Sixers Slam Celts

April 10, 1985

76ERS FLATTEN CELTICS

Playing as if the Polk County championship were at stake, the Celtics were beaten, 113-104, by the Philadelphia 76ers last night.

Two days after exhausting his frontcourt for a hollow victory against the hopeless Knicks, coach K.C. Jones finally decided it was garbage time. With everything virtually wrapped up and four games to play, Jones chose the Spectrum as the site of Boston's first stretch-drive snore.

It's a prudent tactic at this juncture, but one that goes against every fiber of Larry Bird's being.

Carlisle Steals the Show, Outscores Sampson

October 11, 1984

CARLISLE STEALS SHOW; CELTICS WIN, 124-105

This town has been good to the Celtics. A couple of youngsters named Bob Cousy and Tom Heinsohn developed their skills near the shores of the muddy Blackstone River and went on from Holy Cross to enjoy years of green glory in Boston.

The Celtics gave a little back last night - treating Central Mass. legions to one of the more attractive matchups on Boston's preseason barnstoming tour: a date with ex-Celtic czar Bill Fitch and his World Trade Center Houston Rockets.

Jordan Airball Allows C's to Escape

2/6/1985

CELTICS ESCAPE BULLS AFTER JORDAN'S AIRBALL, 110-106

CHICAGO

The Second City Hoop Renaissance is making Chicago a dangerous NBA outpost once again.

The Celts escaped from archaic Chicago Stadium with a 110-106 victory over the Bulls last night, but no one enjoys the thought of seven games in May against the NBA's Young and Restless.

Bird averaging 38 against Dr. J

January 21, 1985

BIRD - ARTISTRY AND ARTILLERY

The wonder of Larry Bird is that we have known him for six years and he still surprises us. When all has been said and certainly all must have been done, something new flashes across the parquet, maybe something big or maybe something small, but Bird is there doing what hasn't been done. Again.

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.

Celtics, Sixers Series Getting Testy

May 21, 1985

Things that would be quickly forgotten during the regular season become magnified during a seven-game NBA playoff series. It's all a part of analysis paralysis and familiarity breeding contempt.

Elbows in the stomach, taunting towels from the sideline and dramatic dunks in your face are tougher to take when you've been looking at the same elbow, towel and dunker for more than a week.

All of which explains why the Celtics are talking trash again. They heaped praise and respect on the Philadelphia 76ers while winning three straight, but Sunday's 115-104 Philadelphia victory in the Spectrum cut Boston's series lead to 3-1 and left a sour taste in the Celtics' ever-moving mouths.

"They did some things in the end that fired us up," Cedric Maxwell said Sunday.

Celts Batter Sixers, Go Up 3-0

May 19, 1985

CELTICS BATTER SIXERS IN GAME 3

PHILADELPHIA

It is every Sixer-hater's dream come true. The Celtics are playing their best basketball of the season at the precise moment when it matters most, while Philly flounders in a Steinbrenner-like seizure of panic and pity.

Celtics add Sichting

10/3/85

Celtics Acquire Sichting

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.

Bill Walton: From Patty Hearst to the Greatful Dead

September 13, 1985

Bill Walton: From Patty Hearst to the Greatful Dead -- This Should be an Interesting Ride

He somehow seems to be a friend from another time, a face at a college reunion. He is a stranger, yet he is familiar. Very familiar. The red hair. The voice. The long-man, tall-man body.

"Aren't you . . . ?" you want to say.

Sure he is.

"Didn't you . . . ?"

Sure he did.

"What about Patty Hearst?"

Um. Never mind.

Lakers Pass on Bill

9/29/1985

Lakers on Walton: He Failed Our Physical

The Lakers still claim that Walton failed their physical and that Walton is suffering from three injuries: 1) bilateral spurs in both heels; 2) spurs in both ankle joints, and 3) an unhealed fracture in his wrist.

"Those things are true," Leach said. "He has an unhealed navicular fracture, but I think he's had it 11 years. There's no question he has spurs in a number of areas. He does not have normal feet. But there aren't any absolutes, except when an athlete tells you he has so much pain that he can't play."

Upon hearing LA's medical report on Walton, Atlanta general manager Stan Kasten said, "It doesn't matter. The Celtics signing him is like the guy going to Lourdes. It'll be instant recovery with their luck."

Celtics Ink #5

September 7, 1985

WALTON INTRODUCED AS NEWEST CELTIC

He was a coveted coin-flip draft pick and a league MVP before broken bones broke his promise. Now he is a Celtic, and he has a chance to play in "the big games" for the first time since his major injury of 1978.

