'86 Cs Begin ECFs with 32-Point Blowout

Bird & Co. Pick Up against Bucks Where they Left Off against Hawks The days and nights of the next week suddenly stretch forever for the Milwaukee Bucks. Tomorrow is a hundred years away and Saturday is a thousand and Sunday is unthinkable.

Time stands still when you are manacled to a prison wall. "How can we stand this?" they have to ask after last night, Game 1 of the best-of-seven NBA Eastern final playoff series at Boston Garden. "How can we survive? How?" The final score is not the embarrassment -- Boston 128, Milwaukee 96. The game is the embarrassment. The way the Bucks played. The way the Celtics played. The way there is no hope, none whatsoever, nothing. 

 "How do we make this series interesting?" the average Celtics fan was asking after leaving last night's carnage. "Do we have the Celtics play with four men? Or do we have them play with three? Do we make the Celtics play in cordovan loafers? Do we send the starting five for a Miami Beach vacation? Do we simply hand the Bucks 50 points at the start of each game, a handicap event for the Celts? What?" 

The poor Bucks appear to be locked into a dark room with a hive full of killer bees and a couple of buzz saws. Goodness. They seem to be caught in the leakiest of boats with only a soup spoon to bail them out. Not listening to country and western advice, they seem to be roller skating in a buffalo herd.

 They may have been tired from the seven nights of effort against the Philadelphia 76ers and they may have been missing star Sidney Moncrief and forward Terry Cummings' finger might have been swollen to the size of a baseball bat, but . . . but, really. They looked as lost on the parquet floor last night as any group of Indiana Pacers, any LA/San Diego Clippers, any CYO wonder five from Herkimer, N.H., ever looked. Goodness. 

 They scored 12 points in an entire first period of basketball, tying a record for an NBA playoff game. They once trailed, 41-14. They once trailed, 45-16. They once trailed, 53-27. They once trailed . . . you get the idea. They brought a new look to the playoff definition of "blowout."

 More than any sports team, they resembled Walter Mondale on election night, sitting there at home with the popcorn and television, finding that the election was badly lost before 99 percent of the polls had closed. Goodness. "What else is there we can try?" the Bucks have to ask. "What can we do?" Don Nelson has about a thousand different lineup combinations he can use and he tried them all.

 He tried a lot of big people at one time. He tried a lot of small people at one time. He tried big people and small people and in- between people. He tried people who bumped. He tried people who fell down every time they were bumped. He tried people who like to shoot three-point field goals. 

He tried people who can only shoot three-inch field goals. Who was left? He did not try the trainer. He did not try the assistant coach or himself. That was all. "How many more games of this do we have to play?" the poor Bucks have to ask. 

"Three. We have to play three? Couldn't this be a best-of-five, a best- of-three? Couldn't -- hey, let's call the whole thing off -- this be a best-of-one? Isn't that what they do in football? Couldn't that have been the Super Bowl?" 

Maybe that is a good analogy. Suppose the Super Bowl had been a best-of- seven. Suppose the Patriots had to play the Chicago Bears at least three more times before they could return to hearth and kin. Goodness. Just suppose. 

Could the Patriots have been able to look at three more consecutive appearances of Mr. Richard Dent and Mr. William Perry? Goodness. The Milwaukee Bucks hit 17 percent of their shots in that dismal first quarter, 37.5 percent for the game. 

The Milwaukee Bucks hit three of their first 10 foul shots. How tired could they have been? Could they have been that tired? "I think we just tried too hard," forward Cummings said. "If you get up for a game you just don't play very well and there's nothing you really can do about it." 

Were they too ready, too high? Was that it? Could that have been it? Were they too low, too flat, emotionally drained? Was that it? What? "It sure looks like an emotional letdown," coach Don Nelson said.

  "Judging by the lopsided score and the fact that we didn't play well, it sure looks that way." What can Nelson do? What can the Bucks do? Is Sidney Moncrief -- good as he is -- able to stop a 41-16 start to a basketball game? Can minds and psyches be repaired in that sort of a hurry, while-U-wait, as easily as a pair of Cat's Paw heels?

  What alternatives are there? What chance? The only nagging memory that can give the Bucks any hope at all is the memory of the first game of the NBA finals a year ago, Boston 148, Los Angeles Lakers 114. 

Didn't the Celtics have the same kind of dance in that game? Didn't the Lakers come back and win in the end, not even needing a seventh game? Couldn't the Bucks do the same thing? Couldn't they? "Sure we could," they have to say, waking this morning in their chains. "That's the ticket, sure we could. We could do what the Lakers did with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and with Magic Johnson. Sure we could." The only problem is that they don't have Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the bench and they don't have Magic and they don't have hope. One game into the playoffs and the Bucks have to know -- as anyone who was at the Garden last night knows -- they are hanging in the wind.

