When the Game Was Ours - Larry Bird [75]
Ironically, Maxwell suffered a cartilage tear in his knee in February. He tried to play through it, but the flap inside his knee kept grabbing, and the pain jolted him awake at night, leaving him popping pain relievers around the clock. After Boston's loss to the Lakers on February 17, Maxwell underwent arthroscopic surgery. McHale replaced him in the starting lineup and would remain there for the balance of his career.
When Maxwell returned, it was in a new role as a bench player. The veteran was unhappy with his reduced status, but his allies in the locker room were dwindling and his complaints went unheeded.
"Max was out of shape when he came back," Bird said. "He didn't do the rehab the way they asked. I was so pissed at him, because he was so good. He was a helluva player when he felt like it. But all that talk ... it could bring you down.
"He got his money, and he quit. I like Max, but that's the bottom line. What he doesn't understand is, we helped him get that money, just like he helped me get mine. We were all accountable to each other.
"It was just a waste, that's all. We could have won in '83, but we didn't because of all the bullshit with Bill Fitch. Then we could have won again in '85, but we didn't because of more bullshit. There are two years, right there, where we were young and together and healthy, and we didn't capitalize on it. Looking back, it just kills you.
"I'm not going to lay all the blame on Max. It was more than just him, but we couldn't afford that kind of stuff, and he just didn't seem to get that."
Maxwell never denied he made joking references to his contract. He realized too late, he said, that his constant chatter proved to be a source of friction with Bird.
"We all used to tease and laugh about stuff," Maxwell said. "I think Larry fed into what Red Auerbach was hearing from [Boston Globe reporter] Will McDonough. He was talking to Red every day and saying I wasn't busting my hump.
"And when I did get hurt, Larry didn't believe it. He thought everyone should play through pain the way he did."
Bird's legacy was flush with examples of valiant performances while fighting through injuries, including persistent elbow troubles, double bone spurs in his heels (which eventually required surgery), and a chronic back condition that plagued him in the final six seasons of his career.
In 1982, while Bird was vying for a rebound against Milwaukee, he was elbowed by big man Harvey Catchings on the side of his cheek. The pain in his face and his jaw was excruciating. His skull had been depressed by the blow, but Bird refused to come out and finished the game. Afterward, Dr. Silva sent him to the hospital, where doctors drilled a hole in the side of his head and inserted a medical apparatus to pop his zygotic arch back out.
Bird hated sitting out so much that he often didn't tell his coaches when he suffered an injury. When Dell Curry tagged him with an elbow and fractured his eye orbiter in the mid-eighties, Bird ran around in the second half with double vision.
"I was seeing two baskets," he confessed. "I had to guess which one to shoot at."
After the game, when he noticed blood dripping from his nostril, he blew his nose, causing his eye to protrude grotesquely.
Year after year, he pushed his threshold of pain to new limits. In the deciding Game 5 of the opening round of the 1991 playoffs, Bird dove for a loose ball against the Indiana Pacers and knocked himself momentarily unconscious by violently slamming his head on the parquet. He had been questionable for the game to begin with because his back had seized up on him. (Days earlier, he had spent a night at New England Baptist Hospital in traction to stabilize his back.)
When he banged his head in the second quarter, he was carted off to the locker room and examined by team physician Dr. Arnold Scheller. It was clear to Scheller that Bird had suffered a concussion and was too woozy to take the floor to start the third quarter.