightly," Sampson said. "They were trying to get LA back. We weren't supposed to be in a championship series with the great Boston Celtics.

"They thought they were going to make it four straight and drink champagne and celebrate on the Houston Rockets' basketball court. It didn't happen. They came down here and thought it would be two more games and the series would be over."

He paused. "Welcome to Houston," he said.

"The attitude at practice today is that everybody knows why we're going to Boston," center Akeem Olajuwon said. "We're doing it to win a championship.

"Last night's game was very physical. We were going after the ball, pushing, not worrying about the foul. Earlier, we were crying to the refs. Yesterday we weren't crying to the refs. We are a lot better. We are confident. We know we can beat them. In Game 1 and Game 2, they say they cannot be beaten. We've shown them they can be beaten. I think the pressure is on them, too."

The Rockets point to the improved defense and rebounding that has enhanced their running game. Fitch likes what he's seen happen to his bench since the Game 2 massacre. "It's like anything else -- the more pressure situations they're placed in, the better they get. Being a young team and going through it five nights in a row . . . I'll tell you what it's like. Playing those five nights in a row for a player like Robert (Parish) or Larry (Bird) or Danny (Ainge) -- sooner or later, they'll get less from their time out there because they've already got the experience. They get better, but they only get better by degrees, where the young player gets better by leaps and bounds."

For all the Rockets' confidence, Reid does not believe the Celtics are hot and bothered. "They're saying, 'Bring the champagne up, we'll open it Sunday,' " Reid said. "We haven't done anything to rattle them. But we get them on Sunday, then let's see how they're thinking and talking."

Sampson Fight Triggers Rockets Blowout

If nothing else, Ralph Sampson proved to be a versatile actor on the stage of the NBA Finals. In Game 1, he played the Fool, tossing misfired shots from all locations for the diversion of the Garden crowd. In Game 3, he appeared as Lazarus, rising from the dead by hitting several key baskets in the Rockets' first victory.

But his most dramatic guise was presented in Game 5, a Don King production. Sampson starred as Rebel Without A Cause in a game which featured an explosion of fisticuffs in what had been a rather cordial series.

Until the 9:40 juncture of the second period, the contest was a well-played if innocuous one, with the two teams competing evenly; Akeem Olajuwon had just reverse-jammed an offensive rebound to give Houston a 34-33 lead. At that point, however, a hockey game broke out.

As the Celtics set up offensively, Sampson came crashing down the lane and threw an elbow at Jerry Sichting. When Sichting, who will never be confused with the Great White Hope, spun around to confront the taller man, Sampson threw first one, then another wild punch, and the fight was on. Before the teams had retreated to neutral corners, Sampson and Dennis Johnson had scuffled, Bill Walton had wrestled Sampson to the ground, and the big guy from Virginia had been ejected by Jack Madden.

Although Johnson's left eye was bloodied by an Olajuwon fist, Sichting claimed no ill effects from the attack. "I only felt one (punch); I couldn't tell if it was a punch or a mosquito. My little brother has hit me harder," he said. Larry Bird joined Boston's postgame derision of Sampson by adding that "I can't believe he picked a fight with Sichting. Heck, my girlfriend could beat him up."

But by the end of the no-contest, the Celtics would become the biggest object of ridicule. Rather than fold after losing their taller Tower, the Rockets blew apart the visitors for the rest of the half, taking a 58-47 lead into the intermission and rolling to a 111-96 victory. The much-maligned Houston backcourt led the way, as Robert Reid dished out 13 assists in the half and Mitchell Wiggins contributed 14 points. Reserve Jim Petersen picked up the frontcourt slack with inspired defense and determined rebounding.

"They outhustled us from that point on," Greg Kite said in referring to The Incident. "They were all over the boards and all over the loose balls, and we kind of broke down. We went out of our patterns and what we usually try, and we tried to go too much one-on-one."

"That was the turning point," Boston coach K.C. Jones agreed. "Things got so bad, I didn't even have to coach in the second half. I could just sit and watch along with everyone else."

What Jones saw qualified as sufficient footage for the 1985-86 Celtics Lowlights Film. Bird, who hit his first five shots (including a successful three-point attempt) missed 7 of his final 8 (including a pitiful three-point attempt), and Robert Parish returned to his poor Game 3 form (1 for 8, 3 rebounds).

Meanwhile, the Rockets operated at will. Olajuwon (an effortless 32 points, 14 rebounds) & Co. ruled the glass, collecting 23 offensive boards to Boston's 10. The Green defense deteriorated to the point that Houston actually found itself in the midst of a three-on-none fast break in the fourth quarter.

