When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [66]
As the Lakers collected their warm-ups, Worthy patted his young point guard on the back. There would be two Laker goats on this night, not just one.
"I'll never forget the look on Magic's face," Buckner said. "It was one of absolute disbelief. He had never messed up before."
"When a player of that caliber does something so uncharacteristic, you know you are lucky," Ainge said. "You also anticipate that star will make up for it—in the next play, or the next game."
Bird contends that Magic may have been a victim of a Celtics home-court advantage. In 1984 shot clocks were not positioned atop the baskets, as they are today. In Boston there were huge electronic boxes on the floor displaying how much time was left on the shot clock, but more often than not they were obstructed by a courtside photographer or a fan who had draped his or her jacket over it.
"It seemed like someone was always sitting in front of them clocks," Bird said. "I bet Magic couldn't even see how much time was left. I never could. What I used to do was check the time during the time-out, then count down in my head once I got out there."
In the aftermath of the loss, Magic reminded anyone who would listen that the Lakers had accomplished what they had set out to do: win a game in Boston. No one was interested in that angle. They were too focused on the mismanagement of the clock in the final seconds.
Johnson was vilified in the Los Angeles and Boston media for the glaring error, but he never said anything about his coach instructing him to call the time-out. He absorbed the worst public flogging of his young career in silence.
"I just felt, being one of the leaders of the team, I had to take the criticism," Magic said. "You don't want a situation where you are contradicting your teammates or your coach. We had to stick together."
The Lakers flew home to Los Angeles with their humbled point guard in unfamiliar territory. For the first time in his career, Magic found himself—and others—dwelling on his mistakes. The night before Game 3, the man who had fashioned a career out of positive self-talk had to keep pushing images of his mistakes out of his mind. It didn't help that Bird, his nemesis, was emerging as the catalyst of the Celtics.
Riley, recognizing that his floor leader was shaken, instructed him to push the ball on every miss. "Let's take them out of their game," he said to Johnson.
The Lakers began with an 18–4 run and demolished Boston 137–104 in Game 3. Their 51 fast-break chances pinned the Celtics with their largest playoff defeat in history. Magic was dazzling, dishing out 21 assists and completely controlling the tempo. Bird had 30 points and 12 free throws in the game, but sensing the series was slipping away, verbally assaulted his team with the aim of spurring them on.
"Until we get our heads where they belong, we're in trouble," Bird declared after Game 3. "We're a team that plays with heart and soul, and today the heart wasn't there. I can't believe a team like this would let LA come out and push us around like they did. We played like sissies."
His anger was neither contrived nor fleeting. Bird could see yet another chance at a ring faltering and he wasn't going to stand idly by and allow it to happen.
"I wanted to fight every teammate I had after Game 3," Bird said. "I did everything I could in the papers to get them fired up. I knew if something didn't change, we were going to lose. So I called them sissies, told them they played like girls. I didn't know if there would be some backlash, but I didn't care.
"I was not going to watch Magic celebrating in front of me again."
When reporters relayed Bird's rant to his coach, Jones suppressed a smile. Although he did not publicly condone or condemn Bird's remarks, he was privately thrilled that his best player had challenged the team.
"It was needed," Jones said, "and it was done by the only guy who could get away with it."
Although the insults may have been shocking to the public, Bird's outburst was nothing his teammates hadn't heard before.