After two months of excruciating negotiations (stretching back to the days when the Red Sox were pennant contenders, if you can remember that far back), 6-foot-11-inch center Bill Walton officially joined the Boston Celtics yesterday. He was acquired from the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for eight-year veteran Cedric Maxwell, plus the Celtics' 1986 No. 1 draft pick and cash.

Say it Ain't So

September 7, 1985

SAY IT AIN'T SO: BILL WALTON IS FINALLY A CELTIC

So it's done. With only slightly less fanfare than the Allies received when they liberated Paris, Bill Walton has finally become a Celtic.

Presumably, this is Part One of a two-part Celtic master plan. Getting Walton is (pick one) wonderful, phantasmagorical, exhilarating, totally awesome. However, the question remains: Who's gonna guard Bernard King?

Maxwell-for-Walton Still on Hold

9/6/85

The Bill Walton deal is on hold because the Los Angeles Clippers keep clipping him and and the Celtics aren't kicking in any more money. Walton is owed a substantial amount of deferred compensation. When the trade that would send him to Boston first started to jell, the Clippers told him he would have to leave a chunk behind before they let him go. Walton said OK. Then they squeezed him for more, which caused a hangup. When that cleared last week and the trade looked like a reality, they pushed the price up a third time, which brought the entire matter to a halt. The total is now in six figures. One might call it a form of pro sports leg breaking.

Volk Announces Trade . . . not Involving Maxwell or Walton

9/4/85

Drained from another 12-hour day of negotiating, general manager Jan Volk emerged from a smoke-filled room with the announcement that the Celtics had traded Quinn Buckner to the Indiana Pacers for an option on a second-round pick to be exercised between now and 1990.

Huh?

"This is not the announcement you were expecting," admitted Volk.

Walton Watch Whispers

September 3, 1985

WALTON WATCH QUIET

Which will come first: Pete Rose's record-breaking hit, or the completion of the Cedric Maxwell-for-Bill Walton trade?

Yesterday was another slow day for those on the Walton watch. Celtics general manager Jan Volk did not report to the office, but has scrapped vacation plans until the deal is done.

Meanwhile, Walton was participating in a celebrity bike race in Los Angeles, while Maxwell and his agent, Ron Grinker, canceled plans to fly to LA today for a news conference.

The latest snag in the talks involves deferred money, which the Clippers have asked Walton to waive. A source close to the talks claims that Walton originally agreed to waive $75,000, but that the new contract issued Sunday called for him to waive $119,000.

Bill Walton Yearns for Boston?

September 2, 1985

A FEW TIPS FOR BILL WALTON

In my life, I have known all types of people, including some who couldn't be typed, but I have only two friends who had been Californians and have moved to Boston. One never can be sure, but both seem happy.

Every once in a while, almost compulsively, I ask these two people how they find Boston and whether they miss California. I ask this question more than I should. It's not that I suspect them of dishonesty when they say they are here to stay, but I wonder whether they are telling the truth. There is a difference.

I bring this up because of all the pictures during the last few days of Bill Walton in Boston and how much he says he wants to play here. I don't know if Bill Walton is the last person I expected to yearn for Boston, but he's not far behind Tommy Lasorda, President Reagan and E.T. Of course, yearning for New England in August and September is easy and quite common; February is half a year away, backward and forward. So is the slush.

When the press conference is held and Bill Walton is actually here, many questions will be asked of Celtics' pride, playing with Larry Bird and aches and pains, but I will merely endure those. There will be time for that talk in October when the season approaches. What I want to know now is how many times Bill Walton has been in Boston in the cold hollow of winter. Eight? Ten? Twelve?

I recall an interview with Fred Lynn just after he had left the Red Sox for the Angels, and when the baseball talk was done, Lynn spoke of Boston and what he missed. The interview, it should be noted, was held in February, but it was in Palm Springs. The sky was cloudless and the temperature was in the 80s.

"I know what I won't miss about Boston," said Lynn, who knew Boston only at its best, the warm months. "What I never got used to was those traffic circles - there are no traffic circles in California."

So it will be the small things. Walton has been going to work the last few years in San Diego and Los Angeles, punching in at bright, spiffy buildings, punching out to return home on the freeways, which take you from here to there. In this area, no roads take you directly from here to there unless you live atop Exit 17 on the Mass Pike in Newton and you wish to dine with a friend who lives atop Exit 18. Give yourself three years to learn the streets and highways.

And the few highways we have are not called freeways here, although they are called many names. They are always clogged, if not with cars, then with Jersey barriers for the repair work that, like a soap opera, never ends and never makes a point. And if the forecast is for rain, you must remember never to walk under the T tracks or park your car in the Boston Garden lot under the highway ramps. Water cascades down from those places during rainstorms, atop your car and head, much like Niagara Falls through a funnel.