The only group performing as miserably as the Celtics was the refereeing tandem of Madden and Hugh Evans. After Sampson's ejection, the two officials swallowed their whistles, as the Rockets were given carte blanche under their own basket.

But whether or not the zebras deliberately changed their stripes after the fight, the Celtics played badly enough to lose this game by themselves. "We were organized chaos," Jones said generously. Bird preferred to look ahead to the Garden and Sampson's next role. "I think Ralph will have a tough time in Boston," he said. "He better wear his hard hat."

Where Ralph Sampsons Happen

I like the Celtics to win round 1 in four or five games, round 2 in five or six games, and the ECFs in six games.

So we could be walking into the NBA finals with a 12-4 playoff record, give or take.

The give or take is the interesting part.

It is one thing for an inferior team to force an extra game in a seven-game series, but it really takes some kind of unforeseeable and uncontrollable event for a clearly inferior team to force two extra games.

Take a look at 1986 NBA Playoffs (what else?).

In the first round, the 67-win Boston Celtics squared off against the 30-win Chicago Bulls. Gotta be a three-game sweep, right? That is what you’d think, and that is what happened. But the Bulls came this close (squeezing thumb and index finger an inch apart) from winning game 2 when God took the court "disguised as Michael Jordan” and scored 63 points. Jordan’s outburst would certainly qualify as both unforeseen and uncontrollable, but even it wasn’t enough to force an extra game.

The next series paired the Celtics against an Atlanta Hawks team lead by Dominique Wilkins and Doc Rivers. Coming off 50 regular season wins, the Hawks eliminated the Detroit Pistons in round 1, three games to one. However, the Celtics had swept the season series against the Hawks, 6 to zip. It stood to reason that the Celtics should have won the round 2 playoff series in four or five games, allowing for one extraordinary performance by the Hawks in Atlanta. And that is exactly what happened. The Celts took the series 4-1, with Atlanta winning their only game at the Omni.

Next the Celtics faced the Milwaukee Bucks in the ECFs. The good money had the Celtics sweeping this series. The Bucks had swept the Celtics out of the playoffs a couple years earlier, and Larry Bird was still bitter about it in 1986. Bird and the green had won all five games from the Bucks during the regular season. So it should have been a four game series, five if the Bucks shot the lights out in one of their two home games. They didn’t and the Celtics won the series 4-zip.

Finally, we get to the Finals. The coup de gras. Everything the Celtics had been working for all season was now within their grasp. Experts predicted a methodical sweep, but some allowed, as usual, for one Houston victory at home. And that is what happened. The Celtics won the series 4-1.

Oh wait. The Celtics actually lost two games.

How did that happen?

Oh yeah, Ralph Sampson happened.

Game five, of course, was the infamous “my girlfriend could beat up Jerry Sichting” game where the 7-4 Mr. Sampson thought he’d pick a fight with 6-1 Mr. Sichting. The fight ignited the home crowd in Houston, and ignited the home team on the floor. The fight left the visiting Celtics listless, zombie-like condition. The Celts won game 6 in a blow-out.

The point here is that clearly inferior teams can win playoff games. But they should not get lucky more than once. If they start winning multiple games by fortuity and happenstance, then what you have are two teams that are more evenly matched than not.

Apply this theory to the 2008 playoffs, and both rounds one and two should go to the Celtics in five games or less, though round 2 might go six if something extraordinary happens. The Cs should win the ECFs in 6, 7 if the ball just doesn't bounce their way in one of the games.

We'll have to see how well the green is playing in those series before weighing in on the Finals.

1986 C's Beat Sixers, Move to 54-13

The Celtics acted like a guy who had bullied his way to the head of the supermarket checkout line, only to discover that the kisser in which he had just planted his elbow belonged to his grandmother.

What they had done was dismantle the 76ers be fore the usual 14,890 witnesses at the Garden yester day afternoon. A late-season game with Philly is sup posed to be a combination of a guerrilla war and a Massachusetts Democratic primary fight. But the fi nal 17 minutes of this matinee contained no viable competition.

The Celtics won by a breezy 118-101 score, and if some of the crowd- pleasing things they pulled off constitute normal behavior at home (where, count ing the games in Hartford, they are now a spiffy 29-1) against Golden State, New York or San Antonio, it was a shock to see it being done to Philadelphia. It was so easy, in fact, that it scared the Celtics, who couldn't find enough good things to say about the humiliated 76ers, a team they are conditioned to re spect.

