1984 Finals

you know we were the favorites and we fought our way through, they won the East, we won the West, so it's like everyone get ready, sit back and enjoy, cheesy, cheesy, that's what we called him cheesy Johnson because we hate his smile, that one Magic. Smile was really the sign we could put on the wall and we could start throwing darts because we hated it so much, at least we had the game on our court and our fans will be excited and it will be fun. to ask them then, what do you do during the day?

Well, I get up around 10:00 and practice at 11: I get there maybe an hour before practice, shoot, and then after practice I shoot for two more hours and then go home and watch TV. for 2 hours of sleep from 10:00 to 10:00 Do you have a social life? What are you doing? You look at the birds in the crowd trying to retrieve a loose ball and, by God, they don't. I hated it. I hated Larry. It was just like that, there was no other word to use really to get to the middle, it still goes, it goes on oh, highlight pH, we were La La Land, we were Hollywood, we were Magic Johnson on the smile on Showtime, well, I talked about his hair, I think that he told the media that they were insignificant, something like that, I'm not going to worry about all the cars, something like that, he just watched and always had the date of all the dates even though he didn't do anything in the games, you know , except moving a towel around you. to an arena where those fans wanted more than just victory and it would be packed and it would be loud and it would be ugly magic Larry is going to kill you there is no magic here he wasn't going to give it to his tradition and talk about how wonderful it was to play in the Boston Garden and that the garden ghosts hung from the rafters and there was a goblin on the edge was all nonsense to me.

He was always working on the other side of the coin. about, you know what the Celtics were about, what were hidden places, you know, cameras, you know, spying, I was paranoid, that's all. Pat was either paranoid or just trying to make it seem like something he wasn't there, I mean, stand your ground, that's what it is. We knew we were the best team, we just had to prove it on the court, so we went out and were just two steps faster than they needed to be. The rebounds are from Magic Cooper and the Los Angeles Lakers' counterattack won.

In Boston they couldn't really catch us in the first game and I think that surprised them. The second game went the same way we had them as the Lakers have a two point lead so now what are the Celtics, what can they do? What to do with the Lakers having the ball with 20 seconds left, but we believe in the exit, we need luck, we need something on our side to make this happen, so we were sitting there saying, you know we have to find a way to To find a way, all we have to do is pass the ball through the timeline and the game ends, so I throw it to Jame Worthy.

You know, I remember being on the sidelines at the time and seeing what Worthing was ready to do. and I see the Boston defender anticipating that he thinks no, please don't throw that pass now to Magic, he becomes dignified again and retreats from the H, he leaves it there, everything is tied up by worry, he was afraid, he had scared, I wanted to shoot that ball. at that time he wasn't a good free throw shooter, he was trying to get the ball out of his hands, he wasn't a great player, James, then he was smaller, James, we just got in the shot, we were in disbelief and we played. so later the magic still reduced it to two seconds 1 second he will have to shoot it he doesn't make it he doesn't make it we never really recovered from that and they ended up winning that game and we I'm going to go to Los Angeles all of them, even to one game, each one for himself one minute.

There I could hear Johnny MO becoming innocent, stealing the ball. I look back on my career, there are a number of moments that are there that are probably one. number one for me and that changed the whole dynamic of the series. I just think our guys were mad, there was some teasing about the loss and how we gave them that ball game that we wanted to go out and play. in front of our home fans and make sure they know we weren't going to lose that home field advantage and here's the Los Angeles break. Cooper and Magic Johnson, the Los Angeles Lakers seem like nothing can stop them.

Waves, they were waves of counterattack. a meat track the Celtics can't handle the speed of the Lakers we're taking hooks body shots we were just in the clinch all we could do was stand against the ropes and just take it this has to be one of the coolest routes decisive in the history of the championship we went to the locker room and Larry made the famous statement that we played like sissies. We have some great players on this team, but sometimes we don't have the players with the heart that we need. sitting right next to him and said in his crazy, angry Indiana accent, today when you see magic high fives and guys going behind his back and shooting layups at us all day, it seems like someone would try to stop this.

