In honor of the latest Boston Celtics championship and while space is being made for the Celtics 18th banner in the rafters of the TD Garden and not much is happening in the sports world until training camp, why not celebrate a past Boston championship? Now some may think, why wouldn’t you do the 2004 Red Sox in honor of the 20th anniversary? Great question, thank you for asking. Well, I did that last year, you’re reading the only sports blog that did a 19th anniversary rewatch of the ’04 Red Sox postseason.
To tip our derby’s to Lucky and the winningest franchise in the NBA (God it feels good to say that again! Suck it LA!) let’s go back 40 years and celebrate the anniversary of Boston’s 15th flag winner, the 1983-84 Celtics. Each week I’ll watch a game from this 7-game series and post my observations. What will be different about this endeavor from rewatches past, is this is mostly new material from me because I actually wasn’t born yet at the time of this series. I know I’ve seen the epic game 4 and I’m fairly certain I’ve seen game 7 (no spoilers, yet) but otherwise I’ve only seen highlights of this series and the Celtics-Lakers wars.
Follow a long if you’d like, the entire series is on Youtube, here is the link to game one: 1984 NBA Finals: Lakers at Celtics, Gm 1 part 1/12 - YouTube
- Brent Musburger introduces tonight’s broadcast team, the underrated Dick Stockton and Tom Heinnsohn. Can you imagine if this happened now? People all think that the color analyst hates their team, in 1984 if you were a Lakers fan, it was 100% true! What’s the matter, Johnny Most refused to do television? CBS couldn’t have found a bigger Celtics homer to call this game with Stockton? I’m not complaining and I know Heinsohn was CBS’s main basketball analyst, but if Lakers fans were paying attention, I bet they were pretty ticked off.
- The Lakers get off to a 22-7 lead to start the game. These teams couldn’t be more different, both want to run but the Lakers finish fast breaks and the Celtics run in transition to hunker down and work the ball into their giant front court of Robert Parish, Cedric Maxwell and Larry Bird.
- How incredible are these rosters? Here are the starters and reserves that enter the game in the first half
Lakers starters: Magic Johnson, Michael Cooper, James Worthy, Kurt Rambis and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Off the bench: Byron Scott, Bob McAdoo, Swen Nater
Celtics starters: Dennis Johnson, Gerald Henderson, Larry Bird, Cedric Maxwell, Robert Parish. Off the bench: Kevin McHale, Quinn Buckner, Danny Ainge, Greg Kite
- The Celtics can’t get anything going on offense, McHale comes in for Maxwell and immediately goes 4-4 and is the only consistent offense the Celtics have. It’s kind of crazy that McHale didn’t start until his 6th season in the NBA. He won the league’s 6th man award this season and would again in 1984-85 before the trade that sent Cedric Maxwell to the Clippers for Bill Walton, finally made him a starter. (Stat: McHale averaged 18 points and 7.5 rebounds a game this season.)
- HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT JAMAAL WILKES FREE THROWS!?!?!?!? THIS IS THE CRAZIEST FORM I’VE EVER SEEN AND RICK BARRY SHOT GRANNY STYLE! If you’re like me and haven’t seen this before, this is as good as I can describe it. (Or watch part III of the video this game, Wilkes goes to the line early in the 2nd quarter.) Wilkes squeezes the ball on the sides like he’s trying to split a cantalope, holds it as his waist on his right side, slowly bring the ball up to the side of his cheek, (now this is where things get weird) instead of lofting up a nice set shot from his right shoulder like a human, Wilkes rotates the ball behind his head and flips a soccer throw towards the basket like he’s trying to fool the Easter Bunny standing in front of him or something. It looks like some sort of olde tymey cast iron bank from the 1920’s where you put a penny in the clown’s hands, pull it back like the hammer of a pistol, press a button and the clown flings the coin up into the seal’s mouth. Wilkes misses the first, makes the second, but if the Celtics trail in the 4th, I want them badly to play “Hack-A-Jamaal” if only for comedic purposes.
- The Celtics are slowly chipping away at the Lakers lead and it’s down to 10 (I think, without a scoreboard on the screen at all times, I’m just sort of going by feel). But Dick Stockton seems genuinely surprised when Celtics coach KC Jones sends in rookie first round draft choice Greg Kite into the game. Dick’s surprise seems warranted, Kite looks like your best friend’s, mom’s new boyfriend who doesn’t wear anything but brown sweaters and tan pants. Kite quickly picks up two fouls, but Heinsohn says that’s essentially why he’s out there in the first half, to use his fouls on Kareem. (Would it kill him to sprinkle a couple on Wilkes just for fun?)
