When the Game Was Ours (8 page)

"When Heater hit that shot, I thought, 'Maybe this year really is different,'" Bird admitted. "I saw something from our bench that night I hadn't seen all year. They played with confidence. They played like they were supposed to win."

Nine days after that thriller, Bird endured the only outing in his college career in which he scored in single digits. The opponent was Bradley, and Bird checked out with 4 points and 11 rebounds, but Indiana State rolled 91–72 behind 31 points from Nicks and 30
from Steve Reed. In defeat, Bradley coach Dick Versace declared afterward that his "bird cage" defense had been a success.

"He actually took credit for stopping me," Bird said. "That was funny to me.

"I didn't even
try
to score. I took two shots. They triple-teamed me the whole game by putting a guy in front of me, a guy behind me, and another one digging for the ball. We had players on the floor that weren't even being guarded."

It was a heady time for Indiana State. As the team's winning streak extended, so did the publicity surrounding their team. Bird was a campus celebrity, and not all of his teammates were comfortable with that.

"Guys were getting their due, but they thought they should have gotten more, I guess," Bird said. "I think some of them got so big in their mind, they thought they could probably do it without me."

"It was all about Larry," Nicks said. "I used to get disappointed a lot. Larry always tried to pull me in. I tried not to sulk, but there were times it was just so unfair. I was a valuable member of the team, but you wondered if anyone noticed."

The more attention Bird received, the more he shrank away from it. He began to case out side entrances, back doors, and less traveled routes whenever they arrived at a new arena. Media interviews were so unappealing to him that he often slipped out of the locker room before the reporters arrived. His behavior was initially puzzling to Nicks.

"I'm thinking, 'Wow, this is unique,'" Nicks said. "You've got to remember, I'm this stud from Chicago who is used to telling everyone what I've got. But Larry taught me not to get caught up in the limelight. I found myself trying to emulate him."

Not everyone took the same approach. One day the team was discussing on the bus where to stop to eat and one of the reserves, his voice dripping with sarcasm, sneered, "Whatever Larry wants." If such comments were hurtful to Bird, he never expressed that. Instead, he simply pushed his teammates harder.

"Some of those kids just didn't understand that Larry had elevated them to a height they never in their lives would have reached without him," Behnke said. "They were on a trip of a lifetime, but a couple of them were too jealous to enjoy it."

"Somebody asked me once how I felt about all that," Bird said. "I told them, 'Hell, I'm jealous of them too. I'm jealous because I never got to play with a Larry Bird.'"

Bird was an imposing figure, even to his friends. When it came to basketball matters, they warily conformed to what their star demanded. It was clear who the leader of the team was, "and if one of them got out of line, they'd be stopped," Larry said.

During one practice early in the season, a couple of ISU players were horsing around instead of conducting the drills outlined by Hodges. Before the coach had to admonish them, his star player took care of it.

"If you don't want to be here, then get the hell out," Bird shouted.

When he wasn't playing, Bird was content to be just another guy on campus. He was at his happiest when they went down to the local college hangout, the BallyHo, and threw back a couple of drafts. When ISU played St. Louis, Hodges arranged for the team to take a side trip to the city zoo, where the players walked around wearing their cowboy hats and licking ice cream cones and making faces at the gorillas. "Like a bunch of little middle school kids," Nicks said.

The team loved their trips to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they frequented an all-you-can-eat spaghetti factory that offered several varieties of pasta and excellent saucy meatballs. The other highlight was being taken out to dinner after a big win by Bird's friend Max Gibson when he came to town. On those nights the players knew they were going to enjoy the biggest and best meal of the year.

Indiana State's final regular season game was against Wichita State, the only time all year the Sycamores were on national television. A major snowstorm enveloped Terre Haute, and when the team went to the arena to conduct their shoot-around on game day, the roof was leaking.

"It was snowing like crazy," Bird said. "I felt sure they'd cancel the game."

Georgia Bird weathered the near-whiteout conditions to arrive at the Hulman Center and report that the roads were slippery, barely plowed, and most definitely unsafe.

The teams played anyhow. Bird scored 49 points and grabbed 19 rebounds in front of a full house with Al McGuire offering breathless commentary courtside.

