Gifts That God Didn't Give

Bird doesn't receive star treatment on the Celtics—"That's the way I like it, too,"—and always heaps praise upon his teammates: "If it weren't for Tiny, for Max, for Robert Parish...you know, I could be out there but we wouldn't have won anything." They, in turn, heap praise upon Bird. Archibald says, "Guys appreciate his talent and what he sacrifices. We know he's the main focus on the team, but everybody on the team likes him because he's just Larry."

There is, however, another side of Larry Bird. When he gets loose, has a few beers and gets himself into comfortable company, he'll sit back, look up rather than down, his blue eyes sparkling and his face shining like a little boy's, and suddenly his Hoosier voice will become musical and full of confidence in his own marvelous talent.

"There are a lot of good players in the league," he'll say. "And on any given night any player can get hot and do anything he wants to. Some guys are very consistent and some guys are just great, but there are probably about 20 guys up there all the time. Now, I figure three out of four nights I'm going to play better than anybody else in the game. If you want to know who the best player in the league is, I'll put my money night after night on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He's the best. After him I'd probably take Julius Erving. And then, when it comes to a player who can do everything consistently, you'd have to say Elvin Hayes. There are just so many good players."

Bird is reminded of a stretch in the middle of last season when the Celtics won 25 of 26 games. "O.K.," he says. "I was playing great basketball for about a month. I reached my potential. For one stretch there, I was averaging about 28 points, 14 or 15 rebounds and seven assists. I felt like I had control of every game I played." But then came a nasty injury—one of Darryl Dawkins' massive knees caught one of Bird's comparatively delicate pink thighs just before the All-Star Game, and Bird's thigh turned ugly purple for two weeks.

"I've been hurt before, but I never had pain through my leg and back like that," Bird says. "It felt like my hip came out through my ear. And Darryl didn't even know he hit me! A while later I see him and he says, 'I'm sorry, Larry. I thought I felt something against my leg that night. I read in the paper the next morning that I hit you.' I never did get it back until the playoffs."

Bird didn't miss a game, though. Never has, college or pro. And when he "got it back," it was just in time to beat Dawkins and archrival Philadelphia in the regular season's final game. That win gave Boston a bye in the first round of the playoffs and Bird a week to let his bruised thigh heal.

Boston's first playoff opponent was red-hot Chicago—which had won 15 of 17, including a two-game sweep of the Knicks in a mini-series—and the Celtics dispatched the Bulls in four straight. "I made the best shot of my life in that series," Bird says. "Fourth game, tied up, their place, time out just before the fourth quarter and they got about 20,000 fans just going nuts. Coach Fitch says, 'Let's do something to quiet this crowd down.' We threw the ball in, messed around with it for a while, I made a three-pointer, then stole the ball, went back, laid it in.... We went up five within 40 seconds. I mean, that crowd just went 'Whoooo!' Stopped. From then on it was over."

After that it was Philadelphia again, and Boston's miracle comeback: Down three games to one, the Celtics rallied from six points behind with 1:51 to play to win Game 5; rallied from 17 points behind to win Game 6 at the Spectrum; then rallied from seven points behind in the closing minutes to outscore the 76ers 9-1 and win Game 7—and the series—91-90. In the final moments of that Game 7 Bird made two key steals, a couple of free throws, a crucial rebound, swatted a layup into Erving's face, then canned the winning basket on a 12-foot bank shot. "I wanted the ball in my hands for that last shot," Bird said after the game. "Not in anybody else's hands in the world."

The championship series against Houston was supposed to be a formality, but the Rockets extended the Celtics to six games. In Game 1, Bird executed a play that Auerbach called "the greatest I've ever seen." He grabbed the rebound after his own missed 18-footer from the right wing, shifted the ball from his right hand to his left in midair and banked it in as he went sprawling across the baseline. In Game 6 the Rockets came from 17 points down in the fourth period to pull within three with 1:51 left. Bird caught a pass from Archibald and, just as calmly as if he were all alone in a gym at midnight on the first of October, hurled in a three-pointer that put away the championship. "I didn't even know it was a three-pointer," Bird says now. "I caught the ball in shooting position; nobody was around, I just released it. Heck, when I'm open like that for a shot I usually feel like I can't miss it. And when I have a shot like that to get us a game [in this case, a championship], I got to take it because I know I have an excellent chance of making it."

Can Bird feel when a shot is going to go' in? And when it's not? "I used to in college, not anymore," he says. "For one thing, I don't like the basketball they use in the NBA [the seams on the pro ball are wider than those on the college ball]. In college I never had to worry about anybody blocking my shot. I could take my time. The defense is so much better in the pros. I always have somebody like Bobby Jones to worry about. You can never fake them out. You just have to make your move and shoot it quick. In college I followed my shot a lot. In the pros you can't afford to. If you follow your shot, you get burned at the other end. And there's one other thing...."