- We’ve got to talk about the Lakers’ jerseys. And now I know it has everything to do with my raising, but the Celtics and Lakers uniforms in this game are just perfection. The Celtics in their white uniform with green numerals, the Lakers with the purple get ups with gold lettering. Contrasted with the parquet floor of the old Garden, this is beautiful to watch. But what in Heaven’s name is going on with the “Lakers” embroidery on LA’s jerseys? It’s like size 9.5 font and “AKER” is less than an inch from the neck opening. Kareem’s is especially hilarious, it looks like his jersey didn’t make the flight across the country and he was forced to steal a child’s pajama top at courtside so he could play the game.
- Celtics trail 65-52 at the half, Bird has been locked down by Michael Cooper, plus is being double teamed every time he touches the ball. This was the first of Bird’s 3-straight MVP seasons, but #33 has just 5 points in the first half. Another unofficial first half stat, I don’t believe there was 1 3-pointer attempted in the first two quarters. The longest shot attempted was Bird from the corner about 15 feet out. It’s staggering to see the offense condensed down inside the free throw line, nobody is standing outside the arch, which is such a stark contrast from what we just watched in the 2024 NBA playoffs where the outlier is the one player standing inside of the 3 point arch.
- The Laker’s quickly push the lead to 73-54 as Parish picks up his 4th foul and Kareem picks up his 3rd early in the second half. It’s amazing how much the Celtics offense runs through the Chief. There have been several possessions where Bird hasn’t touched the ball at all as the offense is run towards Parish’s side.
- The camera just panned to a guy wearing one of those ball caps that has giant hands sticking out of the front that you could make clap by pulling a handle. And it just proves that we used to be a proper country that stood for something.
- Bird drives baseline and draws the foul on Karrem, who sits down with 4 fouls, meaning it’s Swen Nater time for the Lakers! Meanwhile Scott Wedman enters for Boston and quickly “hits one from the outside”. The shot came from what we call “foul line extended”. But on this night, that does constitute the outside.
- Late in the 3rd quarter the Celtics go on a run to cut the Laker lead to single digits, Scott Wedman misses a jumper from Saugus (13.5ft from the basket), Bird gets the rebound and put it back up whilst getting fouled for what we would now call an old fashioned 3-point play, but in 1984 they just say he fashioned a fashioned 3-point play. Magic and Kareem are sitting the bench as the Celtics cut the lead down to 6 and Pat Riley doesn’t move a muscle to stop the Celtic comeback to get them back in the game before the quarter ends. What does happen before the quarter ends is Larry drills a 3- pointer (I KNOW) at the buzzer to make the score 92-88 going to the 4th quarter. Stephen A. Smith would have a field day with this decision if it happened today.
- Wilkes just took a jumper from the corner and it was everything I dreamt that it could be. It’s like he’s playing keep away from Meadowlark Lemon’s dog. It’s just the best!
- Cedric Maxwell drives to the basket, looks like he has a fashioned 3-point play, but the official calls an offensive foul on Maxwell. Assistant coach Chris ford is irate flying off the Boston bench wearing the peachiest colored sport coat ever worn in the Boston Garden.
- Parish fouls out on a questionable call, it looked like Bird fouled Kareem, at least that’s what Bird emphatically tried to explain to the referee. Parish had a rough first half, but had gotten going in the 4th quarter, ends the night with 13 points, 7 rebounds.
- James Worthy just dunked on a 2-1 fast break (he’s killing the Celtics tonight) except he was called for a travel. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. Maybe a make up call for the one that disqualified Chief?
- 109-104 Lakers, 1:30 left and Maxwell goes to the rim on a fast break and Magic Johnson draws a charge. Instead of a fashioned 3-point play to cut the Laker lead down to 1-posession for the first time since the LA’s first bucket, PLUS the blocking foul would have been Magic’s 6th. Instead the Lakers have a 5-point lead and the ball in a game where there has been one 3-point shot made (and I think attempted). This call essentially ends the competitive portion of game 1. Lakers go on to win 115-109, to take a 1-0 lead in the best of 7 series.
- Kevin McHale had 25 off the bench to lead the Celtics in scoring, Bird had 24, most of that coming in the second half. Kareem led all scorers with 32 points, but Worthy and the fast break did Boston in. The Lakers defense on Bird was unreal, Cooper manned him up full court, but Larry was doubled every time they touched the ball.
Keep an eye out as next Monday as the series continues with game 2 of the 1984 NBA Finals.