By the time the conference tournaments wrapped up, both Indiana State and Michigan State were awarded first-round byes in the NCAA tournament. The only way their paths would cross was if both teams advanced to the Final.

But first the Spartans needed to eliminate a Lamar team, coached by the colorful Billy Tubbs. Michigan State destroyed them, 95–64, behind Magic's triple-double—13 points, 10 assists, and 17 rebounds.

In his postgame press conference, Coach Tubbs strode up to the podium and tore up a fistful of papers. It was the scouting report he had purchased from Bill Bertka's respected scouting service, Bertka's Views. Bertka, a veteran coach and scout who has been involved in the Lakers organization for more than 30 years, had identified the Spartans as a half-court team that walked the ball up the floor.

"Obviously Bertka couldn't see all the games himself, so he hired high school coaches to scout teams for him," Heathcote said. "Well, the high school coach that scouted us came to our game at Indiana. Bob Knight knew we wanted to run, so every time the ball went up he sent four guys running back to midcourt. We never could get our fast break going, so I told Earvin, 'Scrap it. Just walk it up.'"

From there, the Spartans rolled 87–71 over Louisiana State, then punched their ticket to the Final Four by upending Notre Dame, which was loaded with seven future NBA draft picks: Bill Laimbeer, Orlando Woolridge, Kelly Tripucka, Bill Hanzlik, Bruce Flowers, Tracy Jackson, and Rich Branning.

Heathcote told his team the night before the game on March 17, St. Patrick's Day, "Men, this game is for the national championship. This is the best team you will play this season. Even better than Indiana State."

Heathcote fine-tuned his matchup zone, which was quickly becoming one of the most heralded defenses in college basketball, to fit the Fighting Irish personnel. Then he lathered his team into an emotional frenzy by reminding them that Notre Dame had refused to come to Jenison Field House during the regular season to play them. He also brought up the fact that Notre Dame was on television every Sunday.

"We were on once—a national game against Kansas," Heathcote said. "I asked my guys, 'Hey, aren't you tired of watching these Notre Dame players?'"

Michigan State beat Notre Dame with 34 points and 13 rebounds from Kelser and 19 points and 13 assists from Magic. The Spartans shot 63 percent in the second half.

Indiana State cruised through its first two tournament games with an 89–69 win over Virginia Tech and a 93–72 win over Oklahoma. Bird averaged 25.5 points and 14 rebounds in the two games, which were impressive numbers considering he had fractured his left thumb in the Missouri Valley Conference Final against New Mexico State. Behnke fashioned a makeshift splint to stabilize the thumb, but he could do little to limit the considerable pain Bird would be experiencing every time the ball made contact with the area.

"I can't say the injury impaired him, but it had to hurt," Behnke said. "But there was never a discussion of him sitting. He was playing, no matter what. That was his mentality."

Indiana State's final obstacle in its quest for a Final Four berth was Arkansas, led by Sidney Moncrief, Bird's former teammate in the World Invitational Tournament. The afternoon before the Arkansas game, Bird fielded a call from Auerbach, who was in town to watch the tournament and wanted Bird to come up to his hotel room for a few minutes.

"Look, Larry," Red said, "when your team gets beat in the tournament, we'd love for you to come to Boston and finish the season with us."

"You mean after the tournament?" Bird asked.

"After you get beat here," Auerbach answered.

"Well, Red, I don't think we're going to get beat," Bird answered. "I think we can take Arkansas."

"We'll see, kid," retorted Auerbach.

Bird scored 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds against the Razorbacks, but it was his roommate, Heaton, who'd earned the moniker "Miracle Man" for his last-second heroics, who again launched the winning shot.

With the score tied 71–71 in the final seconds of the game, Heaton looked to get Bird the ball, but Bird was double-teamed. Heaton drove the lane with his natural right hand, and as Arkansas forward Scott Hastings slid over to help, Heaton switched the ball into his left hand and rolled in a shot as the buzzer sounded. Indiana State was going to the Final Four, and Auerbach was going home without his prized draft pick.

The Terre Haute campus was a cauldron of excitement, with Sycamore mania bubbling over to the classrooms, the restaurants, even the city library.

