When the Game Was Ours (32 page)

The Pistons were not interested in Boston's injury woes. Hungry to displace the Celtics as the best in the East, they adopted the moniker "Bad Boys" to accent their bruising style of play. Detroit's success was predicated on intimidation and defense, and their willingness to physically punish opponents caused them to be universally despised. The primary villains were Bill Laimbeer, a high-post offensive threat with a reputation for delivering blows after the whistle, and the rugged Rick Mahorn. Legendary Celtics radio announcer Johnny Most dubbed this duo "McFilthy and McNasty."

The ringleader of the Bad Boys was Isiah Thomas, the immensely clever point guard with an angelic face and an assassin's heart. Detroit also had crafty Joe Dumars in the backcourt and the combustible Dennis Rodman off the bench, as well as two veteran scorers in Adrian Dantley and Vinnie Johnson, nicknamed "the Microwave" by Danny Ainge because he heated up so quickly when he came into the game. The Pistons were a formidable opponent who proved to be one of the few teams that could match Boston's mental toughness.

The Pistons dropped Games 1 and 2 at Boston Garden, and when the NBA shifted its attention to Auburn Hills, Michigan, the series turned ugly.

In Game 3, Bird was fighting for a loose ball when he was roughly hauled down by Laimbeer. Bird was so incensed that he swung at the Pistons agitator as they both lay sprawled on the floor. When they were finally untangled, Bird fired the ball at Laimbeer's head. He was ejected, and the Celtics lost, 122–104.

"I wanted to fight him," Bird said. "Laimbeer tried to hurt people, and I wanted him to hurt."

As they lined up for introductions before Game 4, Bird refused to shake Laimbeer's hand. Robert Parish, who rarely expressed emotion on the floor, smiled broadly and clapped with approval. The Pistons then went out and evened the series 2–2.

In Game 5, back at the Garden, Laimbeer elbowed Parish in the midsection and the shoulder, and the Celtics big man lost his temper. The next time down the floor, Parish pummeled Laimbeer with a series of punches under the basket that sent the Pistons big man tumbling to the floor. No foul was called, nor was Parish ejected. Detroit general manager Jack McCloskey screamed at referee Jess Kersey, who stood less than a foot away from the Parish attack, to make a call. When he didn't, McCloskey did—to the league office demanding an explanation.

In the final seconds of Game 5, Isiah Thomas drilled a jumper to push his team in front. The Celtics placed the ball—and the outcome of the game—in Bird's hands. The franchise forward, guarded by Mahorn on the left side of the court, dribbled strong to the hole, but Rodman shifted over from the weak side and blocked his shot.

In the ensuing scrum for the loose ball, possession was awarded to the Pistons. Pistons big man John Salley and Rodman raised their arms aloft in unison. All Detroit had to do was run out the final five seconds of the clock and they would take a 3–2 series lead going back to Detroit. The two young forwards turned to run down the floor, still yipping with delight. Thomas grabbed the ball and hurried to inbound from the sideline near his own basket before the Celtics defense was set. He never saw his coach, Chuck Daly, signaling madly for a time-out, which would have given Detroit the ball at half-court.

Thomas considered throwing it to Rodman at midcourt, but Rodman was a poor free throw shooter and the Celtics would surely try to foul. Isiah had just five seconds to inbound the ball, and already three of them had ticked away.

Thomas settled on floating a pass to Laimbeer, who was waiting along the end line less than ten feet away. By the time Thomas saw Bird bolt from the foul line (where he was guarding Adrian Dantley) down to the basket to intercept the ball, it was too late.

"I had been counting down the seconds in my head," Bird said. "I knew he was running out of time."

For a moment Bird considered shooting the ball, but his momentum was going away from the basket, and it would have been an awkward, off-balance attempt. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a streak of white heading for the hoop. It was Dennis Johnson. Bird relayed the ball, and D.J. knocked in the lay-up, sending the partisan Garden crowd into overdrive. Thomas and Laimbeer stood motionless for a moment, hands on their hips, then walked over to Daly knowing they had just literally thrown away their chance at a trip to the Finals.

Former coach and NBA star Doug Collins, who was broadcasting the game, expressed disbelief at Detroit's blunder. "To not call timeout in that situation is just cardinal sin," Collins told the viewers. "A veteran team should know better."

