BENNETT'S MINUTES: ESPN film revives great memories

Tuesday, June 20, 2017
ESPN’s latest film in its “30 for 30” series details the battles between the NBA’s Lakers and Celtics in the 1980s.
AP photo

One of the few good things about aging is the constant accumulation of memories to relive through nostalgic means.

We all have those songs, smells or visual images that immediately take us back to places which we haven’t thought about for a while – whether good or bad places.

For me, one recent journey on the nostalgic path was able to take place courtesy of the ESPN “30 for 30” series on the Lakers vs. Celtics NBA rivalry titled “Best of Enemies.”

I make no secret about which side I favored in this battle. Larry Bird played at Indiana State during my freshman through junior years at Terre Haute North, and his rookie season with the Celtics was during my senior year.

Witnessing the Bird Era at ISU was something that today’s students and fans can only imagine. Going to an ISU game these days is mostly a social event for many people. The team is only good every 10-15 years, and the games are as quiet as if the spectators were behaving in the social climate of a library or funeral home.

It wasn’t that way in the late 70s. I went to every home game during the three-year Bird Era, and several nearby road games. Most notably on that list was a game at Bradley, in which the Braves employed the “Bird Cage” with two defenders guarding Bird at all times and limited ISU’s star to four points. Speedy guard Carl Nicks (also a first-round NBA draft pick) scored 31 points, and we still won easily.

The loss to Michigan State in the 1979 NCAA title game was tough to take, but I think we all knew deep down that the Spartans were the better team. No one would have convinced the diehard Bird fans that Magic Johnson was better, though.

So as both stars entered the NBA in the fall of 1979, Bird fans were primed for the inevitable clashes in the NBA Finals. Johnson’s Lakers were better when he joined them, and it took the Celtics a few years to add enough pieces around Bird to make them Finals-worthy.

The first head-to-head matchup came in 1984, and the Celtics won the series 4-3 to give Bird his victory over Magic. That was the famous series in which Bird said afterward that he “won this one for Terre Haute.”

Celtics’ mania took over Terre Haute. Need an example? HI-99, the highly-rated country music station in Terre Haute, joined the Celtics’ radio network and broadcast every game despite being more than 1,000 miles away from the Boston Garden. People I know who worked there said it was the station’s most profitable venture at the time.

The ESPN series is five hours long, with the first and third parts being two hours in length and the second part one hour long. If you’re someone my age, or a current high school player who hasn’t seen much video from this era, you should watch this set of films.

The producers interviewed every major player on both teams, and the amount of specific information they can recall about games that happened more than 30 years ago was impressive. Honestly, I had seen all those games and the footage presented, but it still brought back memories of things well worth remembering.

Classic images of Gerald Henderson stealing a James Worthy pass to tie a crucial NBA Finals game after Kevin McHale missed two free throws. The now-prohibited use of physicality – by both teams – in their “no layups” defensive philosophies. The brutal heat in the old Boston Garden in June, and Celtics’ GM Red Auerbach allegedly having a fire alarm sounded at the Lakers’ team hotel to wake them up in the middle of the night.

And dozens more.

I guess what the series does for me more than anything is take me back to a time when I enjoyed watching the NBA. I did not watch one minute of professional basketball this year, partly through an incredibly busy life during the winter and spring months. I could have made time to watch the playoffs, but despite the talented players involved it just didn’t appeal to me.

Bird and Magic made it special with their passing. Much discussion has taken place about which player was the better passer, and my biased opinion would favor Bird – whose passes were mostly made in the halfcourt with a full allotment of defenders to avoid, while Magic’s passes were often in the open court in situations to his numerical advantage. But they were both great, no doubt about that.

The film series is still being broadcast frequently on the ESPN family of networks, and is also available (for free) online at www.espn.com/30for30/.

If you’re a basketball fan, it’s definitely worth your time.

Respond to this story

Posting a comment requires free registration: