"Celtics City" is how to do it
HBO series on Celtics' historic legacy is classic
As you look back over your life, chances are there are some things that you just can’t explain. Why did I go out with her? Why did I take that job? That car? I bought that car?
There weren’t many bigger Boston Celtics/Larry Bird fans than my great friend, Gerry “Francois” Dube and I. Over the years, we watched as many Celtics games as our work and school schedules would permit. I’ll never forget being up at the Ground Round in Manchester one June day, peanut shells all over the floor, watching that famous triple OT Game Five of the 1976 NBA Finals with the Phoenix Suns, getting up to leave several times only to have the game go into yet another overtime. We’d sit back down, watch a little more, get up to leave, our meal long over, and there’d be another overtime. The Celtics finally winning after they had seemingly won the game again and again.
But, as much as we loved the Celtics and John Havlicek and later Larry Bird, we never went to the games. Now, all these years later, I wonder why. We went to plenty of Boston Red Sox games — bleacher tickets were $1.50 — and one season, I even covered the Boston Bruins on their march to the Stanley Cup Finals (Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers beat them) and a good friend took Liz and I to see Doug Flutie and the Patriots beat the Chicago Bears. Never the Celtics. Why? I wish I knew…
The only Boston Celtics’ game I ever saw in person was, by the luck of the draw, the famous Magic Johnson “skyhook” in Game Four of the 1987 NBA Finals when the worn-down Celtics were unable to defend their championship. I was working at the Middlesex News in Framingham, Mass. and my boss dropped by one afternoon and told me I was covering the Celtics that night. I guess if you’re only going to cover one Boston Celtics’ game at the old Boston Garden, that was a dandy.
The memories of all these great Boston Celtics moments have come rushing back to me in watching the absolutely fabulous “Celtics City” documentary series now on Max/HBO. It’s not over just yet. If you like basketball, you ought to see it.
The film footage, the interviews, the overall portrait of a remarkable era in American sport — 11 championships in 13 seasons — the show brings you right back to those days and those unforgettable sports moments that these days seem in short supply.
Maybe it’s because of the astronomical sums these guys earn, the switching from team to team simply because the money is better, the explosion of 24-7 sports talk — there are programs on NFL football EVERY DAY, even in the off-season! — that has, I think, somewhat cheapened the games and series that used to mean so much.
Bill Simmons, who produced the series, grew up as a devout Boston Celtics’ season ticket holder, so he was an eyewitness to a good part of the series. But being a fan and trying to tell the whole story can sometimes be at odds but not here. Not to me anyway. You hear from the Lakers’ Jerry West, James Worthy, Pat Riley and not particularly kindly, either.
It brings back those extraordinary Celtics-Lakers duels and just how ferociously competitive they were. It would be hard to think of games these days that were fought like those were. You didn’t see players on opposing teams give hugs afterwards, that’s for damn sure. They MEANT something.
The Celtics City series takes you through the Celtic eras, from Bob Cousy through Bill Russell through Dave Cowens, (an FSU grad) through the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish championship era all the way up to last year’s Jason Tatum-led Celtics’ NBA championship, the 18th in the their history. The interviews are revealing, the clips are stirring and you get a genuine portrait of what life in the NBA was like then and just how talented those Celtics teams were. Eventually, they gave way to the rough and tumble (and dirty, we can say now) Detroit Pistons, who won a couple of titles while I was out there.
“Never had a lot of respect for the Pistons,” Bird says in the documentary. “It’s sad to have to play that way. We’re out there trying to make a living, trying to do our best and they’re out there trying to maim you, most of the time.”
Since I worked in Port Huron, Michigan during some of that time, I covered quite a few Piston games and at times, was sometimes critical of their roughhouse, cheap-shot style of play which didn’t endear me to some of my Michigan readers. I remember once Coach Chuck Daly giving me the evil eye after a critical column. But the Celts were getting old and I made sure to be there every time they came to town. You could sense the tide turning. The sand in their hourglass was about out.
The last time the Celtics were there, I found myself alone in the Celtics’ locker room with Bird after the game, just the two of us. And you bet I dropped my professional persona to tell him what I felt as a fan, like I knew Gerry and many of my other friends would have if they’d been given the opportunity. Bird was very gracious and thanked me. It was a nice moment.
That was why, remembering that, the most thrilling clip that jumped out at me from “Celtics City” was Game Five of that 1987 Eastern Conference duel with Detroit at the Boston Garden, the series tied 2-2, Detroit seemingly about to close out the Celtics’ championship run. The game looked over. (Yes, I loved seeing Robert Parish lay out Bill Laimbeer, rewound it).
An Isiah Thomas jumper puts the Pistons ahead 107-106 with just 17 seconds left. Bird drives to put Boston ahead but Dennis Rodman blocks the shot and it goes out of bounds off Boston!
Just five seconds remain. All Isiah Thomas has to do is inbound the ball and the Pistons advance. The Celtics will have to swallow the bitterest pill a team could imagine, losing to these bullies on their home court.
Thomas goes to inbound the ball to Laimbeer and miraculously — I think that word is appropriate here — Bird steals it and flips it to Dennis Johnson who, also miraculously, with just five seconds remaining, goes directly to the basket. Bird gets him the ball, he lays it in, the buzzer sounds and the Celtics WIN! (HOW BEAUTIFUL WAS THAT!)
And the pass was intended for that cretin Laimbeer! I remember watching the game, screaming at the top of my lungs, something I don’t remember doing for an NBA basketball game since. Now, I’ve seen the Bird steal countless times, rewound it once again here in my living room this morning. As I did, I thought, I coulda been there. But I almost never was. Strange, isn’t it?
I remember those times at the Ground Round in Manchester, Gerry always excited for the free hot "puffcorn" and he loved those iced chill mugs of beer. I was lucky enough to see the Celtics when I was young before moving to Brookline, NH with my Uncle Bud. Back then they played double-headers with four different teams in the same arena, something unheard of nowadays with owners clawing for the almighty entry fees and concessions, back when baseball also had double-headers where you didn't have to pay for separate admittions. Seeing the "Jones boys" KC and Sam, Bill Russell, Larry Seigfried, Satch Sanders, Cousy, Don Nelson and my favorite hero who I took his nickname John "Hondo" Havelchek. I was also there at Larry Bird's first game at the old Gardens where they let out a white dove at the start of the game and my friend Gary Crosby spent the whole worried about the damn dove. He would say to me at least a dozen times during the game "Bobby look at the poor bird up in the rafters, he's scared to death" and me replying "Gary watch the game, look you missed that behind the back pass".