When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [43]
He returned on February 27, and Buss printed up buttons that declared THE MAGIC IS BACK! to celebrate the occasion.
Norm Nixon rolled his eyes. He was tired of Magic stealing all the press and dominating the ball. He had taken over the point position during Magic's injury, and the team had played well. Once a mentor to Johnson, Nixon was increasingly becoming his foil.
Westhead, in his first full season as Lakers coach, scrapped McKinney's flowing motion offense and implemented a system that was predicated on pounding the ball inside to Kareem. Showtime had been reduced to Slowtime, and Magic was frustrated, especially since he often found himself playing in the front court.
"Paul ran this system where I was supposed to only run down the floor on my designated side, the left side," Magic said. "I'm saying, Are you kidding me? I can only use the left side of the floor?'"
"Coach," he said to Westhead after practice, "we need to get back to running."
"Magic," Westhead answered, "stick to the game plan."
The fractured Lakers were stunned by the Houston Rockets in the opening round of the best-of-three series. Magic shot 2 of 13 from the floor in the final game and threw up an air ball on the final play as he drove to the basket. His squabble with Nixon went public, and "the whole thing," Johnson said, "went up in smoke."
Boston had survived a grueling Eastern Conference Finals with the Sixers by overcoming a 3–1 deficit. Bird was immense in the deciding Game 7, picking off numerous Sixers passes and banking home the game-winning shot.
Just as Magic had done the previous year against the 76ers, Bird willed his team to victory.
"I never heard the term 'point forward' until I met Larry," said Tiny Archibald. "He was a professor. He dissected the game, and he dissected the players. He knew when to shoot and when to score better than anyone I've ever seen.
"He wouldn't let us lose to the Sixers. He simply would not allow it."
LA's stunning postseason fall left Bird feeling like a prizefighter who had just been told his heavyweight opponent was TKO'ed before he got to throw a punch. He wanted Magic and the Lakers in the Finals, but instead he got Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets.
Malone willingly played the role of Boston's villain, declaring the Celtics were "really not that good." Even after the Green took a 3–2 series lead, Malone dismissed them as "chumps," not champs.
Bird was effective as a rebounder and a passer against the Rockets, but until the deciding Game 6, he was shooting only 38 percent from the floor. Houston forward Robert Reid was credited with being a Bird stopper, which only served to irritate the Boston forward further.
"Try stopping this," he said to Reid, when he connected on a 15-footer in the third quarter.
"Stop that," he said again, after he drilled his only three-pointer of the series late in the fourth quarter.
The Celtics won Game 6 behind Bird's 26 points on 11-of-20 shooting. He celebrated his first championship by puffing on one of Auerbach's trademark stogies. Then he partied with his teammates through the night in the team hotel. The Celtics were young and healthy and their future was limitless.
As Magic sat at home in Lansing with his father watching Boston's victory celebration, he fidgeted uncomfortably in his chair.
"That's it," said Magic, who got up and called Tucker, who lived in Lansing and owned his own basketball court. Twenty minutes later, Johnson was dressed in his practice gear, going through a full workout at his agent's house in the middle of the night.
"I was so pissed watching Larry smoke that cigar," he said, "I couldn't stand it anymore."
That summer, Buss offered Magic a 25-year, $25 million contract. It was an outlandish deal, both in dollar value and years. No one expected Johnson to play another two and a half decades, so the inference was clear: Buss had plans for him beyond his basketball days. Suddenly, Magic's teammates were revisiting his cozy