Editor’s note: “Distant Replay” is an occasional feature from The Athletic re-examining notable games from Boston sports history. You can read more here.
This was always that one game growing up in Boston that, even if you had never actually watched it, you had seen it. The Kurt Rambis clothesline, Larry Bird backing Michael Cooper into the stands, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar jawing with Bird, Cedric Maxwell’s choke sign, those images from Game 4 of the 1984 NBA Finals were the cut shots in the montages that defined your childhood
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But I hadn’t actually sat down and watched the game since I got ESPN Classic on my cable subscription back in the late ’90s. Now that I’ve wasted my adult life acquiring as much X and O knowledge as I can, I figured it was time to sit down and watch the whole damn thing and gain a new perspective.
So I hopped in my DeLorean, stole some plutonium from the eccentric scientist next door, and went back to 1984 to catch the action between the Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Celtics 129, Lakers 125. June 6, 1984
The first thing that took me is the differences in the style of play from the Golden Age of the ’80s to the postmodern era we are in now. The way the floor is spaced completely changes the game and frankly created a stale half-court experience back then. Players are generally dotted around the paint, which allows the defense to stay compact and constantly double the post with only moderate risk. In the contemporary game, players are spread out around the 3-point line and doubling off of one of them can create a massive opening. Defenses have to take much bigger risks to load up to the ball and offenses are built to take advantage of them way better than in the ’80s.
But style is all about compromising one virtue for another, and that compact half-court style allowed for the greatest transition play we’ve ever seen. The Celtics-Lakers rivalry was defined by its difficult shot-making and its incredible fast break play. These were the two great running teams that reinvigorated the NBA audience and set the stage for its massive growth as a global sport. But players like Michael Jordan and LeBron James who became pretty much the entire offense unto themselves took over, these teams defined the game through creative passing schemes and textbook fast breaks.
The reason the fast breaks were so electric is that half-court spacing took away a lot of the advantage the defense has these days. Most teams now have two players standing 28 feet out, as opposed to having everyone near each other below the free-throw line. So when there is a change in possession, they have a huge head start to get back on defense and form a wall at the free-throw line.
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But back in the ’80s, everybody was pretty much starting from the same place and every change of possession turned into a 100-meter dash. While there is still plenty of exciting transition play today, it’s nothing as thrilling as a Celtics-Lakers fast break.
It’s why this game had such a high energy level. You had possibly the two best passers of all time flinging full-court passes to two of the best running centers in league history. For every 20-second possession of trying to grind the ball in and out of the post, only to end up with an ugly contested 15-footer, there was a three-on-three dead sprint with the ball never even touching the floor as it pinged back and forth. That three-man weave drill that every JV basketball player had to run over and over actually sprang to life in these battles.
Of course it’s the psychological warfare that made these games so special. Bird may be the greatest instigator who ever lived, and his role in getting under Abdul-Jabbar’s skin was the biggest factor in turning this series around after a blowout win for the Lakers in Game 3. Although it was an incredible offensive performance, Abdul-Jabbar played a little too aggressive and that led to him fouling out on the second-to-last possession of regulation. Plus, Bird had the best rebounding game of his career — 21 total, nine offensive — and created so many second-chance points that Abdul-Jabbar grew increasingly frustrated as the game progressed.
Tempers flared throughout the game, even when it was triggered by small things like Robert Parish hooking Magic Johnson’s arm on a loose ball. These scenes were captured so perfectly by the CBS cameras, with tight shots focusing on players jawing and unique angles to enhance the cinematography. It’s ironic that while the compact spacing made the half-court offense seem clogged, it did allow for the cameras to zoom in twice as close as you have now with the floor spread out. The camera now generally shows the entire half-court, while in Game 4, the camera was zoomed in so tight that you often couldn’t even see the top of the key.
But the person who deserves the most credit is CBS’ lead producer Michael Burks. At some point in the 2000s, producers decided that in every big moment, they needed to start manically cutting shot to shot to capture a reaction from all the famous people watching. Any Patriots fan is used to this, like when the defense would make a big play and the broadcast would start quickly cutting to Tom Brady, Bill Belichick or Robert Kraft.