The semifinal matchups in Salt Lake City, the site of the Final Four, pitted Michigan State against Penn, the plucky Ivy League team that had shocked North Carolina earlier in the tournament, and DePaul against Indiana State.

Michigan State's surprise opponent was a heavy underdog against the Spartans, but Penn's brash star Tony Price declared beforehand, "I don't fear Michigan State. They're just a bunch of dudes who play ball."

The "dudes" demolished the Quakers 101–67. It was 50–17 at halftime, and Johnson added yet another triple-double to his résumé: 29 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists.

Midway through the second half, Michigan State couldn't help but break an old cardinal rule in sports: they started to look ahead.

"Now stay focused, let's take care of this game first," Heathcote instructed his players.

Magic looked directly at Heathcote.

"C'mon, Coach, they're the Ivies! We're not going to lose to them!" he said.

By the midway point of the second half, Heathcote admitted, all of the Spartans were thinking about one thing: "How are we going to stop Bird?"

In the final moments of their thrashing of Penn, the Michigan State fans began chanting, "We want Bird! We want Bird!" The Sycamore fans responded in unison, "You'll get Bird! You'll get Bird!"

Larry's Indiana State boys did not breeze into the championship like Magic's club. DePaul stars Mark Aguirre and Clyde Bradshaw made it clear they planned on playing a physical game and promised there would be no easy baskets for Bird.

"They were talking all this trash about how they were going to manhandle us," Nicks said. "I think it really pissed Larry off. And that's never a good idea."

Michigan State's players sat in the stands and watched in disbelief as DePaul came out and guarded Bird in single coverage. Magic turned to Kelser and declared: "Big mistake."

"Larry was hitting shots from all over the floor," Magic said. "I wasn't keeping stats or anything, but at one point I said, 'Hey, has that guy missed at all?'"

Bird finished the game with 35 points on 16-of-19 shooting. His curious stat line also included 11 turnovers, a gaudy number that normally would have spelled doom for Indiana State. Nicks attributed the miscues to two factors: a hyperactive Bird and nervous teammates who had trouble hanging on to his creative (and often unexpected) passes.

"Those turnovers were my fault," Bird said. "Back then, I had a habit of passing off while I was jumping in the air. Too many times my teammates were already turning around to get in position for the rebound."

Heathcote didn't notice Bird's turnovers. He was too mesmerized by Bird's unwavering confidence in his own shot and his ability to choose the perfect pass for the open man.

"I don't mind telling you Bird scared me," Heathcote said. "He was the kind of guy whose passing skills were so sharp, he could cut your defense to ribbons."

With the desired dream matchup of Bird versus Magic set for the NCAA Final, the two teams arrived the day before the championship game for their respective press conferences. The national media anticipated that Larry would be a no-show, but he surprised them by taking his designated seat at the podium.

The normally taciturn forward was both revealing and entertaining, even if some of his answers were not particularly loquacious. When asked, for instance, how his thumb felt, the self-described "Hick from French Lick" answered, "Broke."

On the subject of what he'd do with the hundreds of thousands of dollars that awaited him in the NBA, Bird cracked, "I might buy everyone on the team a new car—and Brad Miley a jump shot."

As Kelser and Johnson bounded into the press room with smiles and belly laughs and handshakes and high-fives for some of the local reporters, Bird retreated to the side with Bill Hodges and did not make eye contact with either of his opponents. Magic took one step toward his former World Invitational teammate, but backed off when Bird made no motion to meet him halfway.

"All I was doing was trying to say hi to the guy," Magic said. "Normally at those things you shake hands, make some small talk, but Larry wasn't having any of that."

Johnson turned to Kelser and whispered, "Okay, then. I guess this isn't going to be a friendly one. You know what? Larry Bird, he's kind of a jerk."

Once Magic was seated, he congenially answered the same questions over and over with a new twist for each reporter. As he watched Johnson court the press, Bird understood who the media darling would be when the session was over. He found "the Magic touch" to be grating.

"I just couldn't be like that," he said. "I didn't want to be like that. All that hand-slapping stuff, it seemed phony to me."