The Bird steal was the turning point of the series. Although the Pistons recovered to win Game 6 while Parish served the first one game suspension in postseason history for his mugging of Laimbeer, Game 7 was back at the Garden, and Bird wasn't about to let the Bad Boys ruin his date with Magic and the Lakers. The Pistons encountered some colossally bad luck when Vinnie Johnson and Dantley collided and knocked heads, leaving a woozy Microwave unplugged for the rest of the day while Dantley was carted off to Massachusetts General Hospital in an ambulance. Boston finished off Detroit 117–114 in a win that left Bird pumping his fist with excitement.

All of the Lakers gathered at a team brunch to watch Boston eliminate the Pistons. Most of them were rooting for the Celtics, including Magic. And when Bird banked in an improbable lefty 15-foot bank shot, Magic turned to Cooper and said, "Here we go, Coop. We got 'em again."

In the aftermath of Detroit's incredibly crushing series defeat, Rodman spouted off about Bird being overrated. Thomas followed up with his observation that if Bird were black, "he'd be just another good guy." When apprised of Isiah's comments, Bird retorted, "It's a free country. He can say whatever he wants."

Bird maintained that stance throughout the controversy that followed, even as those around him hypothesized that he was deeply offended. When Thomas called to apologize, Bird's only request was that Isiah talk with Georgia Bird, who didn't understand why her favorite player had taken on her son.

"I really didn't care about it," Bird said. "I didn't know Isiah as a person. I liked to compete against him. Truthfully, what he said didn't mean a thing to me. I know what it's like to get beat in a big game. You get pissed off and you say things. No big deal."

Yet the fallout from Thomas's poor judgment was major news. The subject of race was still a sensitive topic, and the veteran had overstepped the boundaries. His comments about Bird quickly made headlines across the world.

Magic received a phone call from Lakers public relations director John Black the day after the Celtics-Pistons game. "Your boy Isiah has done it," Black said. "What do you want me to tell people?"

"Leave me out of it," Magic answered.

Johnson was angry with Thomas. It was an irresponsible comment, and the timing was atrocious, since the Celtics were moving on to play the Lakers.

But what frustrated Magic the most was that he had spent hours on the phone with Thomas consoling him over his loss to Boston, much in the way Isiah had done for him in 1984. The Bird steal had come to symbolize the Celtics' mental toughness and the Pistons' shortcomings, and Thomas was struggling to understand that. His Lakers confidant did the best he could to help him through it.

"Normally Isiah is a fighter," said Johnson. "Not after that play. He knew he had taken a major hit on that one. He was still fighting for his own stature in the league, and beating the Celtics was the only way he was going to get his.

"He took that loss hard. It was worse too because Isiah and Larry didn't like each other, and neither did the teams. It was a long phone conversation. By the time we got done talking, it was light out."

When Riley learned of Thomas's comments, he too went directly to Magic. It was a distraction that neither he nor his point guard needed to be addressing as they prepared for Boston.

"Earvin," Riley said, "we can't afford to spend time on this. What the hell was Isiah thinking?"

Johnson did not call his friend to find out. The call he placed instead was to Bird.

"Isiah does not speak for me," Magic said.

"It doesn't mean anything to me," Bird insisted. "Really, I could care less."

The conversation meandered briefly toward their impending Finals matchup before the two rivals signed off. The significance of the phone call was not lost on former Celtic Rick Carlisle, who had grown close to Bird and knew how intense the rivalry had once been.

"Their relationship had clearly changed," Carlisle said. "They were both at a juncture in their careers where they knew time was getting short, and they needed to live their basketball lives to the fullest.

"And whether they liked it or not, they were doing that together."

The 1987 Finals was the most coveted ticket in town in two cities—Boston and LA. Both Magic and Bird were inundated with requests for tickets to the games on their home turf. Magic's agent Lon Rosen came up with a brilliant solution: the superstars would swap tickets. Magic provided Larry with extra seats in Los Angeles, and Larry shared his quota of Boston tickets with Magic. The two players never discussed it, nor did they share their arrangement with their teammates.

