When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [59]
For years afterward, Hundley intermittently picked up the telephone and called his old Lakers pal.
"Hello?" Selvy would say.
"Hi, Frank. Nice shot," Hundley would answer. Then he'd hang up the phone.
And so it went. Each year the Lakers believed it would be different. Each year it wasn't. In 1968–69, with Cousy retired and Russell in his final season as player-coach for Boston, the Lakers acquired Russell's chief rival, the irrepressible Wilt Chamberlain. Chamberlain, who once scored 100 points in a game, enabled Los Angeles to win 55 games and capture home-court advantage throughout the Finals against—who else?—Boston. Predictably, the Lakers-Celtics showdown went seven games, but this time the new champion was to be decided on the Lakers' home court, the Forum.
Lakers owner Jack Kent Cooke felt so confident about his team's chances that he ordered thousands of purple and gold balloons and perched them high above courtside in the rafters, nestled in netting, waiting for the perfect moment to release them and ignite the Lakers' celebration.
As West ran out for pregame warm-ups, he noticed the balloons above and shook his head. He was embarrassed by his owner's arrogant gesture.
"The Celtics deserved better," West said.
With a minute to play and Boston clinging to a one-point lead (103–102), West poked the ball free. In the frenzied scramble that followed, Celtics sixth man Don Nelson picked up the loose ball and lofted a shot from just beyond the free throw line. It clanged off the back rim and shot straight up into the air—but, unlike Selvy's jumper, the Boston player's shot dropped through the strings.
The Celtics won. The Lakers didn't.
Again.
West dropped to his knees as the buzzer sounded. He looked up one more time at the balloons before he shuffled to the dressing room. He had played the final three games of the series with a strained hamstring, and his leg was throbbing. As he stood in the shower with cascades of water streaming down his body, West briefly contemplated quitting.
"It was the most devastating moment of my career," he said. "If I had something else I liked to do in terms of competition, I probably would have done it. It would have been best for me to get away from basketball at that point."
The balloons were donated to a children's hospital. West, who had submitted 42 points, 13 rebounds, and 12 assists, became the first MVP of the Finals to play for the losing side. The series epitomized his professional legacy: brilliance in defeat against Boston.
"Jerry never talked much about it," said Magic, "but he didn't have to. It showed on his face. The man had been tortured by the Boston Celtics."
By 1984 there were new players and new story lines to explore in the Celtics-Lakers rivalry, but the presence of West and Riley and Auerbach and K. C. Jones, who had starred with the Celtics on the court and was now their coach, only added to the intrigue.
"It was impossible to ignore the history," said Lakers forward Kurt Rambis. "Even if we wanted to, we couldn't. There were news articles, stories, conversations, remembrances.
"It wasn't just about us. We were playing for Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West and Elgin Baylor."
Bird won his first of three consecutive league MVP trophies that season, averaging 24.2 points, 10.1 rebounds, and 6.6 assists a game.
Magic's numbers were also gaudy—17.6 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 13.1 assists—but he had not yet reached the elite status of his rival. The individual tension developing between the two wasn't restricted to Larry and Magic. Each Celtic and Laker was instructed not to cross the line into enemy territory.
"I used to love two of the old Celtics—Jo Jo White and Hank Finkel," said LA forward James Worthy. "When I got to LA