Basketball Clinic #2

Basketball Clinic #1

The Bird-Wilkens Duel History Forgot

16 minutes, 11 points, 8 rebounds, 7 blocks

That Old Loving Feeling

June 10, 1986

    In Sunday's afterbath of a sweet 16th pro basketball championship, with wives hugging trainers and assistant coaches toasting superstars, it was not difficult to ascertain who among the Boston Celtics' family had contracted the most pronounced case of ecstasy. Choices were two.

  "This is unbelievable," Bill Walton, the 33-year-old redhead, was saying over and over again, his left arm extended toward the inner wall of his locker. Beneath him, oblivious to the droplets of perspiration from above, was Nathan Walton, age 7. He never spoke, and only occasionally perked his nose in search of a breath. Mostly, Nathan repeatedly tapped his fist on his father's fanny, an affirmation that daddy hadn't been quite this happy in too long.     "This is everything I ever hoped for, and more," Bill Walton said. "It's more fulfilling, more rewarding, more fun. To have a dream and then to go out and live it. It's just unbelievable."

    On the best team in sports, where whites and blacks and rookies and retreads play for one common banner, Bill Walton's saga was special for its means, if not its end. If one is lucky enough to become a Celtic, then the real flush comes when one feels like a Celtic, fits like a Celtic, stays a
Celtic. Sunday, Bill Walton comprehended that for a basketball lifer, you haven't reached the other side of the fence until you finally wear green.    "Hey, I gotta get on your team," he said, shaking his head, savoring every sweaty minute as Nathan took the shower below without blinking. Bill Walton was recalling a conversation he'd had last summer with Red Auerbach, the baron of Boston basketball. Walton had failed a physical with the Los Angeles Lakers, but Auerbach figured it might work anyway. When Auerbach thinks that, he's seldom wrong.

    So Walton, a preeminant performer with the world champion Portland Trail Blazers in 1977, came aboard. A stress fracture restricted him to 14 games in four years, but Walton had a notion that he hadn't passed the prime of his career, only delayed it. The Portland franchise, which he sued, had retired four numbers from the title team, but not his. San Diego was the next stop, and then he moved with the Clippers to Los Angeles. But the foot wouldn't seem quite right, quite without pain, until it could land a home on the parquet floor.

    Was Robert Parish, the regular center, offended?

    "I visited his home to make sure he'd accept me," said Walton, who took a pay cut in exchange for a spot on the most honored bench this side of the Supreme Court. "I wanted him to feel comfortable with me around."    "I played better this year," admitted Parish, 32, "because I played fewer minutes."

    Was Larry Bird, the heart of the Celtics, cautious?

    "Every American kid in my generation had heard about Bill Walton," said the basic Hoosier hick from French Lick. "Hiding Patty Hearst in the closet, wearing a ponytail and smoking that bang-bang. None of it's true. What's true is that he's the best rebounder in basketball, and a winner. Even if he failed a physical and even if I did carry him on my shoulders all year."

Does Larry Bird love Bill Walton? Does every Celtic love every other Celtic?

After Bird drilled an unconscious three-pointer from the Houston Rockets' bench Sunday, did not the champions-to-be adjourn during a timeout to clutch the first teammate in sight? When the Celtics were in Atlanta, coinciding with the selection of the Hawks' Mike Fratello as NBA Coach of the Year, wasn't that Bird lifting the hand of his coach, his black coach, K.C.Jones, into the air as a touche?

    "This is really very unique here," Walton went on, his huge bandaged body treating a humid afternoon like Nathan might react to a crisp Christmas morning. "I mean, we were all dead tired out there today. Dead tired. Larry had nothing left. Nothing! And then he goes and sinks those three-pointers, and, man, we all know we gotta keep going.  "I was reluctant to leave California because I loved it there, and my family loved it there. But basketball is the most important thing in my life.
My wife and kids don't like that, but that's the way it is. And I had to get on a great team one more time for one more chance at something like this. When you're 23, you think you'll always win. But when you're 33, you wonder if you'll ever win again.

    "Boston. That's why it had to be Boston. All my family has seen the last two years has been the negatives of professional sports. Now my kids can see the positive side. A team like this, it makes all the sacrifices, all the hard work, all the sleepless nights worthwhile. All the mornings you wake up and you feel like you can't go on because you're so beat up."

    Beer. Bill Walton wanted a beer. A bunch of the Celtics had sworn off it in April, just in case they'd need an extra ounce of bounce for an extra loose ball in June. Even Bird surrendered, the same Bird about whom Kevin McHale once said, "His idea of heaven would be a garage filled with Budweiser and every time he drank one, it would be replaced."
   
Bill Walton got his beer Sunday, and so did Larry Bird, and so did they all. The Celtics, a team that money can't buy, had opened up their quarters to the world. It was too busy for them to hug each other now, but as Nathan love-tapped daddy on the behind, and as Dennis Johnson screamed in glee at Jerry Sichting, who was yukking it up with Parish, who was putting on his championship cap, Bill Walton stood there as though he never wanted to leave.