"I do think we're better," said Danny Ainge, "but today was no indication of how much better. They didn't have Bobby Jones (home with assorted knee and leg problems), and we're playing very well right now. Philadelphia has a lot of talent, and they'll be a force at play-off time."

Robert Parish backed him up. "The last thing I'm going to do," declared The Chief, "is take Philadel phia for granted. They give us a lot of problems, espe cially in Philadelphia. I still think they're the second- best team in the conference."

So these two guys go into the Fletcher School of Diplomacy without passing "Go" or collecting the $200. What the 250th consecutive Garden capacity crowd saw, however, was a definitive demonstration of Boston power, be it land, sea, air or bench. "I think we could beat them," said a brave 76ers coach Matt Guokas, "but we'd have to be at the very top of our game."

Philly's best shot was its first one, and the Celtics laughed at that. With Boston scoring on just one of its first seven possessions, the Sixers moved into such early leads as 6-0, 18-10 and, finally, 21-12. At this point, Jerry Sichting (K.C. Jones wanted to shake things up early) drilled an inside-out jumper to launch what would prove to be a run of 33-14. Though Boston would never lead in the first quarter (27-25, Sixers), the Sixers had to know that the Celt ics were back in control by the period's end.

There was need for only one lead change in this game, and it came in a fitting manner when Larry Bird sauntered up on the left wing and sank the first of his three three-pointers to give the Celtics a lead of 30-29 with 10:15 left in the half. Bird would finish with a respectable 36 points, 14 rebounds and 6 as sists, and before he was through he would conduct a third- period post-up and two-man clinic at the ex pense of the overmatched Charles Barkley that L would delight a gathering aching to ridicule the tem pestuous young Philadelphia star who was sent over by Central Casting to be the villain in this town.

Sichting (5 for 8, 11 points) was instrumental as the Celtics moved to a 45-35 lead. But Philly fought back to within three at the half (53-50), not that any one in the crowd was concerned since Bird had taken his 18 points and 12 rebounds to the bench for the final 4:17 of the half. If there is one thing we know for sure about this rivalry, it's that Philadelphia can not handle Larry Bird.

Philly hung tough a little longer, until a corner fallaway by Moses Malone (a harmless 18 points and 10 rebounds) and a technical foul shot converted by Maurice Cheeks -- Bird had objected to an Ed Rush call and bounced the ball in the general direction of Uranus -- pulled them within 59-57 with 8:23 left in the quarter.

That's as close as the Sixers would get. Kevin McHale (22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 blocks) deftly reject ed a Barkley shot, and when Barkley picked up the ball in the right corner and tried to pitch it into the lane, Bird intercepted it to start a fast break. McHale took an Ainge feed for a basket, and that turned into a three-point play when Barkley was hit with a tech nical. The shockingly ordinary Julius Erving (13 whispering points) answered for Philly, but succesH sive baskets by Dennis Johnson and Ainge (a reverse fast-break layup on a play begun with another McHale rejection) started the Celtics on a 17-5 run.

Bird's abuse of Barkley started with Boston lead ing, 71-63. First he isolated the Sixer forward on the far left, taking him inside for a short flip (73-63). Next time down, he first refused a three-pointer and then isolated him again in the same spot before feed ing McHale for an overhead layup (75-63). But BarkH ley's worst moment lay ahead.

This time Bird and McHale set up shop on a right- side high post. Bird fed into McHale, as Barkley, look ing worried, jumped back to help on McHale. McHale threw it back out and when Bird got it he faked to freeze Barkley and then hit a rolling McHale for an easy layup (77-64).

It was just another day at the office for the game's greatest player. "Larry just played a nice relaxed -- maybe 'poised' is a better word -- game," said Erving. "He took the shots that were there, maybe worked some boards and set up some teammates. He's the leader of a very good team, the best in the league."

The Sixers found out how good in the fourth peri od when, without really moving out of cruise gear, the Celtics expanded a 10-point lead (86-76) to 22 (106-84) before K.C. turned the game over to his so- called Green Team.

If you're counting, that's 20 straight at home (two of those in Hartford), and the show is getting better all the time. "If you're a Celtics fan," observed Guokas, "it's nice to watch."

1986 Cs Beat Bulls Again, Move to 49-11

Give the Chicago Bulls credit. Down by 19 midway through the third quarter on the road to the NBA's hottest team, they could have said au revoir and turned their thoughts toward Friday night's game with Atlanta. Because they didn't, the usual Garden capacity crowd got to enjoy the fourth quarter.

