NBA Roundup : Celtics String Up Knicks With Little Ceremony

The Boston Celtics, who need only a mild hint to retire a jersey, retired one Friday night in honor of a fellow who never wore the green and white.

Of course, Red Auerbach, who coached them to nine NBA championships, is more entitled to having a number retired in his honor than such players as Jim Loscutoff and Don Nelson, whom the Celtics have honored in the past.

In a 38-minute ceremony before the Celtics played the New York Knicks, a banner with the No. 2 on it, was raised to the rafters of the ancient Boston Garden. Significantly, it was Bill Russell who helped Auerbach raise the banner. It was not until Russell joined the Celtics in Auerbach’s sixth season as coach that they won the first of their 15 championships.

Naturally, after all the fanfare, the Celtics didn’t dare lose. Larry Bird, naturally, led them to a 105-94 victory. Bird scored 32 points to help the Celtics improve their home record to 14-1. The Knicks have lost six in a row and eight of their last nine.

The surprise is that the Celtics picked the pathetic Knicks as the opponent on such an emotional occasion. If Auerbach, who has retired as general manager, had been in charge, it would have been different. He would have picked a game with Philadelphia or the Lakers.

It was against the Lakers that Auerbach reached the pinnacle in his search for a ploy to get the Celtics charged up for the playoffs. Invariably he found some perceived slight and always stirred the Celtics to a championship performance.

Although they scored only two points in the first 5 1/2 minutes of the second quarter, the Celtics really had no trouble with the Knicks, who do not have an NBA-caliber center. The Celtics led by nine at halftime and were never in real danger.

Chicago 106, Milwaukee 101--Quintin Dailey came off the bench in the fourth quarter at Chicago to lend a hand to Michael Jordan and they combined to end the Bucks’ nine-game winning streak.

A jump shot by Kevin Grevey gave the Bucks an 81-79 lead early in the fourth quarter, but Dailey scored four of the points in a 6-0 spurt that gave the Bulls the lead for good.

Dailey scored 10 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter and Jordan scored nine of his 22 in the final period.

It was a physical game and Coach Kevin Loughery of the Bulls loved it. “This is the way an NBA game is supposed to be played--bodies flying all over the place, elbows and arms extended and everybody fighting to get his hands on the ball,” Loughery said.

Terry Cummings, who had 24 points and seven rebounds for the Bucks, felt the officials let the Bulls get away with some uncalled for rough stuff.

Utah 118, Denver 108--Darrell Griffith had 24 points at Salt Lake City, but it was the bench, led by Fred Roberts and John Stockton, that was largely responsible for knocking the Nuggets out of first place in the Midwest Division.

The reserves scored 49 points. Roberts had 16, Stockton 14 and they helped Utah build a 24-point lead in the second quarter.

The Nuggets rallied in the third quarter to cut the lead to 80-78 and had a chance to tie, but Alex English missed two free throws and the Nuggets never challenged again.

New Jersey 105, Phoenix 98--The Nets, who twice barely found the minimum eight players to dress, are nearing full strength and it shows in their play.

In this game at East Rutherford, N.J., Micheal Ray Richardson had a triple-double and the Nets dropped the Suns 5 1/2 games behind the Lakers. Richardson, who has remained healthy, had 22 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds.

The Nets had help off the bench from Darwin Cook, Mike O’Koren and Albert King, all of whom recently came off the injured list.

Detroit 134, Atlanta 111--It was a ridiculously easy victory at Pontiac, Mich., the Pistons biggest margin of the season and they moved to within four games of Milwaukee in the Central Division.

The Pistons jumped off to a 17-8 lead and a 21-6 blitz late in the first quarter raised the lead to 38-14 after just 12 minutes.

Although he played only 28 minutes, Isiah Thomas scored 25 points, while Kelly Tripucka had 20 points in 28 minutes.