Basketball At Its Toughest

Heinsohn then started to talk about the Lakers. "Sure," he said, "we're mad at them. Why shouldn't we be? They're after what we've got. It's that Hollywood stuff and everyone is on their bandwagon and off ours all of a sudden. Just about every story you read says that we've had it, that we're old and done. All those stories didn't just come out of the smog. The Lakers had something to do with them. We are not the oldest men alive and we showed them tonight what we can do. When they play us they better be ready, because we love to beat them."

It was 7:15 the next morning when Fred Schaus walked through the lobby of the Sheraton-Cadillac—right past his players. They were all there waiting for him. "Well," he said, "it looks like they all want to go East for one reason or another."

At the airport Bob Cousy was at a counter having a stand-up breakfast of orange juice, coffee and a sticky bun. He was carrying a book, Total Empire, and never noticed the Lakers' Dick Barnett walk past with a newly purchased copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare . Johnny Most, the Boston announcer, stood by Cousy and said, "You beat them by 27 last night. Let's beat them by 40 tonight." Cousy said nothing.

At the Boston Garden that night a sellout, hometown crowd was anticipating with relish the prospect of seeing the Celtics crush the presumably demoralized Lakers. Cousy was down in the dressing room blowing into his fists again. But not far away Hot Rod Hundley, the player who seems to typify the Laker attitude, didn't look exactly demoralized. He was generously slapping after-shave lotion all over his chest, sweetening the Boston atmosphere.

The game began, and Cousy threw in a push shot, then another, then another. With Boston leading 6-0, he ran down the court, raised his clenched fists high above his head and slammed them down through the smoky air. It looked like a rout was on. Moments later Dick Barnett started to drive for the Boston basket. He ran into Frank Ramsey full force. Ramsey reached out, grabbed Barnett by the chest and the two started swinging. Both benches quickly ran to the fight. Auerbach and Schaus stood for an instant screaming at each other, their first conversation in weeks. Play resumed, and the Celtics quickly pounded off to a 17-point lead.

The Lakers were in serious trouble. To begin with, the injury to West and the fact that Forward Ron Horn went to Indianapolis to be near his critically ill younger brother reduced the squad to eight men. ("Seven men and Hundley," says Forward Rudy LaRusso in mock humor.) Now their shooting was poor. But near the end of the half they came back to within 10 points, 67-57. "Just keep after them," said Schaus at half time. "They can't shoot as well in the second half as they did in the first [27 for 58]."

At the beginning of that second half, Laker Center Jim Krebs began to rebound well. "There are nights," says Baylor, "when he can't jump high enough to get a half dollar under his feet." The Lakers cut the Boston lead to five points, but Boston rallied to move 12 ahead with only seven minutes to go.

It was about then that Heinsohn and Barnett crashed into one another under the Laker basket. Each went sprawling to the floor, dazed, and stayed there a moment before finally getting up. When they did stand up, it was into a different ball game. The Lakers, maybe sore, maybe just getting hot at last, ran off 13 points to Boston's two. With 1:13 left, Los Angeles took the lead for good, and kept moving. "You just watch," Hundley had said before the game began. "I'll betcha $5 Heinsohn gets a technical foul called on him tonight just like he did last night. He's so crazy, he always does against us." With 30 seconds to play, a technical was called on Heinsohn for swearing at the referee, adding another point to the Lakers' margin. The final score was 134-128, and the feuding giants had split their two games.

"Well," said Hundley in the L.A. dressing room, "we got by the easy one."

Bob Cousy sat quietly in the near-silent Celtic dressing room. "Just wait," he said.