The fans got to see Larry Bird come bounding off the bench with the team in jeopardy to make some sensational plays. They got to see Robert Parish rip down some key rebounds. They got to see some exemplary Boston team defense. In short, they got to see the Celtics perform in championship style when it mattered en route to a 108-97 triumph.

The victory, Boston's seventh in succession since returning from the West Coast, came hard because the Celtics found it understandably difficult to maintain complete concentration after constructing a 19-point lead against a depleted team they had whipped just one night earlier. There is little doubt that, after taking a 74-55 lead with 7:09 remaining in period three, the Celtics immediately checked back into their mental hotel room for a pleasant little siesta.

When they awoke, the lead was down to five, at 86-81, and K.C. Jones was finding it necessary to send back Bird (26 points) and Danny Ainge (21) to finish the job. Larry made an immediate contribution by slipping a slick wraparound pass into the hands of Kevin McHale for a transition lay-up. Bird next dropped in a 22-footer, and when hard-working Sidney Green responded with a tough fallaway, Larry countered with a banner-scraping transition three- pointer described by trainer Ray Melchiorre as being launched "a full block behind the three-point line." Bird would later conclude his burst with a nice runner in the lane that gave Boston a 97-87 lead with 5:38 to go. The home team was never again in jeopardy.

The Celtics had taken command with a sneaky first half run. It was so sneaky that at no point during the streak was there legitimate crowd reaction, but the fact is that a soft-spoken Celtics' spurt of 10 unanswered points in the middle of the second quarter proved to be the first half difference as Boston took a 60-49 lead into the locker room.

The Celtics were having difficulty combatting their own defensive lethargy and the noted Chicago spunkiness, and with 7:43 remaining in the half Jones called a rally-the-troops 20-second timeout when a deep jumper by Kyle Macy gave the stubborn Bulls a 43-41 lead. Whatever K.C. said in that little briefing was effective, because when the Celtics came back on the floor they were notably more intense defensively (the offense had not been the problem, anyway).

Jerry Sichting, who came off the bench to connect on three of four first- half jumpers, started Boston off with a foul line jumper emanating from superb ball movement. Over the next three-plus minutes, the Celtics methodically began to asert themselves, until a pair of free throws by Bird capped the run and made it 51-43, Boston.

The rest of the quarter belonged to Bird. After a slow offensive start, Larry got rolling with a step-back three-pointer from the right corner that gave Boston its largest lead to that point, a nine-point bulge at 54-45. Before the period was over, he would connect on two more long jumpers. After scoring two points in the first 17 minutes, he scored 11 in the final 3:47. In addition, he set up Boston's halftime spread when he sneaked up on Charles Oakley from behind for a steal that sprung Dennis Johnson for a sneakaway lay- up with 26 seconds to go.

The Celtics played very little of whay you might call your basic hunkering down defense in the opening quarter, allowing the Bulls an unlimited number of medium-range jumpers. Hence a 32-31 one-quarter Boston lead.

Once again, Boston was able to satisfy its basic offensive wishes. The Bulls seemed intent on not letting Bird beat them from any angle, checking him with two men every time he received the ball. The end results were nicely- swung passes to the far side and some open jumpers by Ainge. When that wasn't taking place, Parish and McHale were posting up any time they pleased.

The best all this offensive firepower could get the Celtics in the quarter were three six-point leads, however, and the Bulls weren't fazed by any of those. Boston exerted minimal external pressure, hardly contesting the ballhandlers and worrying not at all about passing lanes. Their big folks are all perimeter shooters, and so Oakley burned Bird, Banks burned Parish and Green burned McHale with 15-footers throughout a quarter in which Chicago shot 67 percent (14-21).

Sichting Compares KG to Bird, Cassell Compares KG to Hakeem

St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Copyright 2004 Saint Paul Pioneer Press
May 4, 2004
Section: Sports
GARNETT SIMILAR TO BIRD, OLAJUWON


Only a select few in the Timberwolves organization know first-hand what it's like to bask in the reflected glory of an NBA most valuable player.

In his rookie season of 1993-94, Sam Cassell played with Hakeem Olajuwon in Houston when the center took home the award. Backup center Oliver Miller played with 1992-93 winner Charles Barkley in Phoenix. And Timberwolves assistant coach Jerry Sichting played with Larry Bird for the last of Bird's three consecutive MVP seasons in 1985-86.

And those few think newly minted MVP Kevin Garnett ranks with any of them.

