The Boston Celtics were considered the beasts of the East. Their roster was impressive. I’ve spoken of their four stars—Bird, McHale, Parish, and Johnson. But Cedric Maxwell was a playoff-tough small forward, and players like M. L. Carr, Danny Ainge, and others gave them a highly effective second unit.
My team didn’t fear them.
As Hubie might say, if you want to know why, think of the number three.
We’d faced them six times in the regular season and split 3–3 in wins and losses. Six times the previous year we wound up with the same 3–3 record.
That would suggest we matched up well against them, and we did at every starting position. We also felt our second unit was the best in the NBA. Their press-and-trap defense gave opponents conniptions. They held and built on leads and were fundamental to our success.
Still, we knew we’d have our work cut out for us. We were tired after the grueling Detroit series. Physically, mentally, and emotionally wiped out. Our overtime game with them was on Friday night, and Game 1 against Boston was Sunday—an afternoon game. While Isiah and company were pushing us to the limit in steamy Joe Louis Arena, the Celtics were home watching us on television. They’d had four days to rest up after defeating the Bullets. It would be tough going up against their front line with less than twenty-four-hours rest.
We arrived in Boston late Friday night. Before going up to my hotel room, I bought the next morning’s paper. I liked getting a feel for whatever NBA city I visited, and always read the newspapers when I was on the road.
It would have been impossible to miss the boldface sports headline: “WE’RE GOING TO STOP THE B–TCH!”
The source of the quote was Cedric Maxwell. He was obviously referring to me. His full, unedited comment was, “He ain’t gettin’ forty on us. We’re going to stop the bitch!”
The paper’s sports editor had cleaned up his language.
That quote was all anyone wanted to ask me about in our pregame press conferences at the Boston Garden. But I didn’t have anything for them.
Cedric’s comment wasn’t motivating to me. It didn’t bother me. What he said didn’t matter. It just made him look silly, and I wasn’t going to react.
But Cedric kept trying. Later, when the series moved to New York, he walked up to me before the opening tip. I had my Game Face on.
“Why do you look like that?” he said. “Are you crazy?”
I didn’t say a word to him. I knew what he was doing. Teams will always try to provoke the opposition’s best player. But nothing anyone ever said would throw me off my game.
In the series opener, however, I quickly saw what Boston had devised to stop me on the court.
The first time somebody fouled me, I got hit by two other guys after the call. That was the strategy. One guy took the foul, two guys hit me. In the head. Since only one foul can be assessed on a play, they got in those other hits without penalty. The refs couldn’t call it.
Unlike Detroit, Boston was playoff tested. They knew what they had to do.
That kind of thing wasn’t new to me. Don’t forget where I grew up. In Brooklyn, if somebody did that to you in the playground, you did the same thing to him.
The Celtics were tough. But I could be as physical as they were. And as the series went on, I would be. The question was whether the rest of my team could match that necessary level of physicality.
There isn’t much to say about Game 1. The Celtics knew we’d be fatigued after Detroit and dominated us with their passing and fast breaks. We had too many early turnovers, and that helped put them up by 9 at the end of the first quarter. At halftime, they led by 20.
When a team of the Celtics’ ability and experience builds up that kind of lead in a playoff game, they don’t relinquish it.
We lost 110–92. After the way we’d played against the Pistons, it was an awful letdown. We weren’t happy with ourselves. But nothing was decided. We’d dropped one game in the series. There were six left to play.
GAME 2 TAUGHT ME SOMETHING NEW. Or at least set me up to learn it.
I had a bad performance and only scored 13 points. The Celtics did everything they could to keep the ball out of my hands. That was their strategy, and they executed it well. Rory Sparrow put it best when he said they fronted me and played me from the back, but never the same way two times down the court.
The hits on me after foul calls escalated. I liked and respected Kevin McHale, but once, after he slammed me, I told him I’d kick his ass the next time it happened. I hoped my teammates would back me up, but if they didn’t, I would take care of it myself. I couldn’t let our opponents keep banging me around.
But I won’t blame my poor play on the hits.
What hampered me most was Boston’s circle defense. Someone on their scouting or coaching staff had figured out it was the best way to guard me on the low block, where I made the majority of my points. It was the one defense I hated to see.
