When the Game Was Ours (22 page)

"N
O LAY-UPS
!" Lakers coach Pat Riley declared.

Magic Johnson wasn't completely sure what he meant, but Riley was already agitated, and it was only the first day of training camp. That was understandable. The Lakers had been mired in a perpetual state of gloom since the Celtics swiped the 1984 championship away from them the previous June. Overnight their reputation as a sleek, hip, dynamic team on the rise had deteriorated into a soft collection of underachieving chokers.

Magic, the embodiment of Showtime, absorbed most of the blame for the implosion of his Los Angeles team. After his uneven performance in the 1984 Finals, he returned to his Culver City apartment and squirreled himself away for three days. When he ventured outside, usually for milk or movie rentals, the vibes were as bad as he feared.

"Fakers!" a disappointed fan sneered from his convertible as he drove past the Lakers star.

The message was delivered more gently when he went home to Michigan to commiserate with his family. Yet even tucked away inside his Lansing cocoon, his brethren wanted answers.

"Hey, the Celtics beat you," his puzzled friends queried him. "What happened to you?"

Johnson's angst was further compounded by the accolades showered upon Larry Bird. The Celtics star emerged from the Finals as clutch and fearless, adjectives previously associated with Magic. The young Lakers star was not accustomed to failure and even less equipped to handle the personal attacks that dogged him. Magic's self-esteem was built around positive self-talk, and for the first time in his career he couldn't conjure up a single thought to make himself feel better, so he spent the summer wallowing in his own misery.

"Looking back, it was the best thing that happened to Earvin," Riley said. "He stewed. He wanted to get back and save face. We all felt the same way. We wanted the opportunity to purge the ghosts."

Riley waited a month, then took the unusual step of writing a letter to each of the players. His note to Magic was a tome of forgiveness. He urged his point guard to grow and learn from his mistakes, just as the coach planned to do. "I respect you and I love you," Riley wrote. "We are warriors. We will not be defeated by this. Great warriors come back stronger than ever. I know you will too."

In midsummer a second letter arrived ordering Magic to find closure. "It's time," Riley wrote, "for us to stop being victims." His coach also made it clear that he expected Johnson to arrive at camp in the best shape of his life and suggested a playing weight of between 216 and 219 pounds. Magic showed up at 212 pounds to prove that he too was serious about redemption.

The third letter, received a week before training camp, was a call to action. "Get ready to work," Riley advised him. "I will push you like never before. You better have worked on your outside shot. And you better have been working on your conditioning, because I'm going to run your rear end off."

Magic was ready for it. He spent the summer training with Aguirre and Thomas, incorporating conditioning techniques with basketball drills that left him so exhausted at night that he literally fell into bed.

LA was in the midst of a routine training camp session until forward James Worthy glided through the lane uncontested for a jam. Riley stopped play, his jaw clenched.

"No lay-ups!" the coach barked. "From now on, if you don't take the man out who is going to the basket, if you don't put him on his
ass,
then you are going to be fined."

His edict was the residual of how badly the Celtics manhandled the Lakers in the Finals. Magic and his boys had failed to respond to Boston's physicality the previous June, and Riley was sounding the alarm that it was time for LA to finally push back. He instituted a new box-out drill that required the defender to hold off the rebounder for 24 seconds—or the equivalent of three NBA lifetimes. The drill became so physical and contested that Lakers teammates turned on one another, trading expletives—and occasionally punches.

Michael Cooper guarded Magic in the scrimmages and purposely hacked Johnson when he tried to penetrate. Johnson shoved his friend away; Cooper merely hit him harder. Riley was relentless, driving his team to the point of exhaustion. He created an atmosphere of edginess and uneasiness and celebrated when his cranky team stomped off the floor after yet another rugged practice.

"It was important," Byron Scott explained, "for us to stay angry."

Riley's call to arms was aided by the return of Mitch Kupchak, who had played in only 34 games the previous season because of a knee injury. Kupchak had undergone multiple surgeries to prolong his career and was undeterred by contact underneath. During the 1984 training camp he took an elbow to his face, and instead of attending to the cut, which was bleeding profusely, he slapped a Band-Aid across his brow and played for another hour and a half before getting stitched up by the team doctor.

While "no lay-ups" became the battle cry in Palm Springs, the champion Celtics gathered at Hellenic College in Brookline, Massachusetts, with a mantra of "no letdown."

The players took inventory in training camp and noted one significant absence. Cedric Maxwell, whose inspired Game 7 performance in 1984 had been so critical in propelling Boston to the championship, was a holdout as he haggled with Auerbach over a new deal.

Gerald Henderson, who had engaged in his own contract squabble the previous season, was traded on October 16 to Seattle for a future first-round draft pick. M. L. Carr had every intention of retiring, but Auerbach coerced him into one more tour of duty. Carr complied but second-guessed his decision almost immediately.

"In retrospect," Carr said, "I probably shouldn't have done it. I couldn't give my all anymore, and for guys like Larry, who still could, it was probably unfair I was still out there. I think it altered our chemistry."

Bird sensed an aura of contentment among his teammates that troubled him. Boston's margin for error against the Lakers was too small; they needed to remain driven if they wanted to repeat as champions. While Boston's players still put in long hours, "winning no longer felt like life and death—except for Larry," Carr observed.

Yet Boston remained the favorite in the Eastern Conference again, and with good reason. Kevin McHale was coming into his own, proving to be virtually unguardable in the post with his array of windmill fakes and up-and-under post moves. He became the model for all high school coaches who taught their young players to keep the ball high over their heads when they rebounded. Parish had established himself as a blue-chip center who ran the floor with the grace of a small forward. Bird was 28 years old and at the peak of his game.

