SI Flashback: NBA Finals

This edition of the Celtics stormed through the regular season with the best home record in league history (40-1) and what, at the time, was the third-highest win total (67-15). When the Rockets upset the Lakers in the Western Conference finals on a Ralph Sampson prayer at the Game 5 buzzer, the Celtics were seemingly handed the title -- and they did not fail to seize the opportunity.

Snapshot from No Stopping 'Em

By Jack McCallum

June 16, 1986 John Iacono

Top notch: Say this for the Houston Rockets: They are the team of tomorrow. But throughout this NBA season, with a single exception, there had been nothing but grim todays for visitors to the Boston Garden parquet. Sunday's Game 6 of the championship series was no different. Systematically but passionately, the Boston Celtics, a team that must now get younger, destroyed the Rockets, a team that must now get older, by a score of 114-97 to earn their 16th NBA championship. Hang another banner, sew a few more stitches of tradition into that big green quilt that drapes the NBA. And know that this Celtic team, which finished the season 47-1 at the Garden and 82-18 overall, can take its place alongside any that has gone before.

Vintage: For Game 6, Bird was clearly in no mood to fool around. Early in the fourth period with the Celtics ahead by 84-61, he searched his arsenal for the final dagger to plunge into the Rockets' hearts. Sweeping up the refuse of a half-court play gone bad, he suddenly began dribbling away from the basket to the far left corner. As the shot clock wound down, he let fly with as arrogant a shot as has ever been hoisted in the playoffs, an I-can-do-anything three-pointer. "Every one I took was on target today," Bird would say later. And so was this one. The game was over.

They Said It "Ralph Sampson is a gutless big guy who picks on little people, and he showed me a gutless streak. That was a gutless, yellow thing to do." —Celtics radio announcer Johnny Most "It was predestined.'' —Boston's Kevin McHale

Ready to rumble: The Rockets came out for Game 5 not floating but swinging. Or at least Ralph Sampson did. At 9:40 of the second period he and Jerry Sichting, who at 6'1" is 15 inches shorter than Sampson, became entangled during a Rocket possession. They bumped. Sichting didn't back down. Sampson gave him an elbow. Sichting said, "I'll get you for that." Sampson suddenly turned and threw a frightening right hand, then another, at Sichting. Dennis Johnson came running -- "to pull Jerry away," he said -- and Sampson took a swing that landed near Johnson's left eye. ... Both benches emptied. Akeem Olajuwon and Johnson squared off. Despite the fact that he had worn a DANCE FOR DISARMAMENT T-shirt to practice the day before, Bill Walton tackled Sampson, who grew progressively enraged as the battle wore on. After peace was restored, Referee Jack Madden made the correct decision, ejecting Sampson and not Sichting.

Issue date: June 16, 1986