When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [57]
"Larry Bird is in our car!" shrieked the driver, pounding the steering wheel for emphasis.
"Oh, my God, are you kidding me?! This is unbelievable!! I'm wearing your shirt!!!" howled the passenger in the rear seat.
"All right now, calm down," Bird said. "If you want us to stay, you gotta keep quiet."
They tried. But as they weaved through traffic with the object of every Celtics fan's desire lounging in the back seat, it was impossible not to holler out "MVP!" or "Lakers suck!" They were traversing the heart of downtown Boston with the most famous and popular athlete in the city.
"So, Larry," said the driver, as they approached Chelsea's, "can we come with you?"
"Sorry, champions only," declared Bird, punching Buckner in the shoulder.
When Bird and Buckner reached Faneuil Hall, they thanked their blue-collar chauffeurs and skipped through the roped security entrance to Chelsea's.
Inside, the two players clinked beer bottles and toasted to their title. Bird, normally reserved in victory, disarmed Buckner with occasional gleeful outbursts of "We did it!" Hours later, amid the singing and the drinking and the reveling, Bird grabbed Buckner and slung his arm around him.
"I finally got him," Bird said. "I finally got Magic."
The Lakers and Celtics began the 1983–84 season with unfinished business to address. Los Angeles had cruised to the Finals the previous June but was unceremoniously dumped by Julius Erving, Moses Malone, and the Philadelphia 76ers in four straight games. The Celtics had suffered a shocking sweep of their own, falling to the Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals.
Bird bitterly referred to the 1982–83 campaign as a lost opportunity to capitalize on a nucleus of talent that should have, in his opinion, yielded a championship. It further irked him that Los Angeles would have been the opponent in the Finals had the Celtics advanced. It was (and had been since his arrival in the NBA) his fervent wish to battle Magic and LA head-to-head for the title, yet four seasons into their professional careers, that matchup had not materialized. Bird was acutely aware of what his nemesis was accomplishing on the Other Coast, even though he rarely acknowledged it.
"Did you see Magic had 21 assists the other night?" Larry's teammate Chris Ford asked.
Bird didn't respond, but he already knew about Magic's numbers. He had checked them first thing in the morning.
"I was keeping my eye on him," Bird admitted. "It got to a point where I really didn't care about anyone else. The focus had to be Lakers, Lakers, Lakers."
Two thousand eight hundred miles away, Magic Johnson woke up each morning, poured himself a glass of orange juice, spread out the newspaper, and checked the paper to see how Larry Bird and the Celtics had fared the night before. He painstakingly charted not only his rival's points but also his assist count.
"When those assists started going up," Magic said, "I knew he was doing what I was doing: making everyone better."
In 1984 it became increasingly apparent that Los Angeles and Boston were on course to meet in the Finals. Bird was submitting MVP numbers, and Magic was orchestrating a transition game that ran rampant over alleged Western Conference rivals. The Celtics and the Lakers crushed opponents in their respective conferences with one eye on the other.
"You knew pretty early on it was going to be one of the greatest rivalries in sports," said former Lakers guard Byron Scott. "There was an edge to the games. You had two teams that genuinely disliked one another, and then you had Magic and Bird, who wanted to beat each other's brains out."
The Lakers objected to Bird's cold stare, his trash-talking on the floor, and his stubborn unwillingness to acknowledge LA's accomplishments. The Celtics dismissed Magic's toothy smile, his flashy