"There's a lot of similarities," Sichting said Monday of Bird and Garnett. "They're both highly competitive, both team leaders, emotional leaders. Both multifaceted, great players that most of the time control the game. Kevin is a better athlete. They're both real good team defenders, but Kevin is one of the best team defenders that I've ever seen."

"He's up there with Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler," Cassell said, though Drexler never won the MVP trophy. "It's tough to say who is No. 1, who is No. 2, who is No. 3. Kevin's preparation before a game reminds me of Hakeem. His will to win reminds me of Clyde Drexler. It was an honor to play with Hakeem and Clyde. Being Kevin's teammate takes a load off my back. And I think I take a load off his back."

The common denominator seems to be this: The MVPs tend to have a maniacal work ethic and the will to win, generally lifting the level of their teammates -- though those teammates usually don't have a choice in the matter.

"When your best player is out there practicing harder than everyone else, and being competitive and diving on the floor, everybody else just kind of steps right in line," Sichting said. "You don't have to wonder what you're going to get from your best player, because you know every game what you're going to get. You're going to get an unbelievable effort."

Getting to the point: While Sacramento likely will send the bigger Doug Christie at Cassell to disrupt the point guard's rhythm, Wolves coach Flip Saunders doesn't expect to alter his defensive matchups to throw off red-hot Kings point guard Mike Bibby.

"By going bigger, what we're doing is taking away our best defender (Trenton Hassell) from guarding the second-leading scorer in the league (Peja Stojakovic), which we're not going to do," Saunders said. "And we don't want to put Sam matched up too much with Christie, because Christie's going to be around the bucket a lot, and we aren't going to be able to get out and run our breaks. We'll probably stay matched up the way we are."

Sichting Getting his Groove on for 86 Cs

It's as if Jerry Sichting was item 4638-A in some basketball catalog.

Experienced jump shooter. A bit on the small side, but compensates with decent quickness and above-average intelligence. When going right, drains 20- footers the way others make uncontested layups. Tired of watching the play- offs, and could be just the right item to augment an inside-oriented attack for some championship contender.

And so the Celtics, tired of seeing their big men constantly double-teamed, bought one. There was no money-back guarantee, but even if there were, Sichting wouldn't be going anyplace. He has found a home in Boston.

At first, nobody was sure how good he was. He scored in double figures during just two of the first 30 Celtics games. Now the wondering is over. Jerry Sichting will take the floor tonight against the Clippers (7:30, SportsChannel) on the crest of a major wave. In the past seven games, he has averaged 11 points with 67 percent (32-for-48) shooting while playing 24 minutes a game. Sichting open from 20 has become the most welcome sight on the team.

"If he is open," says Larry Bird, "we have got to find him. If they're double-teaming, you've gotta get the ball to him. It's that simple. I don't care if he winds up taking 30 shots a game. That's what we got him for, and that's what he does best."

The 6-foot-1-inch Sichting's attitude toward his current blissful state of affairs lies somewhere between matter-of-fact and let's-throw-a-party. Of his recent great shooting, he says, "It's a nice groove, but I've been in one like this a couple of times before. There were a couple of times in college (Purdue) when I'd go through seven or eight games and shoot close to 70 percent. I live and die with the jump shot, and I will go hot and cold."

But the large picture has him truly excited. "Coming to the Celtics has worked out exactly the way I expected it to," he says. "The guys get you the ball when you're open on offense and cover up for you on defense. I'm not the greatest one-on-one defensive player in the world, but on this team, everyone sloughs and helps out on defense so well that I can't remember being burned. We try to play as close to a zone as possible and stay within the legal limits. Then we've got three shot blockers in Robert (Parish), Kevin (McHale) and Bill (Walton) to back me up."

Sichting's early problems reflected the reality of the Celtics' situation, which is that the first offensive thought generally is to get the ball inside. When to shoot and when to pass is often a difficult judgment on this team. "We don't run many plays for the guards," Sichting says, "but we see so much double-teaming that you can get open. When we pass the ball the way we did in the fourth quarter against Indiana, we're very tough to beat."

Sichting's breakthrough came around New Year's Day, and during the past two months he's become a major offensive weapon. "Guys are looking for him," says K.C. Jones, "and that's got to make him feel better."

Adds Sichting, "Once you have two or three good games, your confidence soars. And then you start getting some lucky bounces, too."