    "I knew we had it when we walked into this room this morning," he said. "I knew it as soon as we all showed up. I knew it when I looked in Larry's eyes. When did it all begin for this team? Probably the day Larry Bird was born."    Of course, it began long before that. The Boston Garden ceiling that is lost behind all the banners tells you that the Celtics have only one prejudice, a prejudice against losing. That's why Bill Walton picked up the phone last summer. In this crusty old building, pride lives.

A Short Recap of the Greatest Show on Earth

July 3, 1986

The Boston Celtics' drive to their 16th NBA title started a year ago when the 1984-85 season and playoffs left the regulars exhausted.

Red had a Knack

July 1, 1986

Everything _ a trade, a draft lottery, a championship _ seems to go Red Auerbach's way. The image persists that his mere touch will turn a valueless object into gold.

It's June 1986 and Bill Walton Envisioned only Endless Blue Skies

June 24, 1986

The smile is irrepressible, and it won't be falling from the face of Bill Walton for a long time.

Having just wound up a season with the Boston Celtics that culminated in an NBA championship, he's feeling so good he can barely contain himself.

At a celebrity tennis tournament at La Costa last week, Walton could not hide how much winning the title means to him. He was quick to add his new-found status to any introduction.

"That's Bill Walton of the WORLD CHAMPION Boston Celtics," he said good-naturedly, obviously proud of the distinction.

The Party Starts Here

June 10, 1986

Bursting with pride and roaring their devotion, a green-tinted, beer-drinking throng of more than a million fans jammed city streets Tuesday to hail the Boston Celtics as the conquering heroes of the National Basketball Association.

Can the Celtics Repeat?

June 10, 1986

Through 82 victories, 67 during the regular season and 15 in the playoffs, Coach K. C. Jones, his aides, and Red Auerbach, the club's president, were repeatedly asked whether the Boston Celtics were the best team ever assembled in the 40-year history of the National Basketball Association.

Larry was King Again

June 9, 1986

    Walking through the joyous Boston Celtics' locker room Sunday was to appreciate the tapestry of a champion.   Woven into the Celtics' 114-97 blowout of the Houston Rockets for the National Basketball Association championship was far more than an abundance of points and rebounds. Somewhere in a dingy catacomb of ancient Boston Garden, somewhere in the most innovative recesses of Red Auerbach's mind, there is a secret, grand design for who and what is a Boston Celtic and why he is the best.

The Legend Continues

June 9, 1986

Legends take root and grow on days like this one in the Boston Garden. Legends of heroism and legends of the opposite sort, too.

With his incineration of the Houston Rockets in the sixth and final game of the NBA finals, Larry Bird added another large page to the resume that he's amassing as the best all-around player in basketball history.

Larry Goes for 16, 8, and 8 in First Half of Championship Clincher

June 9, 1986

Watching Larry Bird perform must be very much like being on the same court with him, only safer. The unfortunate teammate who looks away or relaxes for just an instant may get smacked in the temple with the basketball. Bird doesn't take it well when one of his passes is fumbled out of bounds. He glares disdainfully at the offender.

McHale's Sense of Humor was the Glue

June 6, 1986

    An intangible but unmistakable strength of the Boston Celtics is their great camaraderie, usually expressed in the form of irreverent, biting humor. Personal fouls are a way of life with the Celts, and the No. 1 hatchetman, the jolliest and nastiest of green giants, is forward Kevin McHale.

Walton Outduels Olajuwon

June 4, 1986
The old and the new among elite NBA big men had a fateful meeting under the basket with 1:39 to play in the fourth game of the NBA championship series Tuesday night at The Summit.

Score one for the old big man.

Walton Recovers from Slow Start

June 4, 1986 The Boston Celtics are cooking up another NBA championship, which just might be ready for them Thursday night. Right now, Celtic forward Kevin McHale can smell it.

"Actually, I started smelling it right after the Milwaukee series," McHale said. "We started a couple of blocks away from the bakery, but now we're right outside the front door." 

Within 48 hours, the Celtics could close that door, turn out the lights on the NBA's 40th season and win their 16th championship. All they need is one more victory over the Houston Rockets, whom they beat Tuesday night, 106-103, at the Summit in a game the Rockets desperately needed to win.

With their victory, the Celtics took a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. And thanks to a stunning stretch run by the Celtics, this championship series could end in Game 5 here Thursday night.

At least that's what Celtic guard Dennis Johnson believes.

When the Only Sin was that it Came to an End

Deadhead Turned Celtic

 Bill Walton lopes on feet made too fragile by nature, dropping each delicately to the boards with equine grace.

In Celtic Green, he looks misplaced - a California emigre somehow gone astray. At UCLA and Portland and San Diego and Los Angeles - on and off the court - Walton was the West Coast Man, vaguely counter-culture, passively hip. But the Celtics are basketball's traditionalists, where white guys are valued highly and winning is expected - Cousy and Russell and Havlicek and Bird . . . and Walton?

As Usual, Grampa Celtic was Dialed In

October 1985

Bob Ryan

The Iceman cometh to New York, but the Pivotman cometh to Boston. And the folks paying the big money for Celtics' games this year never would trade Bill Walton for Jason Robards, not even if New York threw in Barnard Hughes.