Cedric Maxwell applied it very effectively in that second game. Whenever I moved to receive the ball, he circled me. From the front, to the side, to the back, and then around front again. Once I locked a defender into position, I could receive a pass and make any shot I wanted. As long as he circled, I couldn’t make contact and couldn’t pin him down.
Rory was our point guard. His job was to feed me the ball from the left or right wing. But as Maxwell continued circling me, staying constantly in motion, it would appear I wasn’t open to receive his pass. He didn’t know when to pass, and I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
The Celtics won Game 2, 116–102. For the second night in a row, we never took a lead.
When you start a seven-game series down 0–2, you’re written off in the press. But we weren’t writing ourselves off. Game 3 was back home, at Madison Square Garden. We’d have our fans behind us.
I had some things to figure out, though. And there was no time to sit around doing it.
I DIDN’T GO TO HUBIE WITH MY PREDICAMENT. I was his superstar player. His team captain. He needed to feel confident in me. If I rattled his confidence, the guys would pick up on it. We were in too tight a spot to let that happen.
We returned home on April 29, hours after our defeat in Boston. The next game wasn’t until Friday night. It gave me a chance to rest up, shake off my lingering flu symptoms, and get treatment on my hands before Tuesday’s team practice.
After a good night’s sleep in my own bed—I hadn’t been home since before Game 5 in Detroit—I called my old friend and mentor Pete Newell, who ran the Big Man Camp in California and had recommended me to the Warriors when my life and career were at a crossroads.
Now I’d turn to him at another decisive moment.
“Pete,” I said over the phone. “I don’t know if you watched any of the Boston games—”
“Bernard?”
“Yeah?”
“We go back,” he said. “I’ve watched.”
I thought about what he’d done for me years ago. My gratitude still felt fresh.
“I need your help, Pete,” I said, and explained Boston’s defensive strategy. “I can’t pin them. I can’t make contact. And my guard thinks I’m not open and goes away.” I paused. “What can I do?”
He was only quiet for a minute.
“Okay, listen,” he said. “Here’s my advice…”
I PULLED RORY SPARROW ASIDE at Tuesday’s practice, explained the problem Maxwell was giving me, and then spelled out Pete’s solution.
“Wow,” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
We smiled at each other and worked on getting it down.
IN THE OPENING MINUTES OF GAME 3, our crowd gave us everything we could ask for, cheering us on at the top of their lungs and razzing the Celtics with “Boston Sucks” chants. They’d shown up for us.
We showed up too. Rested, refreshed, and ready. We showed up.
Boston scored first, but Hubie started out by routing our offense through Bill Cartwright, and Bill was on his game. He dropped in 14 or 15 points before the quarter ended.
I got my chance to test Pete’s solution in that same period. I was on the block, Maxwell circling me. Out the sides of my vision, I saw Rory out on the left wing, looking for his chance.
When Maxwell circles you, there’s going to be a break in that circle, Pete had explained. If he starts out in front of you, goes around to the bottom toward the baseline, then comes around behind you… that’s the break point. Tell your guard that’s when to make the pass. Whether or not you look open to him. Just make the pass.
We executed to perfection. Rory snapped the ball to me. Maxwell saw it and moved around to my left. But by the time he reacted, the pass was already made, and I was expecting it.
The basketball was in my hands. I scored.
What Rory and I did was so effective, Maxwell stopped circling me. I totaled 24 points.
Hubie’s adjustments also worked. We moved the ball around the court and got everyone in an offensive flow. Bill finished with 25 points; and Rory, 15. Ray Williams had one of his best nights of the postseason and added 22 of his own.
As we grew our lead, the fans’ war cry got louder. We could hear it reverberating through the Garden:“Boston sucks! Boston SUCKS! BOSTON SUCKS!”
Boston’s players had come into the game saying the Knicks were in the grave.
If so, we jumped out of it and got a 100–92 win. Our crowd was so raucous you’d have thought an earthquake tremor was rumbling through the arena.
We were right back in the series, with another home game coming up.
