Larry Bird is one of the great icons of the NBA. A wonderful, generational player, whose duels with Magic Johnson saved the competition and prepared some golden years that definitively blossomed with the rise of Michael Jordan. Bird was a forward with a lethal jump shot but he also did everything else: he rebounded, he defended and he was one of the best passers in basketball history. A total player. He won three rings with his Celtics (1981, 1984 and 1986), three MVPs (1984, 1985 and 1986), two Finals MVPs (1984 and 1986), he was an all-star twelve times, he entered the Best Quintet nine times, he won the Rookie of the Year (1980), won three three-point contests, had two consecutive seasons (1987 and 1988) with at least 50% in field goals, 40% in three-pointers and 90% in free throws and was also, Of course, one of the great faces of the unforgettable Barcelona 92 Dream Team.
Bird, whose legendary number 33 hangs at the top of the Boston Garden, turned 67 in December. This unrepeatable forward, who was born on December 7, 1956 in West Braden Springs, in the state of Indiana, was also a wild competitor… and one of the most skilled at getting on his nerves or directly making his rivals complex. A basketball savant (he has won the MVP awards as a player, Coach of the Year and Executive of the Year) who took advantage of his fire and intelligence to leave moments that are already part of his legend and that of trash talking in the NBA. These are the most famous:
“From the coach’s lap.” In 1985, Larry Bird scored 60 points against the Atlanta Hawks. Doc Rivers, who was the point guard for those Hawks, told how they had to suffer the torment of Bird’s points… and his comments: “Bird would arrive in the area and start announcing what shots he was going to take. He said “to plank”… it was torture for Domiquine Wilkins. Mentally I could handle him. None of us could. He told us “to the board”, or “against whom next” or “where do you want me to score from now”. And not a single one failed. But in the end you had to admit how good he was. The last shot was a long three-pointer and he said before, as he crossed the court, “from the coach’s lap” (in three trainer’s lap) in the area from which he was going to shoot. Then he said “who wants it?” And I think it was Reggie Brown who tried to defend him but he took one of his shots with a lot of arc… and he made it. Reggie collided with him and sent him into our coach’s lap, yes. So everything was as he had said. An accident… but as if it had been destiny. There were players from our bench high-fiving each other… it was something incredible. Mike Fratello, the coach, had to meet us afterwards to tell us that it was one thing to admire what a player like Bird could do and another to celebrate it on the bench.”
“Who is going to come second?” It was told by Michael Cooper and it is another absolutely famous moment for Bird, who won the first three editions of the three-point contest (1986-88). In the second, in 1987 and in Seattle, he came to the locker room where the rest of the participants were and asked them if they already knew who was going to come second. Bird won the contest with his Celtics training jacket on and with his finger raised to the sky before his last shot from the last cart went in. After him, and after Dale Ellis’ triumph in 1989, came Craig Hodges, who won three more in a row. When Hodges was asked if it was any less worthwhile to win that contest without Larry Bird among the participants, he challenged the Celtics forward with “you know where to find me.” Larry Bird’s response was “yes, at the end of the Bulls bench.”
“You can’t defend me.” In his rookie year (1983-84), Clyde Drexler (later a ten-time all star and NBA champion, one of the great shooting guards in history) had this encounter with Bird: “I was a rookie and I had to defend him. He looked at me and said ‘you can’t stop me…’. I told him that he was too confident and he said ‘Confidence? But if you’re a rookie, you don’t know anything yet.’ He then scored me like 10 points in a row. The coach had to sit me down and Bird walked past our bench laughing at me.”
“Fly, bird.” This was told by Brad Daugherty, an excellent center for the Cavaliers who was a five-time all-star between the 80s and 90s: “He received it in a corner and I ran out to defend him. When he was going to shoot, he jumped as far as I could and when he was in the air he told me ‘fly, bird’. I fell, he threw, and it went in cleanly, without touching the rim.”
“A temperature check.” Frank Layden was the Utah Jazz coach when Larry Bird began making one basket after another against the Salt Lake City team. After the first few he passed by the bench and said “it’s just a heat check, so you can see how hot I am.” Afterwards he told the rival coach “hey, Frank, you don’t have anyone on the bench who can defend me.” And Layden looked at his substitute and answered “no.”
A show for Magic Johnson: The Magic-Bird rivalry is one of the most legendary in the NBA, a League that grew thanks to those duels between the Lakers and Celtics and entered a golden age that was later triggered by Michael Jordan. Magic, who ended up being his close friend, tells how Bird greeted him before a game between them that he couldn’t play due to a muscle injury: “He came up to me and said, ‘Man, I’m sorry you’re not playing. But since you’re here I’m going to put on a good show for you. So just sit back and enjoy it.’ I told him to leave me alone, but then every time he scored a basket, he turned around and looked directly at me.”
“You said you were going to kick his ass.” Kevin McHale revealed Bird’s strategy before a game against Elvin Hayes: “I was going to start the game and just before the opening jump, Larry yells at me ‘Come on, Kevin, tell Elvin Hyes what you just told me.’ I hadn’t told him anything, absolutely nothing. But he insisted ‘come on, tell him what you told me, you’re going to kick his ass.’ Hayes was staring at me and at that point it was no longer a matter of denying it, so I limited myself to agreeing with him.”
