When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [109]
Aguirre, Thomas, and Johnson woke up each morning and ran four to five miles. They chugged up hills, lifted weights, ran through cardio drills, then went to the gym and did three-man weaves, full-court, and 1-on-1 competitions, also full-court.
After they were done, they sat in the gym and traded stories, bragging about their accomplishments and dreaming aloud of winning it all.
When Magic built his mansion in Bel Air, he nicknamed his guest quarters "the Isiah Room." If the Lakers were on the road and the Pistons were coming to town to play the Clippers, Johnson would leave Isiah the keys to his house or have his car waiting for him at the team hotel.
"He was like my brother," Johnson said.
But now the brothers stood poised to win a championship, and one of them was going to come up empty.
Isiah and Magic shared a pregame kiss before Game 1 as a sign of their respect and affection for each other. Bird, watching from his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, turned away, disgusted.
"I wanted to throw up," he said. "It was all show. I knew how bad they both wanted to win."
Pat Riley wasn't too happy about the public display either. He wanted the proper focus from his star, and he was concerned he wasn't going to get it. Michael Cooper, Magic's oldest friend on the Lakers, expressed similar doubts. Those questions lingered as Detroit stole a Game 1 win behind Adrian Dantley's 34 points. Before each game, Magic and Isiah reenacted their kiss, but at a price. Teammates in both locker rooms began wondering where their leaders' loyalties lay.
Those questions were answered in Game 4. The Pistons had emulated their enemies, the Celtics, by employing a physical style against the Lakers. But the difference, as Magic saw it, was that Boston hit you once on every play and Detroit hit you twice. Mahorn would deliver the hard foul, then Laimbeer would deliver another blow after the whistle had already blown.
"It was a line you shouldn't cross, and the Pistons crossed it all the time," Magic said.
Johnson was getting leveled every time he drove to the hoop, and he was growing tired of it. In the fourth quarter of Game 4, with Detroit enjoying a sizable lead, Magic was tomahawked by two Pistons at the same time. It was time to make somebody pay.
Magic chose Isiah. As Thomas drove to the basket, Magic delivered his friend what he called a Laimbeer special—an elbow to the kidney. Thomas popped up, threw the ball at Magic, and went for his throat. The two friends raised their fists, ready to come to blows, before they were hastily separated. After the game, Magic told reporters he hadn't singled out Thomas and was planning on fouling the next Detroit player who drove to the basket.
"But that wasn't true," Magic admitted later. "I did target Isiah. Pat Riley had questioned me in front of the guys whether I'd take him out. I needed to show them I was willing to do it."
Before Game 5, Isiah and Magic again exchanged a pregame kiss, but suddenly the ritual was an uncomfortable formality. Both stars were still seething over their scuffle, and neither had picked up the phone to clarify what had happened.
Thomas responded with one of the gutsiest performances of his career in Game 6. He suffered a badly sprained ankle during the game but still returned to pump in 25 third-quarter points to keep his team afloat in the series. After the game, he left on crutches.
Isiah was hobbling badly in Game 7, and Magic exploited his lack of mobility. The Lakers became the first team since the 1968 and 1969 Celtics to win back-to-back championships. In the final seconds of the Finals, with LA up three points and Thomas hoping to sink a miracle three-pointer to prolong the action, he and Magic accidentally collided at midcourt. There was no call, no foul, no shot.
Johnson and Thomas did not speak after the game. There were no trips to Hawaii that summer, no shopping sprees in New York, no workouts in Lansing, no marathon phone calls. Thomas's son was born during the playoffs, and Magic