"But if that doesn't tell you how far we'd come, I don't know what would," Magic said. "Because three years earlier, neither of us would have considered it."

With Detroit finally in its rearview mirror, Boston literally limped into the Finals. The space in McHale's foot was widening, and the forward was in excruciating pain. Bird's back was also in terrible shape. Robert Parish was severely hampered by a sprained ankle, and while Walton was on the team roster, he had missed most of the season and even the most optimistic Celtics fan knew better than to count on him.

The Lakers routed Boston 126–113 in Game 1 behind Magic's 29 points, 13 assists, 8 rebounds, and 0 turnovers, then rode a barrage of Cooper three-pointers to victory in Game 2. With Parish hobbling in Game 3, the Celtics' chances appeared bleak, but reserve center Greg Kite played the most memorable game of his career, bodying Kareem, rebounding the ball, setting bruising screens, and even blocking one of Magic's shots. He was the Player of the Game without scoring a single point.

Game 4 became a must-win situation for the faltering Boston team. They were at home, down 2–1, and needed a spark. Instead, they were felled by Magic's majestic "junior junior" hook. Like McHale's takedown of Rambis in 1984 and Kareem's revival in 1985, it was the signature moment of the series.

The Lakers went on to beat the Celtics in six games, and this time there were no bitter words, no angry barbs. Bird saluted Magic as "the best I've seen." A gracious Johnson maintained, "There's only one Larry Bird."

After eight years of envy, bitterness, anger, and despair, the two stars were finally able to step back and evaluate their rivalry with a hint of appreciation.

"I just knew no one else pushed me like he did," Bird said. "And I knew, the way my body was feeling, it wasn't going to last forever."

The 1987 playoffs represented the end of an era for the Boston Celtics. Walton's career was all but over. He spent the following summer in mourning, locking himself in his Cambridge home and listening to his Grateful Dead records over and over again. Bird went to visit a couple of times, but after a while he stopped. It was too depressing.

"The fun-loving guy I knew was gone," Larry said. "Bill was in such a deep funk, nobody could help him."

McHale underwent surgery to repair the gaping space in his foot and was told by the surgeon that he might suffer long-term effects from his decision to postpone the operation. He played six more seasons, but was never the same player.

Over the next four years, Bird underwent operations on both heels to remove bone spurs, then had major back surgery and played in constant pain for the remainder of his career. He approached each upcoming season as a new day, a new opportunity to coax his team back to the Finals against Magic and the Lakers, yet their West Coast foils appeared to be inching farther and farther away from their grasp.

Riley was still dripping with champagne in the Lakers locker room when he guaranteed a repeat of the 1987 championship. It was no off-the-cuff remark. He had been rehearsing what he'd say for days. The result was just as he desired: a locker room full of shocked players. No one else had to put the pressure on the Lakers. Their coach had taken care of that for them.

A few days later, after the parade and the rally where Riley repeated his guarantee in front of thousands of frothing Lakers fans, he sat down with Magic to explain his reasoning.

"Earv, this group will go down as one of the great teams in NBA history," Riley said. "But you want to go down as one of the greatest teams that ever played? The one way to do that is repeat."

One year later, the Lakers stood poised to do exactly that, but their opponent in the 1988 Finals would not be the Boston Celtics. The Pistons finally expunged their own Garden demons by clinching their first trip to the Finals on Boston's own floor. As the clock ticked down, the Celtics crowd implored Detroit, "Beat LA! Beat LA!"

So now it was Magic and the Lakers and Isiah and the Pistons, and it was an emotionally wrenching proposition. Isiah had been Magic's closest friend in the league. He had survived a childhood beset with poverty, violence, and tragedy in Chicago, and Johnson admired the odds he had overcome. He appreciated Thomas's fighting spirit and identified with his competitive nature, even though he often winced at some of the rash decisions Isiah made in the heat of competition, such as his comments regarding Bird in the 1987 playoffs. Magic had spoken to him about considering the ramifications of his actions instead of impulsively reacting to the situation at hand.

"It was one of the major differences between us," Magic said.

The summer after Thomas, who had just finished his sophomore year at Indiana, declared he would turn professional, Magic invited him to Lansing. Magic helped Isiah prepare for the pro game, just as Norm Nixon and Julius Erving had done for him.