This Is No Place for Chuck Nevitt

OK, let’s be careful out there.

Let’s be careful in civilized, genteel, stately old Boston, where a guy in a bar says “Cheers,” then breaks a beer mug over your head. Let’s be careful in Boston, where the combat zone is not a basketball defense. When the NBA championship series begins today on the least coast, let’s not be fooled by that prim, proper, Beacon Hill, Charles Emerson Winchester III reputation. Boston has tea parties, but it also has stranglers.

Consider, for example, Sid Vicious. This is the alias that has been bestowed upon Kevin McHale, the lean, mean Celtic forward who is built like an architect’s compass. McHale might not have Mr. Universe’s body, but he knows how to play rough. Midway through last year’s NBA final, Kurt Rambis of the Lakers was on his way to an easy basket. A funny thing happened on the way to two points. McHale caught up to Rambis and knocked him halfway to New Hampshire.

Rambis says: “I don’t particularly remember that play more than any other.” McHale says: “It wasn’t as bad as it looked.” But other players have called that Game 4 play the Laker-breaker--the turning point of the whole series. Los Angeles had dominated the proceedings up to that point, with a slick, stylish brand of basketball. After McHale did his Hulk Hogan impression for Rambis, the Celtics started bullying the Lakers. And the Lakers backed off.

“Before that,” Boston’s Cedric Maxwell says, searching for a suitable analogy, “they were running across the street. After that, they were stopping at the corner, pushing the button, looking both ways, then walking across.”

It is not in the Lakers’ game plan to stop, look and listen. Magic Johnson, Byron Scott, James Worthy and Michael Cooper, the go-gos, start breaking downcourt about the time Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Rambis get into position beneath the basket. Finesse is the word most often used to describe L.A.’s style of play. Finesse is a word used to describe a boxer who would rather jab you in the chops for 12 rounds than floor you in six.

Nevertheless, this might be a good time to get tough. Get mean. Get right down to the real nitty-gritty. Win ugly. Do whatever it takes. If Boston wants to mix it up, let’s mix it up. Dish it out as well as take it. Flying dropkicks. Forearm smashes. In this corner, in the purple trunks, Hulk Rambis.

“Rambis,” Boston’s Larry Bird says. “Oh, yeah. He’s the guy they tell to go beat up people.”

Them’s fighting words.

Rambis is trying to cool it. “This series is going to be decided on the court, not off the court,” he says, by way of saying that he doesn’t intend to exchange taunts. Sticks and stones can break his bones, but Bird’s words can never hurt him. The closest Rambis comes to insulting the enemy is when a guy asks him what he remembers hearing about the Celtics when he was growing up. “I never grew up hearing anything about them,” he says.

One can correctly assume that he did not grow up in Cape Cod. Rambis was raised in Cupertino, and he is strictly a California guy, the stereotyped sort whose Laker yearbook biography includes “hanging out at the beach and body-surfing.” On the court, though, he is sort of a blue-collar worker for a team that comes decked out in purple and gold. Somehow, Rambis doesn’t look as cool as the other Lakers. He looks like a guy who pulled into a lot full of Porsches with a Harley-Davidson.

There is even some mail to that effect:

Dear Kurt Rambis: Do you suppose it would be asking too much of you to shampoo or have your hair cut? You make great plays, but there’s no excuse for going around looking like you do on the court. Keep up the good work, but for God’s sake, do something about your appearance. A Laker Fan The letter is taped to the top of Rambis’ locker.

When the big series with Boston gets going, it would help the Lakers a lot if Rambis would at least keep up the appearance of being a bad dude. “Everybody talks about L.A. being a finesse team, but what about Rambis?” Celtic Coach K.C. Jones asks. Truly, he seems to be the man who represents brute force to the dignified, duel-at-sunrise Bostonians. What Rambis should do is exaggerate his malevolence, maybe “grrrrr” once in a while, like Belker on “Hill Street Blues.” Make the Celtics believe he’s a little bit crazy. Or be like Stallone. Rambis: First Blood II.

So far, he isn’t going for it. “You’re going to see the same aggressive play from both teams,” Rambis says. “I won’t play any differently from anybody else.”

To which teammate Bob McAdoo adds: “This physical thing has been overblown. People say the Celtics are the aggressive team and we’re the finesse team, but it’s not necessarily so. We’re aggressive. You don’t get to the finals four straight times without being aggressive.”

Yeah, sure, Bob, but the aggressiveness we mean is the kind where Rambis sets a pick on McHale--using a real pick.

Nice we don’t need right now. We don’t need Chuck Nevitt, who is possibly the nicest guy in California. Nevitt may be 7-foot-5, but he is a sweetheart. He makes Dale Murphy and Steve Garvey look like Hell’s Angels. When Nevitt got into the Denver game the other night with 10 minutes to go, he was the happiest man in the NBA. He was excited even because it was the first time he had made an appearance before Dancing Barry. “I finally beat him into a game!” Nevitt said. And: “Boy, wouldn’t it be great if I could get into one of the games in the finals!”

Outside the arena, Laker fans mobbed Nevitt, giving the highest high-fives ever seen in Inglewood. “Hey, thanks!” Nevitt kept saying. “Great! Thanks a lot!” There hadn’t been anyone this happy to be liked since Sally Field won the Oscar.

Nice is nice, but we don’t need nice right now.

We need someone like Sid Vicious McHale, who claims the Rambis incident was an accident, then says: “I’m a nice guy. Don’t you think I’m a nice guy?”

Grrrrr.

Let’s do it to them before they do it to us.