But until we get our hearts where they belong, we will be in trouble. I was in my office at The Forum and they came back late in the afternoon, they had a practice and I could hear him yelling and screaming and cursing there on the court. even though I wasn't spying on them, you just heard it from where my offices were, we were stretching and getting ready for the game and um, the comment was: you know this dunk fest is embarrassing, you know we have to take someone out, this It is not like this. The Mar D guys were in Victory, that's what it is. ml was working on Kevin and the whole time and saying boy, if he was in that game he would go, then he would just do something like Kevin, yeah, yeah, yeah, like you're like, yeah. yeah, yeah I'll do it, I'll do it Cooper to Kareem to be ramming worthy, he should go the distance oh KN out and both benches are empty and you knew this was going to happen, you could see it coming first, I thought it was going In my head I was like Hey, I'm fine, hey, now you have to get up and do something about it, Kurt and then I was going after Kevin Mcale to do whatever came to mind at that moment.

Kevin was so nervous that he was. shaking him was amazing, we told him you did what you had to do when you couldn't catch something, you had to knock it down to slow it down and that's what they did and all hell broke loose. Kare moves the elbow and now Gilling Larry Bird jaw to jaw Larry and Kareem got in and then Larry was knocking the ball out of the field Michael Cooper was trying to protect him Larry kicked him back and he kicked him towards the stairs, it was incredible, he got into a verbal thing with magic and I told him: cross this line if I fall to the ground I'm in trouble you find this you find yourself here I'm going to crush you in the because ML didn't want to fight me Remember you write that our reaction was too personal , we should have reacted as a team on the field, we tried to deal with it personally and individually and uh, that didn't work for us magic with seven with six magic takes the ball and they magically walked away 3 seconds intercepted by Parish magic threw it straight to him Parish tragic tragic Johnson's what we call him then because he made a couple of bad plays they're in overtime tied at 123 Casey set up the play to get out the Huddle and Larry turned around and said uh you guys want to win the game just give me the ball to get out of the way, pass it to DJ, the bird goes straight to the pivot, now DJ holds the ball back into the bird and it falls.

Boston went 125-123 when Lakon's timeout came, a guy came off the bench, made the steel come down and dunked the ball to seal the victory. I'm not going to tell you who Sten from ML was and the Boston Celtics even have this NBA. world championship series hey, that's right, we'll be back, we'll be back the next day, Friday, June 4,

1984

, and the temperature at the time of the game inside the outfield is 97°F and there was no air conditioning, I asked for a couple of things air conditioning to uh, to try to cool the locker room, they plugged the laptops in, they blew up the circuits in Boston Garden, so now it's 100°, they turned up the heat, woo, you thought you were in this, you know, a sauna and with Kareem taking that oxygen and Okay, we have it now, it didn't feel like I was breathing air, it was like you were breathing something, but it had no effect on your lungs.

Here is the magic. Outside of Mark, the Lakers had several opportunities and here is Larry Bird. Sucking the thief seconds shoot, shoot, shoot later, you know, we asked Larry about it and they said, oh hell, it's hotter at home playing French liquor and the Boston Celtics gave credit to the Los Angeles Lakers 121. We had given away a couple of games We had missed free throws, uh, the choke tag started coming out. I think they were in our heads at the time and somehow had our number, as we really got into a retaliation mentality, now L pushes them and hits them.

The Lakers are giving the Celtics a dose of their own medicine even though we got Game 6. I didn't feel good about where we were, you know as a coach, even though you go into game seven with great players that you just didn't know. I have that kind of feeling, I thought we were going to sweep it in four, but it's been a little bit longer now, we just have to do it in seven to get back to Boston, for the seventh game, all the marbles go to the locker room. Everyone is a little tense and Danny goes out and puts on a hard monitor.

He felt like Kevin's chest and there was no heartbeat. Damn, you're dead, you know you're going to play, so he comes up to me and says, "You know." put it on my chest he said boy your heart is beating really hard I said you know what you guys just get on my back you get on my back I'll guide you through this Championship people forgot one thing that in 1981 uh uh during the first match from Larry Bird championship you know I was the MVP during that series I was a standout player Maxwell Maxwell had a performance he just put on a show it was incredible the level he reached it was just the relentless Maxwell against Magic Johnson moving inside the basket is good and a lack Somehow it always goes unnoticed, but in important games it is very present, we knew that they were defeating us and with about four or five minutes we were also not going to return and the celebration began and that is not a very good place.

Being when you get beat by the Celtics in game seven you get frustrated when you know you're a better team, especially when Larry beat me, that stayed with me for a long time. The Boston Celtics are the world of the NBA. champions in a seven game series with the Los Angeles Lakers I hope they spend the rest of their lives thinking they should have beaten us I hope it's aggravating Kareim and Magic right now we're like old soldiers, old soldiers never die, they just kind of die Fades, well that's the thing with us, we're just fading, but those memories have lasted even longer.