by Larry Bird
His first free throw hit the back rim. His second did the same. On the Lakers bench, Abdul-Jabbar, who had fouled out, looked away. Bird grabbed the rebound on the second miss, and the Celtics called time-out.
"That's when I knew we had 'em," Bird said.
Magic, his trademark smile long gone, walked to his bench both bewildered and embarrassed. Having overshot the free throws because he was too hyped up, he left his team precariously close to blowing the game.
Boston emerged from their huddle with one plan in mind: locate Bird for the shot. Maxwell and Parish each set a pick on Cooper, who slipped trying to fight through the double screen, forcing Magic to switch over and cover his rival.
Once Bird realized he had Johnson guarding him, he waved madly for the ball. It was what he had been waiting for: the Celtics trailing 2–1 in the series, on Magic's court, and the two of them in the trenches to decide the game. It was Bird's chance for redemption from 1979, when Johnson had shattered his dreams in the NCAA championship. Maybe now he could begin to return the favor.
"At that moment," Bird said, "I knew I had to make that shot."
He did, lofting a soft fallaway jumper over Magic's head that dropped through the strings without a ripple, giving Boston the 125–123 lead with 16 seconds left.
Though the game was far from over, the momentum had clearly shifted. When Worthy stepped to the free throw line with a chance to tie the game, Carr, in a low voice, delivered a message.
"You're gonna miss," Carr said.
Worthy's first free throw clanged short, and Maxwell strolled across the key and flashed him the choke sign. Riley, watching from the Lakers bench, was apoplectic, yet his players did not seem to share in his outrage. The Celtics won, and the Lakers lost more than just a game. They lost control of the series.
In postgame interviews, Riley derided Boston as "a bunch of thugs." Maxwell and Carr mocked the Lakers for being unable to finish the job. McHale's takedown of Rambis was identified as the turning point of the game—and, in retrospect, the Finals.
"Before McHale hit Rambis, the Lakers were just running across the street whenever they wanted," Maxwell chortled. "Now they stop at the corner, push the button, wait for the light, and look both ways."
As the Celtics boarded their team bus and headed to the airport to fly home to Boston, an elated Bird plopped down next to D.J. and said, "Can you believe we're still in this? They're trying to give us the championship."
D.J. nodded in agreement. He scored 22 points in Game 4 and would go on to average 21.5 points a game over the final four games of the series. It was no accident that production coincided with his new defensive assignment. Magic inspired him like no other opponent.
"D.J. was the smartest guy who ever guarded me," Magic said. "He knew how to make adjustments. If I was rolling with a certain move, D.J. would say, 'You got away with that in the last quarter. Not this one.' It might take Gerald Henderson a whole game to figure out what I was doing. Sometimes he wouldn't even realize it until the film session the next day."
The venue for Game 5 was the antiquated Boston Garden, the site of so many past colossal Laker disappointments. Boston was in the midst of a heat wave, and there was no air conditioning in the building, so temperatures hovered at close to 100 degrees on the court by game time. A Lakers official brought an oscillating fan into the suffocating visitors' locker room, but it provided little relief.
"It was miserable in there," Magic said. "I had already sweated through my uniform before we had even had our pregame talk."
Although the Celtics locker room was larger, it was equally oppressive. Yet Bird was upbeat in the hours leading up to Game 5. He had slept fitfully the previous night, rehashing the action through the first four games of the Finals, and woke up exhausted. "I was concerned how we were going to stop Magic from controlling the tempo," he said.
By the time he drove down Causeway Street to the Garden, the exhaustion had been replaced by adrenaline. He was unconcerned with the heat and humidity; it was no more stifling than the summer heat of French Lick. When he arrived at the Garden, he was relieved to discover that his teammates were not about to be deterred by the oppressive temperatures either.
"We were the 'dirty' team," Maxwell said. "We weren't used to playing in luxury like the Lakers. We were a no- frills operation. When that game got hotter and hotter and hotter, we were like, 'All right, bring it on.'"
With a sizable portion of America watching on television, Bird delivered one of the finest performances of his young career, scoring 34 points on 15-of-20 shooting and grabbing 17 rebounds. He hit long perimet er shots, drives to the basket with his opposite hand, post-up jump shots, and put-backs in traffic.
"I was hitting everything," Bird said. "I had that rhythm you dream of. It was a tremendous feeling. And our crowd was fantastic. I felt after Game 5 we had it."
As Jones watched Bird take over the game, he expected at least a hint of exuberance from his forward over his remarkable performance. Yet Bird's demeanor was unchanged.
