Laker Broom Comes Apart on Parquet Floor : Kite Gives Celtics a Lift in 109-103 Win

Larry Bird knows first-hand how it feels to be drowning.

He was 7 years old and convinced he was down to his last breath when his older brother fished him out of a lake near his home in French Lick, Ind.

“I’ll tell you, that last gasp was great,” Bird said. “I still have nightmares about that.”

Sunday afternoon, Bird and the rest of the Boston Celtics came up for air just in time again, sparing themselves the nightmare of a Laker sweep with a 109-103 win in Game 3 of the National Basketball Assn. finals.

The Celtics figured to find a lifeline in Boston Garden, where they’re now 94-3 since losing to the Lakers in the deciding game of the 1985 championship series.

But to Bird, it was apparent that even the faith of the Garden’s true believers had been shaken by two straight blowouts in Los Angeles.

“They thought L.A. was going to sweep us,” Bird said. “Not all of ‘em, but I think they were just out for an outing today.

“I’ve never been in a big game where it was quiet in the Garden. . . . One minute they were screaming and hollering, the next minute they were talking about what they were going to do after the game.

“And that’s exactly the way I played.”

So if the crowd wasn’t going to pick up the Celtics--or Bird, who came out and missed his first six shots and made just 2 of 10 in the first quarter--who would?

Would you believe Greg Kite, who has alternately been described as (choose one):

--The least talented player in the NBA.

--The most boring athlete in Boston.

Sunday, the 6-11 Kite was none of the above. After a brief warm-up in the first period after Robert Parish drew two quick fouls, Kite returned when Parish drew his third with 8:02 to play in the second quarter and the Celtics down by nine, 39-30.

The Celtics proceeded to score on 22 of their next 24 possessions. Dennis Johnson started the run with a 16-foot fallaway and finished it with a three-point bomb that gave the Celtics a 74-62 lead with 7:45 to play in the third period.

Bird had 14 points in the second quarter, Johnson 12, and the Celtics shot 80.9% for the quarter, hitting 17 of 21 shots.

Kite didn’t score a point. Not then, not at any other time in the game. But he wound up with a career-high nine rebounds, five on offense, and blocked a shot by Magic Johnson.

Draw your own conclusions.

“We’ve said all along that those are the players who can come in and kill you,” Laker guard Michael Cooper said. “And that’s just what Kite did.”

Is Kite overrated, someone jokingly asked Bird, who lately was called overrated himself?

“Well, I know he’s slow and can’t jump,” Bird said with a laugh.

Seriously, Magic Johnson was asked afterward, what would he have thought coming in if he knew that Bird would shoot 2 for 10 early and Kite would play almost as many minutes as Parish?

“We probably would win,” said Johnson, a loser despite his game-high 32 points, team-high 11 rebounds and game-high 9 assists.

The same question was put to Bird, who overcame his bad start to score 30 points, grab a game-high 12 rebounds and pass out 4 assists.

“We probably would win in overtime,” Bird said, grinning.

In Los Angeles, the Celtics looked like they could have played for the next few millennia and still not beaten the Lakers.

“We could have gotten beat by 35 or 40 there,” Bird said. “We knew that we’d played pretty bad.”

Here, for whatever reason, they’re a different team. For one thing, they discovered that even the Lakers can’t run if: (a) the Celtics are putting the ball in the basket, or (b) the Celtics are crashing the boards, which they did to a 48-32 rebounding advantage over Los Angeles.

“They came out with fire in their eyes,” said Laker center Mychal Thompson, whose eight-point burst in a 2 1/2-minute span helped the Lakers to their biggest lead, 39-30.

“They may have had blank stares in their faces in L.A. because of the way we ran past them, but today they had that intense look--like Mike Tyson waiting for that first bell to ring.”

The Celtics, who stretched their biggest lead out to 82-69 with 2:55 left in the third period, never found the knockout punch to put away the Lakers.

But they didn’t need it. The Lakers took themselves out, especially on three straight possessions in the last 4 1/2 minutes, with Boston clinging to an eight-point lead.

Byron Scott, who scored just four points and missed all five of his three-point attempts, misfired from the top of the key. James Worthy, who returned to earth with a 13-point, 6-of-18 shooting performance, got the rebound, but missed with a driving follow shot.

Magic Johnson grabbed a rebound of a Kevin McHale miss on the other end, but Worthy’s jam attempt caromed off the rim.

“That’s when I knew how difficult this day was going to be,” Cooper said of Worthy’s jilted jam.

Bird misfired on a three-pointer and Magic grabbed yet another rebound, but Scott missed twice from three-point territory in the corner, before Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was fouled with 3:27 to go and made one-of-two free throws.

“We got it going in the fourth quarter,” Magic Johnson said. “But those three plays were big, and we didn’t do it. If we make those plays, we’re right there.”

Instead, they’re at 2-1 and looking at the possibility that this series could be even come late Tuesday night, when Game Four will be played here.

So much for the aura of Laker invincibility.

“We would have loved to win this one,” Scott said, “but we’ve been realistic all along. We’ve just got to win one here.”

Bird was relieved the Celtics finally won one at all.

“I knew we were too good at home to be swept,” he said. “But this was our biggest game of the season. All a sudden, I feel a lot better. We’ve got a shot.”