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But Burks kept his broadcasts focused on the action. They could cut to a reaction shot from Lakers coach Pat Riley or Celtics coach K.C. Jones when warranted, but they got in close to whatever was happening and made sure you saw it all. The broadcast respected the game more than it worried about the casual audience who just came to see Magic or Bird. And of course, it had the broadcast duo of Dick Stockton and Tommy Heinsohn, who were as entertaining as they were insightful.
Heinsohn often said whatever he wanted and Stockton played off him with sarcastic quips to hammer the point home. And to his credit, it was hard to sniff an ounce of homer-ism coming from Heinsohn.
One of my favorite moments came when Boston’s Quinn Buckner entered the game to press Johnson all the way down the floor. Heinsohn said Buckner was in there to hand check Johnson all over the floor. Stockton slyly replied, “I thought that was illegal,” with a laugh. It was a subtle moment, but exemplified the playful irreverence.
It was also somewhat revelatory to hear Heinsohn at the peak of his broadcasting powers. By the time I was a high schooler just ahead of the second Big 3 era, Heinsohn had comfortably settled into his more cranky homer-istic style. But when he was calling the Finals in the ’80s, he may have been the best color commentator the sport has seen. His offensive scheme analysis was astute, he could tell you what was coming at a Romo-esque level and his brash wit was sharp. Catching up on these classic games has been an important reminder of just how far Heinsohn’s impact on the NBA stretches.
One of the plays that stuck out was Magic’s “Tragic Johnson” turnover, when he tried to throw the entry pass to James Worthy in the high post that was picked off by Parish. Look at the spacing on this play.
Today, there are usually two defenders in the paint and three when they are collapsing. But back then, it’s basically a pool party in the key. No wonder so much of half-court offense boiled down to these short entry passes to the post. They were so predictable that it was truly an art form just to be able to make the most simple entry pass. So the fact that these teams were both so deadly scoring in the post was incredible.
But with the Lakers having a chance to win the game, they had such an uninspired final possession. Johnson needed to be on the move to make something happen, but all they did was stand around and try to post up on Parish, of all people.
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Both coaches deserved credit for how they adjusted on these passes throughout the game. Particularly in the fourth quarter, both sides started getting more creative with how they set up the entry pass, both making the pass less predictable and making it harder to set up double and triple teams. Even with those adjustments, I wasn’t too upset when Parish fouled out early and both sides were without the center they had kept trying to run the offense through. I figured they would finally make the obvious move to run the offense through Bird finally.
Of course, Jones just put Kevin McHale on the block and ran more of the same. To his credit, he hit a cutter on the very first play out of the double team for a bucket. But as Worthy was carving the Celtics defense apart, the Celtics were only keeping up by getting on the break and to the line. It wasn’t until they ran a play for McHale to cut out of the strong side block and have Bird cut in hard to replace him that the offense seemed like it was a step ahead of the Lakers. Dennis Johnson entered to Bird with Cooper on Larry’s back, but Bird spun and hit the layup to tie it at 123-123 with just over a minute left.
The one question I’ll always have is what happened with D.J. on the fast break that was called back. He came up with a loose ball in the paint and went to his twisting-up-and-under move to get off a layup, but it was blocked from behind by Swen Nater. The replay made it appear that as Nater got the ball, he also came down on D.J.’s shooting arm, which is usually a foul. D.J. then grabbed Magic as he handled the loose ball and started flying down court, which led the refs to call off the 3-on-1 fastbreak on which L.A. was surely about to score. Both Johnsons were incredulous for different reasons, with a perfect close up shot of D.J. screaming for a foul in the official’s face. If there has ever been an argument for why the NBA should adopt football’s advantage play rules, this should be presented as Exhibit A.
What made this game so special is that the big shot came down to Bird posting up Magic, finally seeing the two stars going one-on-one. Bird brilliantly pulled the chair on Magic with his initial post up, quickly repositioning over the top with a solid seal to get the clean entry pass from D.J. Bird’s confidence to immediately go into his patented turnaround fadeaway and knock it dead was the stuff of legend.
(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
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