Boston won 15 of its first 16. Bird perused the standings and noted that the Lakers lost 5 of their first 8. He knew, however, that it was far too early to draw conclusions about their rivals out west.

Riley had become obsessed with beating the Celtics and holed up in his office behind his Brentwood home to break down film of Boston's favorite son, searching for cracks in Bird's seemingly impenetrable armor. Riley's defensive assignments were designed with the moves of Bird, Parish, and McHale in mind. His offensive sets were created to exploit the weaknesses of the Celtics. Although the Lakers publicly feigned indifference about the fortunes of their East Coast enemy, privately it was another matter.

On the eve of the Lakers' season opener, Riley reviewed the team objectives with his point guard.

"Let's be clear about this," Riley informed Magic Johnson. "Our goal is not to just get back to the Finals. It is to beat the Celtics."

The 1984–85 season was the pilot for Pat Riley's "Career Best Effort" project. The Lakers coach recorded data from basic categories on the stat sheet, applied a plus or a minus to each column, and then divided the total by minutes played. He calculated a rating for each player and asked them to improve their output by at least 1 percent over the course of the season. If they succeeded, it became a CBE, or Career Best Effort. For Kareem and Magic, it was a significant challenge because they were already operating at such a high level.

"But if the other 12 players did it, we felt we had a chance to win it all," Riley said.

Riley's system was simplistic, but it was how the coach manipulated the data that made it so effective. He routinely recorded the performances of every NBA player and highlighted the success rates of Bird and Michael Jordan in particular. Solid, reliable players generally rated a score in the 600s, while elite players scored at least 800. Magic, who submitted 138 triple-doubles in his career, often scored over 1,000. Riley trumpeted the top performers in the league in bold lettering on the blackboard each week and measured them against the corresponding players on his own roster.

Some players ignored Riley's transparent motivational ploy, but not Magic. He became preoccupied with generating the highest score—not just on the Lakers but in the entire NBA.

Johnson was usually the lone player in the locker room while Ri-ley and assistant coach Bill Bertka wrote the pregame directives on the blackboard. Riley often used that quiet time to tweak his star with his statistical ammunition.

"Earvin," Riley would say, "you've got great numbers for a point guard, but look at what your boy Bird did this week. He croaked you."

Johnson would remain silent.

"You had a bad week, Buck," Riley would continue. "Look at what numbers Michael put up."

Still, Magic would say nothing. There wasn't anything subtle about what Riley was doing, yet Johnson couldn't help but fall into the trap. He resented having his numbers up on the blackboard trailing the league's top stars for his teammates' viewing pleasure. He plotted to usurp both Bird and Jordan the next time his coach's "ratings" were revealed, just as his coach had hoped.

Riley was correct about Bird—the Boston forward was putting up big numbers and would go on to win a second consecutive Most Valuable Player Award in 1985. Yet Bird wasn't interested in repeating as the league's best player. He was gunning for back-to-back championships, and he grimaced when Maxwell finally showed up to camp with a new contract and gleefully announced, "Career's over, boys. Slam the books. I got my money."

Maxwell was clearly not a candidate for a Career Best Effort. His holdout had left him substandard, both in timing and conditioning. When the Celtics played the struggling Cleveland Cavaliers, Maxwell chortled before the game, "You're on your own, fellas. I don't do JV games. I'm saving myself for the varsity."

"It was supposed to be a joke," said Ainge, "but nobody thought it was that funny."

Bird was not amused. There were so many variables required to be successful in an NBA season, and he was in no mood to jeopardize Boston's chances because one of his teammates didn't feel like playing. One morning in practice, Maxwell put out his leg and said, "Someone jump on my knee and put me out for six weeks."

"Put that son of a bitch right here, I'll snap it in half for you," Bird growled.

"That kind of negativity really bothered me," Bird said. "We were trying to win back to back, something no one had done in over 15 years, and Max is talking about lying down on us."

Ironically, Maxwell suffered a cartilage tear in his knee in February. He tried to play through it, but the flap inside his knee kept grabbing, and the pain jolted him awake at night, leaving him popping pain relievers around the clock. After Boston's loss to the Lakers on February 17, Maxwell underwent arthroscopic surgery. McHale replaced him in the starting lineup and would remain there for the balance of his career.

When Maxwell returned, it was in a new role as a bench player. The veteran was unhappy with his reduced status, but his allies in the locker room were dwindling and his complaints went unheeded.

"Max was out of shape when he came back," Bird said. "He didn't do the rehab the way they asked. I was so pissed at him, because he was so good. He was a helluva player when he felt like it. But all that talk ... it could bring you down.

"He got his money, and he quit. I like Max, but that's the bottom line. What he doesn't understand is, we helped him get that money, just like he helped me get mine. We were all accountable to each other.

"It was just a waste, that's all. We could have won in '83, but we didn't because of all the bullshit with Bill Fitch. Then we could have won again in '85, but we didn't because of more bullshit. There are two years, right there, where we were young and together and healthy, and we didn't capitalize on it. Looking back, it just kills you.

"I'm not going to lay all the blame on Max. It was more than just him, but we couldn't afford that kind of stuff, and he just didn't seem to get that."

Maxwell never denied he made joking references to his contract. He realized too late, he said, that his constant chatter proved to be a source of friction with Bird.

"We all used to tease and laugh about stuff," Maxwell said. "I think Larry fed into what Red Auerbach was hearing from [
Boston Globe
reporter] Will McDonough. He was talking to Red every day and saying I wasn't busting my hump.