I FELT GAME 4 WAS ANOTHER MUST-WIN. We were heading back to Boston for Game 5 and needed to make sure it wasn’t an elimination game. A Game 4 victory to tie the series in New York guaranteed that, no matter the outcome on the road, we could look forward to one more at home.
I’d never thought in terms of scoring a certain number of points. But I told myself I would go out and be aggressive.
The crowd was on its feet from the start. People stood in the aisles waving homemade signs. I can’t really convey how I felt hearing my name announced that Sunday afternoon. You know how it feels when you pull off a sweater full of static electricity? It was like that for me. Like sparks were snapping off my skin.
As our teams gathered outside the jump circle before tip-off, the noise around us built, and built, and built.
Then the ball was in the air.
My first basket came off a double team. I was on the block guarded by Maxwell. Rory passed me the ball from the wing after getting clear of the Celtics’ point guard, Gerald Henderson. Henderson broke away from Rory to double-team me, but I bounced the ball once as I feinted to my left, and then went through both defenders for a short turnaround jumper.
I scored 12 points by the end of the quarter to help give us a 10-point lead. It was the best I felt during that series. I’d beaten the circle defense, and Maxwell looked lost.
The Celtics threw everything they had at me. Switches. Double and triple teams. The hits got harder and more frequent. But it didn’t slow me. I had everything working.
All games have one or two tone-setting plays. Game 4’s came in the second quarter.
Maxwell was behind me after I received a pass from Ray Williams. Bird was on me. Kevin McHale was a step away defensively. Danny Ainge was a step away.
A triple team. Four defenders counting Maxwell.
I wasn’t concerned with the first two guys in front of me. I had moves to beat the third guy.
I quickly saw the break point to the middle, drawing contact. I wasn’t passing off the ball that close to the basket. Worst-case scenario, I’d go to the line. But I sank a short fadeaway jumper and came away with a 3-point play.
Minutes later, I had another play that might have tilted the game in either direction.
We were up by five. 42–37. As Ray Williams moved the ball up court, Hubie called out a number:
“Forty-two!”
Power right. My play.
This time, Hubie was being the chess master, thinking several moves ahead.
With Ray Williams moving the ball up court toward the Celtics’ basket, I took position on the left block, Maxwell guarding me. Marvin Webster trailed above the three-point line to screen off McHale in the back court. As our play developed, Darrell Walker cut to the basket from the left baseline.
Maxwell cheated toward him, anticipating a quick pass from Ray to Darrell.
On the left side of the lane, Danny Ainge, who had great court awareness, picked up on the play. He raised his arm and gestured toward the left, signaling Maxwell to protect against a backdoor lob from Ray to me.
Ray and I exchanged glances. Play on. As Ray made his throw, Maxwell tried to recover and get back on me. But he was already dead.
I stepped into the paint to receive the pass. Maxwell backed toward me, raising his arm, trying to put his body between me and the basket.
Too late.
I went up into the air, caught the ball at the high point of its arc, and dunked, drawing contact from him to earn a free throw. As our bodies collided, he fell back onto the hardwood.
The Garden erupted. Maxwell’s comment about me to the Boston press had been picked up by the New York news media. The fans knew about it and had it in for Cedric.
He sat up to their gleeful cheers, shaking the cobwebs out of his head.
In the playground, we’d have called that sweet revenge. I could’ve added insult to injury and stared down at him, hand on my hips. Some guys brought that kind of thing to the NBA, but I never even did it when I was a kid. Why start now and get the Celtics fired up? I knew who I was.
Go take a seat, I thought, and went straight to the free-throw line as he got up and walked to the sidelines.
Parish replaced him on the court.
That play defined how my team performed night. Physical offense and lockdown defense. The Celtics liked the fast break, but our half-court press threw off their rhythm and kept them from running the ball to the hoop.
I didn’t know how many points I was scoring but could tell I was scoring a lot. No single Boston player was close. Yet when I glanced up at the scoreboard, I never saw much separation between us. Larry Bird was going to get his share of points. You knew that. But four or five other Celtics put up numbers in the solid double digits. It kept us from pulling away that afternoon.
That would stir up concerns for me. I could be dominant, but I couldn’t dominate the Celtics as I’d done with Detroit. With four future Hall of Famers on their squad, they had too many guys.