"When you are having a game like that, you figure the guy is going to be jumping up and down," K.C. said. "Not Larry. He did it without flair.
"In that regard, he was the exact opposite of Magic."
The lasting image of that 119–108 victory was Abdul-Jabbar slumped on the Lakers bench, sucking in oxygen through a small mask attached to a tank. The big man shot 7 of 25 from the floor and had wilted in New England's sweltering summer heat. Yet the Celtics knew better than to discount the fiercely competitive Hall of Famer, who still had the most lethal weapon in the series: the unstoppable skyhook.
Magic kept clear of his center in the aftermath of the loss. By the time the Lakers returned home, which required another flight across the country for both clubs, Abdul-Jabbar was suffering from another migraine. He vomited in the locker room before Game 6, then went out and scored 30 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. Worthy, in an attempt to quell some of the growing chatter that the Lakers were soft, shoved Maxwell into the backstop. The Celtics were unimpressed with LA's attempt at Eastern Conference physicality. They were convinced they had rattled Magic's confidence, and Carr spent the majority of Game 6 baiting him with the goal of breaking Johnson's concentration.
"C'mon, Cheese-o," Carr heckled. "Give us one of your cheesy smiles."
"Hey, Magic," Carr said the next time Johnson ran past Boston's bench. "Are you going to call time-out?"
The normally unflappable Johnson grew so agitated by Carr's antics that he approached the Celtics bench in the waning minutes of the third quarter. "Okay, Cheese-o, come get me. I'm ready," Carr coaxed him.
Referee Darrell Garretson walked over and pointed directly at Carr. "If you don't sit down and be quiet, I'm throwing you out of this game," Garretson warned.
"What do I care?" Carr retorted. "I'm not playing anyway."
The Celtics were so comfortable with their 65–59 halftime lead that they began encasing their lockers in plastic in anticipation of the champagne-soaked celebration they were sure would occur following the game. As late as the fourth quarter, Maxwell was still convinced Boston was about to wrap up the title. "We've got this," he said to Carr on the bench.
Riley needed a spark, and he turned to the kid, Byron Scott, who had spent an entire season auditioning for his Laker teammates. He hit four clutch jumpers to kick-start one final Los Angeles rally.
"Who the hell is Byron Scott?" asked Maxwell incredulously as he watched Scott steal a win for the Lakers and keep their championship hopes alive.
Bird checked out with 28 points on 8-of-11 shooting and left the Forum frustrated with his lack of touches in the final minutes. He wanted the ball—and he desperately wanted to end the series in Los Angeles. But Magic, who scored 21 points, dished out 10 assists, and grabbed 6 rebounds, had other ideas. He didn't want Bird gloating in his building.
"Not in our house!" Johnson urged his teammates.
As the Celtics left the Forum floor, they were pelted with d
ebris from the hostile LA crowd. Carr was struck in the eye by a cup loaded with a concoction of mustard, beer, and chewed-up hot dogs.
In the wee hours the following morning, after the Celtics had taken a red-eye to LaGuardia and were waiting for a shuttle flight back to Boston, Auerbach sidled over to Bird to try to gauge his mood.
"What do you think?" Auerbach asked.
"No question we'll win this one," Bird answered. "We should have won it on their floor. I'm ticked we let it get away. We won't let this one go."
Lakers owner Jerry Buss engaged in a similar conversation with his own young superstar as they traveled back to Boston. Even though LA had won convincingly in Game 6, Buss sensed that Magic seemed distracted, a little down. It was a side of Johnson that Buss had never seen before on the court, and it worried him.
"Usually Earvin shook off mistakes pretty well," Buss said. "But this was different."
Buss was right. It was different. Magic had always been a winner—in high school, in college, in his first season as a professional. He was frustrated by his uneven results, which were further exacerbated in his mind by the clutch plays Bird had made. It was bad enough that the Lakers had faltered in a series they should have already won, but to blow it to the Celtics and Larry Bird in their first-ever head-to-head Finals was an unbearable notion.
The Celtics had never lost a championship series clincher on their home floor. K. C. Jones reminded his team of that before Game 7—and so did Riley.
Carr emerged from the locker room for pregame warm-ups wearing goggles. While Boston's public relations staff claimed it was protection for his injured eye, most of the 14,890 Celtic loyalists in attendance knew the real reason: he was mocking Kareem, who was donning similar eye gear.