Above all, Sichting is grateful to be a Celtic. The contrast between his old and new team was very evident Sunday night in Hartford when Indiana played well for three periods before being blown out by the Celtics. "I felt sorry for them," Sichting says. "I knew in the fourth quarter that if it were close at all, we'd win. For some reason, teams like that don't win those games. I just thanked God I was wearing a white uniform instead of a blue one."

Given that he had shot 5 for 6 in that game, he wasn't alone.

The Last Championship Parade

The Celtics caravan turned onto Congress Street, and the people followed, filling the parade valley behind. Police, wood stands and two fire trucks blockaded the team from its fans, but there was no evidence of violence at the end of this rowdy ride.

The players jumped off the backs of the trucks, turning to catch their children. Each heard his named called over and over. Equipment manager Wayne Lebeaux was first up the City Hall Plaza stairs, carrying the Lawrence O'Brien championship trophy like his newborn baby. Next was David Thirdkill, then K.C. Jones and Scott Wedman and Kevin McHale in hard hat and glasses, carrying 1- year-old son Michael.

A pink string was stuck across announcer Johnny Most's forehead as he strode upstairs, followed by team owner Don Gaston and Greg Kite and Bill Walton, who was carrying a beer, wearing the obligatory Grateful Dead T-shirt and still celebrating -- pausing at each platform to pump his fists to the crowd below.

Jerry Sichting was dressed obviously, playing to the hilt his role as the newest Celtic: He wore green cap, green T-shirt and sunglasses. Gov. Dukakis and Mayor Flynn were waiting under cover at the top of the stairs to greet everyone.

Auerbach looked upon the thousands dressed in white and green. "Celtics pride," he said after the mayor had given him two boxes of victory cigars. "That's where it is, right out there. The Celtics thank you, the players thank you, the owners, everybody thanks you."

"We're going to do it again next year," yelled Kite, carrying a smile away to the corner of the stage. He has won two championships and played in three NBA Finals in his three Celtics seasons.

"I'm 1 for 1," Sam Vincent said. "Next year it'll be 2 for 2."

"I feel no pain," said Scott Wedman, who missed most of the Finals with broken ribs. "Thank you."

"This is the greatest," Danny Ainge said after whooping it up. "You guys refused to let us lose. Thank you very much."

"Give yourself a round of applause," said Parish, who carried his Chief calm through even this party. "You've been great all year."

"Yeah, let's do it again," McHale yelled.

Walton, autographing someone's back, was next was ushered to the podium.

"Where's the beer?" he yelled to the people (he and other Celtics had gone on the wagon in pursuit of this championship).

"It starts on defense," Walton said. "You've got our little guys, Dennis Johnson, Sichting and Danny Ainge. And they're constantly running in and out and darting here and there, chasing the ball everywhere you throw it. They're going to make steals, they're going to dive for loose balls, they're going to make you absolutely miserable. If the other team got past them, Robert, Kevin, and I were there to clean up."

The crowd started yelling.

"What?" Walton exclaimed.

"Did I forget someone?"

"It was another special year for you-know-who." marveled Bill Walton. "His hands were everywhere. Steals. Rebounds. Passes. You just feel great to be a part of it. One of the main reasons I came to Boston was to have the chance to play with this guy. I didn't want to play with McHale. But you take the bad with the good. Hell, I'll pay the Celtics to be Bird's caddy again next year."

That comment doubled the decibel level.

The chant began before he even joined Johnny Most at the podium.

LAR-EE LAR-EE LAR-EE

Deafening at first, it became thunderous once McHale and Walton took turns leading the chorus.

LAR-EE LAR-EE LAR-EE

"Thank you, thank you," said Bird, wearing a white cap and sunglasses. "Jerry Sichting might not have been able to whip Ralph Sampson, but I know I can. Akeem Olajuwon never heard of Celtics tradition, but I bet he's had sleepless nights the last couple of days."

86 Cs 20-2 Since Christmas

The Celtics are 20-2 since Christmas. There are two major differences between the Boston team that went 4-5 in December and the team that beat Los Angeles in the Forum yesterday: Larry Bird is playing like his old MVP self, and Boston's bench is playing and producing.

Bird was shooting less than 45 percent after the Celts were humiliated in New York on Christmas Day. He has relocated his long-range game, and since the Celts hit the Coast he's improved the rest of his attack. Bird is averaging 32.3 points, 14.5 rebounds and 8 assists in four games out West thus far.

Meanwhile, the famed "Green Team" (they wear the green jerseys in practice) is providing the kind of depth Red Auerbach and Jan Volk sought last summer.