But all that was for later on. There was no celebration. We had what we needed. A 118–113 win. I’d scored 43 points, a good afternoon.
Now the Knicks were heading back to Boston with the series tied 2–2 and the opportunity to close out the series at home.
GAME 5 AT THE BOSTON GARDEN followed the series trend—each team holding its home court. That meant a rough night for the Knicks.
The Celtics ran on us. Our defense didn’t do a good enough job of slowing them down. Once again, they had a balanced attack, with all five starters and Kevin McHale putting up strong double-digit totals. Like Bird, I was going to get my points. But we didn’t come close as a team.
A lot of basketball fans remember the brawl at the end of the third quarter. We were down 85–74 after rallying from a 20-point deficit, and Darrell Walker was driving toward the basket to try and bring us within 8 or 9.
Danny Ainge deliberately fouled him. Nothing wrong with that. Our teams had gone at it all series long. But Ainge went too far. As Darrell was barreling up the lane, Ainge raised both arms and hit him openhanded in the throat and chin.
Darrell’s head snapped back. It’s the kind of move that can put someone in the hospital, or worse.
Darrell went at Ainge and hit him in exactly the same way. It was kind of a how do you like it? shot. Then Ainge’s fists came up, and Darrell’s fists came up, and their arms were swinging, and Ainge tackled Darrell, and they landed on the floor. A second later, three or four Celtics were on top of Darrell.
I ran over to break up the fight, but it was only Darrell and me in a mountain of green-and-white uniforms. I was trying to pull Darrell out from underneath the pileup when somebody shoved me from behind and I spilled over a couple of Celtics.
When I recovered, I saw M. L. Carr come off Boston’s bench and punch Darrell as he lay on the floor. I went after him in spite of my dislocated fingers. It was a cheap shot.
Five minutes later, Darrell and Ainge were ejected from the game, and our teams were back at it with the basketball. It was a playoff game. Things happen in the heat of competition.
I just wish we’d won. But the Celtics took it 121–99.
We would be getting back on the Boston–New York shuttle facing elimination.
GAME 6 WAS ON A FRIDAY NIGHT in May. As I drove from my Jersey home, I was deep in concentration. I paid careful attention to the highway traffic and the closeness of the cars around me as I passed through the Lincoln Tunnel’s narrow lanes into Manhattan. But I had already entered an inner tunnel, a space that wasn’t physical. It was the same space I’d inhabited as Little Spal on the courts at Whitman, practicing, practicing, shooting a basketball in the pitch darkness, feeling it leave my fingers and visualizing its spin and trajectory, even with my eyes shut, even without seeing or hearing, not needing my outer senses to tell me when it found the center of the hoop.
The game was about what was inside, not outside. Many things had changed in my life, but that was always the same. It was about what was inside.
I was determined to carry our team to victory that night. I’d told myself the series would be decided in Game 7. We wouldn’t lose to Boston, our archrival, at Madison Square Garden. We would not fall at home.
We didn’t fall.
We played one of our best games ever. It had to be one of our best against a team like the Celtics. That night, they didn’t run. We trapped them in the half court. We didn’t let them find their rhythm.
They fought hard. Every rebound was contested. We couldn’t get second-chance shots.
All night, I was in that inner space. The space where I was most comfortable, where I most belonged. Where I could express myself with a touch, a leap, and a quick release, putting the basketball exactly where I wanted it.
Hubie knew. My teammates knew. I scored 44, but we were all in it together, unselfish, embracing our roles, doing whatever it took to win.
Fourth quarter. They roared back at us late in the fourth. But we kept fighting them off. With three minutes left and my team up by 11 points, I put in 2 to make the lead 100–87.
Then Rory Sparrow was ejected on a flagrant foul against Bird. Rory got his forearm on him as he drove toward the basket, and Bird went down. Referee Earl Strom called the flagrant.
Bird just went to the free-throw line. He knew there was no intent. Every player on the floor knew it. Rory took a harder hit earlier and it wasn’t called. He was our point guard, our playmaker. But Bird was the Celtics’ best player, and the officials remembered the scuffle in Boston. They were calling it tight.
That hurt us.