Remember: Park your car under cover on clear days and in the open on rainy days. It sounds confusing, but you will be a drier man for it. And plunge through those traffic circles that Fred Lynn despised, glancing neither left nor right, the Boston way. Only tourists and clergymen hesitate at rotaries.

Be prepared for the fans. They are eager to make you a god and, while you already may have been one in Los Angeles during and just after those UCLA years and may be experienced in these matters, the Celtics already have one. This means that both you and he are expected to summon forth a championship on demand, much like UCLA. Boston is keen on the past, sometimes forgetting that time passes and things age. People, too. Understand.

Protect your feet. Always wear two pairs of socks, because there is ice under the Garden floor, except during the play-offs, when both the ice and the Bruins are usually gone earlier than the Celtics. And be very careful in the locker room because (a) it is small and (b) the Boston media is large, and you will be in imminent danger of having your toes stepped on after a game; the best advice is to practice the lotus position for a few minutes after practice, always curling your feet in and not out.

On your days off, go to Vermont; it's much like Oregon with snow. But on your nights off, do not go to Fenway Park and a Red Sox game unless it is early spring and the season has not yet ended. Theirs.

This is exciting. If the small things are handled well and not allowed to nag, this could be agreeable to all. Bill Walton in Boston, Horace Greeley in reverse, a Californian coming east. The common sociological cliche is that the restless and unsettled are most apt to migrate to California, and perhaps its opposite is also true - that the most settled leave there for here.

Is Bill Walton an Empty Promise?

September 1, 1985

WALTON IS FULL OF TALENT, BUT IS HE AN EMPTY PROMISE?

No one is neutral on Bill Walton.

Walk into any sports saloon and the "Tastes Great" guys will tell you that Walton is one of the best centers who ever played, while the "Less Filling" guys will say Walton is a hypochondriac - an overrated counterculture con artist.

Maxwell for Walton: An Exchange of Question Marks?

September 1, 1985

MAXWELL-FOR-WALTON WOULD BE AN EXCHANGE OF QUESTION MARKS

Bill Walton for Cedric Maxwell. If and when it happens, it's the trade of the NBA off-season and will be debated from coast to coast until both players are through playing basketball. It would be a rare swap of two name players (both in their 30s), each of whom has a plaque at home that reads "NBA Championship Series MVP."

Red has had Enough with Cornbread

August 30, 1985

The writings for Cedric Maxwell were in sand, subject to either wind or water. There was nothing written in cement until this week, when some sayings passed from the lips of Ron Grinker to the rest of the free world.

Celtics Breathe Life into Maxwell-for-Walton Rumors

August 29, 1985

The never-ending Cedric Maxwell-for-Bill Walton trade rumor got some new life yesterday.

When Celtic general manager Jan Volk was asked Tuesday if the deal was dead, he replied, "The heart monitor is still on, but we've got a straight line."

Yesterday Volk admitted having new conversations about Walton with the Clippers, and added, "We've got a small blip on the screen now."

Maxwell's agent, Ron Grinker, said, "I think (the Celtics) have made a decision that they would like to move Max and I think it's just a matter of time. I think the deal has to happen.

"Max wants to play professional basketball and he wants to be respected. If he can't get it in Boston, he will play wherever that may be. The whole thing has been distasteful and taken too long."

Meanwhile, officials in Cleveland and Los Angeles admitted that they've talked about a deal that would send Walton to the Cavaliers. Walton has told reporters that he doesn't want to play in Cleveland, and the Cavs are not interested unless Walton changes his mind.

Ray Williams' agent yesterday confirmed a report that the Celtics are not interested in the 30-year-old free agent guard.

"The Celtics have indicated to us that they've lost interest," agent Fred Slaughter said. "I think the Celtics lost interest in Ray about the third or fourth game of the Laker series. Thereafter, there was nothing he could do."

Boston won't release Williams. The Celts gave up two draft picks (second rounders to New York) to sign Williams in February and want compensation if Williams comes to terms with a new team.

Slaughter also represents free agent guard Dennis Johnson. "I've asked DJ to remain cordial with Jan and Red (Auerbach)," said Slaughter. "The Celtics seem interested in keeping Dennis. We've had some discussions, and there'll be more discussions."

Slaughter said that five teams have expressed interest in signing DJ, but added, "The consensus seems to be that anything he'd sign would be automatically matched by Boston. But if a handsome offer sheet is out there, we'll do an offer sheet."

Finally, it has been learned that Sam Vincent's three-year contract is worth $525,000, not $600,000 as reported by Vincent. Slaughter (also Vincent's agent) said, "Sam got a little confused talking to you guys. That figure ($600,000) represents the amount of disability insurance the Celtics took out on him."

So what are the terms, Fred?

"Can't tell you," said Slaughter. "Red will hurt me. He'll blow smoke in my face."