“I’m going to take the ball.” KC Jones, the Celtics coach in the 1980s, remembered the end of a game against the Bullets in Washington: “Larry scored the last basket but I had called a timeout. He came to the bench a little upset and said ‘after the time-out I’m going to shoot from the same place and I’m going to put it in again.’ And it was because he had already told the Washington players that he was going to score the last basket and he was going to take the ball.”
“Today I’m going to be left-handed.” Bill Walton was the legendary sixth man on the 1986 champion Celtics, one of the best teams in NBA history. The red giant experienced first-hand how Bird was motivated for a match in a very special way: “At the end of a match tour he had achieved everything he had set out to do. We hadn’t lost on that trip, so the day before the last game he told us that he was going to play left-handed, as if he were left-handed. And that he was going to do it for at least the first three quarters. After those three quarters, in Portland, he had 27 points against poor Jerome Kersey.” Bird finished with 47 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists. And 21/34 in field goals. Not only that, he scored the basket that forced overtime and then hit the winning shot in overtime.
“Give me the ball and put it away.” His former teammate ML Carr also experienced his methods firsthand: “He asked us if we wanted to win the game. We said yes and he told us ‘okay, then give the ball to me and get out of my way.’”
“What is the scoring record?” Danny Ainge, now president and general manager of the Celtics, experienced as a teammate Bird’s habit of being motivated by the scoring record of each pavilion: “When I was in a pavilion taping my ankles, I used to call a worker on that field and ask him What was the scoring record on that track. It was his way of setting himself challenges.”
The torture chamber. Ainge also said that he and Dennis Johnson (the starting backcourt: guard and point guard) used to listen to how Bird told them “give me the ball, I have this guy in the torture chamber”: “And he said it with the player who defended him right there, in front of him.”
“You will have another to defend me…” Bird had a habit of challenging opposing coaches about his defensive matchups. “Hey, coach. “You better have someone else around to defend me because I’m going to kill the one who even defended me now.”
“I’m going to shove it in your face.” Xavier McDaniel, the Supersonics forward, suffered Bird’s cold blood in the final moments of the games: “We were tied. And he came and told me where he was going to receive and that he was going to score in my face. I told him I would be waiting for him. We came out of the timeout, he cut twice along the baseline and received it on the post, in the exact place he had indicated to me. He made his debut, turned around and stuck it in my face. Then he looked at the clock, turned around and told me ‘I wasn’t counting on leaving two seconds of playing time.’
“I have already punished them enough.” On February 18, 1985, against the Utah Jazz, Bird had 30 points, 12 rebounds, 10 assists and 9 steals at the end of the third quarter. He didn’t play the entire fourth quarter (the score was 90-66 before that final quarter) and when he was asked later why he hadn’t gone for the quadruple-double, he responded, “Why? He had already punished them enough.”
“I’m the best shooter in the NBA.” Like Drexler, Reggie Miller also had his rookie experience with Bird. The Pacers player tried to distract him during a series of free throws and between the two shots (he made both) Bird told him: “Rookie, I’m the best fucking shooter in the League. From the entire League, you understand? So, are you trying to tell me something?”
“Merry fucking Christmas.” At a Christmas game, also against the Pacers, Bird told Chuck Person before tip-off that he had a gift for him. Then, at a moment when Person were on the bench, Bird launched a three-pointer in front of him and with the ball still in the air he turned and said “Merry fucking Christmas.” The shot went in cleanly right after, of course.
“Ben Poquette? “Are you fucking kidding?” At a game in Chicago in 1987, Bird had problems with the free tickets he should have received from the Bulls. Before playing, he communicated this situation to the opposing coach, Doug Collins. And he also asked him what the pavilion’s points record was because his intention was to beat it. The game began with Ben Poquette, a white forward, defending Bird, who did not like having white defenders placed on him because it seemed disrespectful. So he turned to Collins and said, “Ben Poquette? “Are you fucking kidding?” Afterwards, he scored 33 points in the first half alone and finished the game with 41.
“Give me a defender or I’ll score 60.” In a duel against the Detroit Bad Boys, Bird scored four consecutive baskets against Dennis Rodman and said to Chuck Daly, the legendary coach of the Pistons: “Who’s defending me, Chuck? Is there anyone defending me? “You better put someone in or I will score 60 points.” Rodman himself remembered it like this: “I was glued to him, trying to make sure he didn’t even receive and he was dedicated to telling his teammates to pass the ball to him, that he was alone, to hurry up before the opponent realized and would cover him. And he received, he elbowed me in the jaw and scored the shot in my face. And he told my coach ‘take this guy out and get someone who defends a little because it’s very easy when I play so free.’”
“Do you realize?” In a game in Dallas in 1986, Bird told the entire Mavericks bench what was going to happen after a timeout: “Do you realize? I’m going to stay here, without moving. They will pass the ball to me and the next thing you will hear is the sound of the ball going through the net.” And that’s exactly how it happened. Bird scored and winked at the Mavs bench as he turned to the other side of the court to defend.
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2024-05-11 09:14:00
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