Two-and-a-half minutes later, the Celtics had come back within a basket. We were at 106–104, and they had the final possession.
Hubie put Marvin Webster into the game for Bill Cartwright. Bill was the better scorer, but Marvin gave us tougher defense. Hubie had decided our 2-point margin would have to be enough. He didn’t want overtime. He wanted that game to end in regulation.
Everybody on the court knew the Celtics would inbound to Bird. Everybody in the stands knew they were going to Bird. Some of the fans started the Madison Square Garden “De-fense, de-fense” chant. Some were clapping. But mostly people were quiet and holding their collective breath.
I looked around at my teammates and clapped my bandaged hands.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Then Bird got the ball, and Marvin was all over him, but Bird willed himself free and pushed toward the basket and took a short jumper from the right block, last shot.
He was off balance. The ball bounced high off the glass, rolled off the rim.
Buzzer.
The Knicks and Celtics were tied at 3–3 in the series. Just as we’d been tied at 3–3 in the regular season for the past two years. It felt as if this was the way things were meant to be.
Game 7 would be uncharted territory for both teams.
MY CONCERN ABOUT THE GAME was pretty simple. In the Boston Celtics, we were going up against a very seasoned and experienced team.
Their starting point guard, Dennis Johnson, had won a championship with the Seattle Supersonics and been Finals MVP. Kevin McHale possessed the quickness, strength, and intelligence to escape double teams; we had nobody at his position to contain him, and that made him key to their success against us. Robert Parish, their seven-foot-tall center and power player, was an unyielding post defender and offensive threat.
In one play early in Game 7, I was cutting through the lane when Parish hit me with a forearm shiver to the face in front of my bench. It was an unmistakable message. I’d scored 44 against his team a couple of nights before. Parish was letting me know they meant to keep that from happening at the Boston Garden.
I wanted to go after him because no foul was called. But I didn’t take the bait. The Celtics would have liked nothing better. If I got tossed for fighting, it was game over for my team. Parish would have cut the head off a dangerous snake.
There are times when you have to take the hit.
Johnson, McHale, and Parish—a formidable combination on the floor.
But there’s a reason I haven’t yet mentioned the fourth man. The Celtics’ key man.
In my years in the NBA, I’d faced the brilliance of Julius Erving and the electrifying dominance of Dominique Wilkins. Whenever I played against Wilkins, I hoped he wouldn’t embarrass me. They were two of the best forwards ever to take the court.
But Larry Bird was unlike any forward I ever played against.
At six foot ten, he had the height to shoot over me. He was the best passing forward in the league, and had lightning accuracy with no-look passes. An outstanding rebounder, he also possessed exceptional ball handling skills on the open floor.
Bird could beat you in many different ways. Earlier in the series at Madison Square Garden, with seconds left in the game, I was inbounding to Truck Robinson, when, just as I released the ball, I peripherally caught Bird moving toward it for a steal.
Oh shucks, I thought.
Fortunately, Truck retrieved the rock. We were lucky.
I’d thought Bird and I might offset each other in that final game. But he had other plans. Just as I’d refused to lose the series in New York, he was determined not to go down in Boston and brought the full aggregate of his basketball prowess to the court. He rained three-pointers that hit nothing but net. He passed the ball off the dribble like Pistol Pete Maravich in his prime. He controlled the game’s tempo and would not be denied.
There are some things you never forget as a player. The highs and the lows. The lows always sting.
The Celtics were very effective at keeping the ball out of my hands. They doubled up on our guards so they couldn’t pass it, and they doubled up on me whenever I caught it. They were determined not to give me any shots.
But the bottom line is Bird outplayed me that day. He did whatever he wanted, scoring 39 points. Most of them were from the perimeter, opening up the paint for his teammates.
I held our home court, and Bird held his, and the Celtics had one more at home than we did. Game 7, winner-take-all. They won 121–104.
After the game, I went into Boston’s locker room, shook Bird’s hand, and wished him well. Emotions were still high; our teams had had a hard-fought series, and it was like walking into a hornet’s nest. But as leader of the Knicks, I felt I should congratulate them.
The Celtics advanced to become the eventual NBA Champions, defeating the LA Lakers in seven games.
Our season was over. We went home.