JUNE 9, 1987 MAGIC JOHNSON
Earvin “Magic” Johnson jumped into the hearts of millions the first time he took to the court in a Los Angeles Lakers uniform. It was the team’s 1979 season opener. The Lakers were playing the San Diego Clippers in a match that went down to the wire. As the final seconds ticked off, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar stuck his signature sky hook to give the Lakers a 103–102 victory.
A buzzer-beating win was a nice way for the Lakers to begin their season, of course. But Magic, who got his nickname in high school after dazzling the local media with his acrobatic style of play, treated the victory as if it were game seven of the Finals. He charged across the floor, threw his arms around Abdul-Jabbar, and hugged him, all the while beaming his 100-watt smile.
Johnson’s enthusiasm for basketball never dwindled. Each season found him doing something amazing on the court. In the 1980 NBA Finals, the six-foot-nine-inch guard stepped in at center for an injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and proceeded to score 42 points, pull down 15 rebounds, pass for 7 assists, and chalk up 3 steals!
His behind-the-back passes astonished even his teammates. “There have been times when he has thrown passes and I wasn’t sure where he was going,” Laker Michael Cooper once said. “Then one of our guys catches the ball and scores, and I run back up the floor convinced that he must’ve thrown it through somebody.”
When negative publicity rained down on him early in his career — he was blamed for coach Paul Westhead being replaced by Pat Riley and derided when his play faltered — Johnson didn’t fire back or bury his head in the sand. He refused to give up when he stumbled, for the simple reason that he loved to play basketball.
In fact, rather than throwing in the towel, Magic did something some celebrity players don’t do: he worked hard to improve his game. He was an impressive all-around player, routinely racking up triple-double stats, but sometimes his shooting left something to be desired. In game three of the first round of the 1981 playoffs against the Houston Rockets, for example, he launched a last-second shot that might have won the game for the Lakers. But instead of swishing neatly through the net, the shot was a disappointing air ball.
So Magic worked to improve his shot from all spots on the floor. He also practiced different types of shots, including one he hoped to master, the sky hook. And as luck would have it, he was a teammate of the undisputed master of that shot, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
“Earvin got to post up a lot of smaller guards,” Abdul-Jabbar recalled, “and it was the perfect shot for him to use. So I worked with him to get his mechanics right.”
Under Kareem’s tutelage, Magic practiced the sky hook over and over throughout the 1986–87 season. His determination to get that shot and others just right paid off handsomely. He had some of the highest-scoring games of his career that year, and ended the season with a career-best average of 23.9 points per game. He also averaged 12.2 assists and 6.3 rebounds.
The Lakers steamrolled to the number one slot in the Pacific Division, and then flattened their opponents in the first three playoff rounds to advance to the Finals. There they met the Boston Celtics. Since 1959, when the Lakers were still in Minneapolis, these two teams had faced off in the Finals nine times. Eight of those times, the Celtics had emerged victorious. Only in their last matchup, in 1985, had the Lakers managed to beat the Boston team.
To say Los Angeles wanted a win this time around is putting it mildly. And they believed they had a very good chance of winning, for the Celtics had been plagued by injuries all year. Boston had literally limped its way through the playoffs, finally making it to the Finals after seventeen hard-fought games.
The Lakers, on the other hand, had needed only twelve games to reach the championship round. Compared to the exhausted Celtics, they were fresh and ready to go. They took the first two games easily by double-digit margins, thanks in large part to incredible performances by Magic Johnson. He posted 29 points, 13 assists, and 8 rebounds in game one, and 22 points and 20 assists in game two.
The Celtics scrambled to stay alive in game three, finally eking out a 109–103 win due to strong play from their bench. Buoyed by that victory, they thundered through the first half of game four. Going into the third quarter, they were ahead by 16 points.
The Lakers powered back, however, shaving that lead to eight with less than four minutes remaining in the game. Then, slowly but surely, they inched closer until, with thirty seconds left, they were behind by just a single point.
What happened in those last thirty seconds was a championship finale that may go down as one of the most memorable ever. First, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar scored on an alley-oop to give the Lakers a one-point lead. But Larry Bird of the Celtics answered with a beautiful three-pointer that stole the lead right back.
The Lakers took the ball out from under the hoop with twelve seconds left in the game. They raced to the opposite end of the court and fed the ball to Abdul-Jabbar. Kareem went up for a shot and was fouled. He made the first free throw to bring the score to 106–105 in Boston’s favor. But he missed the tying shot.
The Celtics’ star forward, Kevin McHale, nabbed the rebound — only to have Mychal Thompson of the Lakers whack it out of his hands and out of bounds. The referees called the play for the Lakers, despite protests from the Boston bench.
The inbound pass came to Magic near the left of the key. He turned to shoot a twenty-foot jumper. McHale leaped out to stop him, so Magic faked the shot instead, put the ball to the floor, and dribbled toward the hoop.
McHale was right with him. So were Bird and the Celtics’ center, Robert Parish. In a tight three-on-one situation with the clock ticking down and the game on the line, Johnson stopped short, turned his left shoulder to the basket, and arced the ball toward the hoop with his right hand. Sky hook!
The ball floated just above Parish’s fingertips, kissed the glass, and dropped in. Two seconds later, the buzzer sounded. After trailing for most of the game, the Lakers had won, 107–106!
“You expect to lose on a sky hook,” Larry Bird said afterward, a rueful smile on his face. “You don’t expect it to be from Magic.”
After the game, Magic laughingly called the winning shot his “junior, junior sky hook,” and that famous shot has been known by that name ever since.
The Lakers went on to win the 1987 Finals, 4–2. Magic played outstanding ball throughout and for his efforts was named the Finals MVP — his third time receiving that honor. Five years and three league MVPs later, he shocked the basketball world by announcing that he was retiring. He then revealed that he had contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Luckily for his fans, Magic returned to basketball to play in the 1992 Olympics.