Bill Walton (26 minutes) rescued foul-plagued Robert Parish yesterday; Jerry Sichting drilled four big jumpers in the first half; David Thirdkill drew some tough defensive assignments and hit a big three-point play at the end of the third; and Rick Carlisle had his best pro game -- 5 of 7 from the floor, 10 points in 11 minutes. Even Greg Kite chipped in. He mugged Mike McGee after Byron Scott hit Sichting with a cheap shot.

"Our bench now shows that it can do the job," said K.C. Jones. "It has been that way since Christmas. They now can control the offense."

"They're deeper than they were last year," said Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. "They now have more guys that can play 48 minutes."

Magic Johnson Gives 86 Cs Some Props

Before Game 1, Lakers Fans and Players were Pondering where the 1986 Purple would be Ranked Among the All-Time Great Teams. After Game 2, not so much.

K.C. Jones was the best basketball coach on the planet yesterday. While Riley inexplicably buried Maurice Lucas (six minutes, none in the second half), Jones went to his second unit and found ways to build a lead with folks named Jerry Sichting, Rick Carlisle and David Thirdkill on the floor. Boston's coach could not miss.

The Celtics' outside shooters were equally torrid. With McHale on the shelf and Parish in foul trouble, the Celtics abandoned their post-up game and kicked the ball around for a succession of wide-open jumpers. DJ (23 points), Scott Wedman, Sichting and Carlisle made LA pay for its sagging defense.

"They do a lot of doubling down low," said Sichting, who drilled four jumpers in the first half. "They gamble and leave guys open. If you've got good ball movement, and you're careful with your passing, you can exploit that."

DJ carried the Celtics in the first quarter. Parish went out after picking up his second foul in the sixth minute, but DJ scored 12 points and gave Boston a 30-29 lead with a short jumper at the end of the period. LA never led the rest of the way.

Carlisle (10 points in 11 minutes) and Wedman shot the Celtics to a five- point lead early in the second. Parish played less than two minutes of the period before picking up his third foul, but it didn't matter. Walton (10 points, 7 rebounds in 26 minutes) was there.

A flurry of ugly incidents marred the second period. First, Byron Scott cracked Sichting wih a forearm shiver. Scott picked up a technical. Then Greg Kite bear-hugged Mike McGee as McGee attempted a layup. James Worthy and Magic gave Kite some lip service before things calmed down.

"It didn't surprise me," said the ever-persecuted Abdul-Jabbar. "They're known as a cheap-shot team."

A buzzer-beating tap-in by Bird gave Boston a 58-55 halftime lead.

DJ (the sport's best big-game guard?) drove the visitors to a 71-59 lead early in the third before Parish picked up two fouls in four seconds and returned to the bench. The Celts closed the quarter with four subs on the floor, and took an 86-80 lead on a three-point play by Thirdkill.

Everything worked for Boston. By the time the fourth quarter started, it was obvious that the dazzling Worthy (35 points) was LA's only offensive threat. Abdul-Jabbar (only two points in the final period) was unable to do anything with Walton, and failed to exploit Parish when the Chief finally reappeared.

Boston led by 10 after Carlisle swished a hideous shot-clock-beating fallaway from the left corner. "It would have been a three-pointer, but my feet are too big (15 1/2) for me to be outside the three-point line and still stay inbounds," joked Carlisle. "I learned the shot from DJ."

LA trimmed the lead to four (100-96) with 3:52 left, but DJ answered with a line-drive jumper from the right corner. Then the Lakers decomposed. They missed 10 consecutive shots, turned it over twice and failed to inbound within five seconds. Is it any wonder that the Forum front-runners fled?

"There's no excuse," said Magic. "They are the better team right now. We've got to get our game together before the play-offs, but right now Boston is a much better team."

Midseason Look at 1986 Cs

Boston has won eight in a row and 12 of 13 since losing five of nine in December. The Celts are 33-8 at the midpoint and have regained the NBA's best record. The Sons of K.C. Jones are 5 1/2 games ahead of the Philadelphia 76ers and have two fewer losses than the Lakers. LA has lost four of five, including a 15-point blowout at the hands of the Celts last Wednesday. Philly has won 17 of 20 but couldn't beat the Kevin McHaleless Bostonians on Super Sunday.

- Bird's shooting -- He should win a third straight MVP. The total game never abandoned him, but he wasn't the same force without his long-range weaponry. Sunday's third-quarter, three-point-shot barrage against the Sixers was vintage Bird. His back/elbow/finger must be feeling much better.