In the Lakers huddle just before tip-off, Magic surveyed the faces of his Lakers teammates. Kareem, as always, was a blank page, impossible to read. Yet when Johnson looked into the eyes of the rest of the starters, he saw the one thing he dreaded most: doubt.
"We had lost our edge," Magic said. "That takedown of Rambis had totally changed the complexion of the series."
Ninety-four feet away in Boston's huddle, Bird took a mental inventory of his team. What he saw was a group of veterans who were loose and confident. Moments earlier, as K. C. reviewed their game plan, the ever-cocky Maxwell announced, "Jump on my back, boys."
Maxwell backed up his bravado. He was electric on both ends of the floor, scoring 24 points with 8 rebounds and 8 assists. He also shot 14 of 17 from the line. Boston reverted to doing what it did best—punishing teams in the paint—and finished with a staggering 52–33 advantage on the boards.
Bird submitted 20 points on another mediocre night of shooting (6 of 18), but he was a perfect 8 for 8 from the line and hauled in 12 rebounds.
LA mounted a last-gasp run and had a chance to cut the deficit to one in the final minute, but D.J., who had stalked Magic from end line to end line throughout the night, stole the ball from his friend, then clinched the championship with a pair of free throws.
As Bird and his teammates mobbed one another at center court, Magic jogged to the same tiny visitors' locker room that Jerry West had occupied two decades earlier. Just as his general manager had done after a crushing defeat to Boston, Johnson sat in full uniform for several minutes, trying to fathom how it all had gone wrong.
"The Lakers, I felt, showed their true colors," Bird said. "I always thought they were soft, and they were that season."
While the Celtics celebrated madly down the hall, Magic lingered in the shower. He was normally the most accommodating star when it came to dealing with the media, but on this day he could barely face his teammates, never mind the national press. He remained sitting on the floor of the shower next to Cooper for the better part of a half-hour with the water spilling over him.
"All the water in the world wasn't going to wash away that pain," Riley said.
The coach finally sent Aguirre and Thomas in to retrieve him.
"I don't think I ever recovered from Game 2," Magic conceded. "I never felt in control after that. It was the first time I failed in a big situation. I'm used to coming through, and I didn't, and I handled it the wrong way.
"Instead of just saying, 'That was one game, I'm moving on,' I kept thinking about it. I couldn't let it go, and it carried through the whole series."
As the Lakers filed quietly onto their team bus, the Celtics fans partied wildly in the street. Within minutes, they identified the inhabitants of the luxury bus near the loading dock of the Garden.
A gang of more than 100 people surrounded the bus and began rocking it back and forth. The driver radioed for help; the Lakers slunk low in their seats as fans began throwing debris at the windows.
"It was frightening," Magic said. "Our nerves were shot to begin with because of this devastating loss, and now everyone is freaking out because we were surrounded and we couldn't go anywhere.
"We had no choice. We had to sit there and take it."
After several minutes, the police had dispersed the crowd. The bus finally crawled back to the Sheraton Hotel, a handful of "green people" in pursuit. Magic opened the door to his hotel room and dropped his boom box on the dresser. It was turned off, silent since that morning. Aguirre and Thomas trailed behind him, and while Magic appreciated their friendship, he desperately wanted to be alone.
"When they finally left, I cried like a baby," Magic said.
Ten miles away in Winchester, a Boston suburb, the Celtics had moved their celebration from Chelsea's to the home of team marketing director Mike Cole. Bird stayed until the sun came up, basking in the thrill of eliminating the "Fakers."
"It was one of those nights that you wished would never end," Bird said.
The forward, still feeling the effects of the victory celebration, did a live interview with a morning radio program. The team was departing shortly to visit President Reagan at the White House, and Bird announced he wasn't going.
"If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me," Bird chuckled.
On the morning of June 13, Magic Johnson stood in the lobby with his bags packed. It was 6 A.M., but he was wide awake. In fact, like Bird, he never really went to sleep.
"It was the worst night of my life," Magic said. "I told myself, 'Don't ever forget how you feel right now.'"
The morning after Boston's celebration, Bird finally went home for a little shuteye. Around midafternoon, Buckner, who was experiencing his first-ever NBA title, drove to Bird's Brookline home with the hope of celebrating all over again. Dinah informed Buckner that Larry wasn't there.
"He was out running," Buckner said. "When he got back, I said to him, 'Man, what are you doing?'"
Bird looked at him quizzically before he answered.
"I'm getting ready for next year," he said.
6. SEPTEMBER 26, 1984
Palm Springs, California
"NO 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 fri
ends 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.