- The development of Bill Walton as a big-game/late-game force -- Walton never played poorly, but only in the last week has he asserted himself at crunch time against the iron. The Walton who swatted seven Laker shots in 16 minutes, then scored 19 points with 13 rebounds against the Sixers would be a major difference in this year's play-off push.

- The bench -- Jerry Sichting is shooting 55 percent. He's learned to pick his spots with the shot and forced Laker coach Pat Riley to admit, "They have the cannons now, and they didn't have them last year." After a horrendous start, Scott Wedman is playing the best ball of his four-year Celtic career, filling in the for the injured McHale. Meanwhile, David Thirdkill looks like a player. He's silently shooting 56 percent and spent 18 minutes guarding Julius Erving Sunday. Look for Thirdkill to get more quality minutes against high-scoring forwards. He could turn out to be the backup small forward the Celts hoped Sly Williams would be.

'86 Cs Win (32-8), Only One Game Behind '08 Cs

Green Improves to 32-8

This was a night when season ticket holders "rewarded" their garage mechanics, mailmen, and friends. Go ahead, take the tickets, enjoy the game.

The Celtics played the Golden State Warriors, a team whose coach (John Bach) looks like Spiro Agnew and spends most of his time pleading nolo contendere.

The last-place Warriors are 2-23 on the road and haven't won in Boston Garden since one month before the blizzard of '78.

The Celts drubbed the woeful visitors, 135-114, last night. It was Boston's seventh straight victory and 11th in 12 games.

This was supposed to be the soft center between LA (Wednesday) and Philadelphia (tomorrow) and it lived up to its billing. Kevin McHale took the night off due to a sore left Achilles tendon. Several other players took the night off, and most of them were on the floor wearing Warrior uniforms. Warrior center Joe Barry Carroll shot 2 for 14 and scored six points in 33 lethargic minutes.

Robert Parish, who toiled four years in Oakland before his emancipation, said, "I can relate to what they're going through now. It was like that the last year I was there. They were flat tonight. They weren't very aggressive at all."

The Celts never trailed after 6-4. Boston led, 37-27, at the end of one quarter and 63-53 at the half. It was 93-78 at the end of three periods, and fans were chanting "Beat Those Bears" with four minutes left.

Larry Bird led the Celts with 25 points (his 15th straight game over 20). Starting in place of McHale, Scott Wedman scored 21 with a season-high 13 rebounds. David Thirdkill came off the bench to score a career-high 20 in 22 minutes.

It was bombs away from the outset. While an alleged sellout sat in stony silence, the Celtics and Warriors ran up and down the floor like 10 doctors from the Ernie DeGregorio School of Defense.

Bird and Wedman made three-pointers in the first period shootout. At the other end, the Celts were lazy boxing out and Larry Smith (10 points in the quarter) got some garbage off the offensive board.

Chris Mullin (24 points) made his Garden pro debut with 2:11 left in the first. Boston led by four at that juncture.

Less than a minute later, Bill Walton came off after taking a shot to the nose. Walton has broken his nose at least 11 times in his career and twice this season. Last night's incident did not result in a break, but Walton went to the trainer's room for the rest of the first half.

Dennis Johnson, Jerry Sichting (5-5) and Parish ran it up to 37-27 at the end of one. The Celtics shot 63 percent (17-27) and committed only one turnover in the first 12 minutes.

K.C. Jones had Sam Vincent, Thirdkill, Greg Kite, Sichting and Wedman on the floor at the start of the second. Wedman hit three jumpers in 63 seconds and Boston led, 43-27. Bring on the Sixers.

After missing his first three shots, Mullin scored on a follow drive. Then Jones started to filter the starters back into the lineup, and you could almost hear them groaning as they approached the scorer's table.

The Warriors clawed back and cut it to four on a jumper by Sleepy Floyd (19), but the Celts ripped off six in a row to go back ahead by 10. The Warriors did not score a basket in the final 2:51 of the half and Boston led, 63-53, at intermission.

Danny Ainge carried Boston to an 83-65 lead in the third, but Boston got lazy again and the Warriors staved off the blowout for a few more minutes.

Walton returned with some stuffing in his nostrils and teamed with Thirdkill to push the lead back to 15 at the end of three.

Walton (six assists in 12 minutes) did some nice Johnny Kerr-esque high post passing in the fourth as the Celtics' lead approached 20. A Walton dunk made it 101-82 with 9:45 left. With 8:28 left, Sichting hit an open jumper (there was no other variety last night) and the lead went to 21. Thirdkill was just getting warmed up.