Magic 1-Ups Bird Again in Ongoing Game of 1-on-1

The inextricably bound rivals went great-on-great once more Tuesday night until one great ran out of time and room and luck. That was Larry Bird, forced to launch that impossible, desperate, floating 22-footer.

Does Bird know from impossible? True as a harpoon headed for the Laker heart, it flew toward the basket. It crossed the middle of the hoop. It slammed into the back of the rim and flew right back out.

Chalk this one up to Magic Johnson, the great whose time seems to have come again.

How long can these guys keep finding each other? They’ve already met in the 1979 NCAA final, the ’84 and ’85 NBA finals, won by Magic’s team, Bird’s team and Magic’s team, respectively.

It was Bird’s three-pointer with 12 seconds left Tuesday night that put the Celtics ahead, 106-104.

It was Magic’s running hook that put the Lakers ahead, 107-106, at :02.

It was Bird’s miss that rang down the curtain.

“You expect to lose on a skyhook,” Bird said later, managing a little grin, “you don’t expect it to be Magic.”

Lots of things happened that the Celtics didn’t expect, including a lost 103-96 lead in the last two minutes and a lost rebound of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s missed free throw at :07 that put the ball back in Magic Johnson’s hands. Now the Celtics have a championship series that is all but lost.

“We made the mistakes down the end,” Bird said. “We turned the ball over twice (one of them, his unforced bad pass to Kevin McHale). We missed a rebound after a free throw (out of bounds, off McHale). We really can’t blame anybody but ourselves.”

With seven seconds left, and the Celtics leading, 106-105, and the fans behind the basket waving hands, banners, sheets, their earthly possessions, Abdul-Jabbar missed the second of two free throws. Then a hole opened up in the mystique. McHale, bumped by Mychal Thompson or Robert Parish or both, depending on who’s telling the story, lost the ball out of bounds.

McHale suggested in brief remarks that he’d been pushed and, perhaps, fouled. Later he begged off further discussion.

“I just talked 15 minutes, OK guys?” he said. This is the first time in all the strung-out days the Celtics have seen this postseason that McHale has ducked out.

“It looked to me that Kevin just tipped it out of bounds,” Bird said. “He had inside position, went up. A guy did push him a little bit, but, you know . . .

“I really thought Kareem would miss one of those free throws. I wish he’d missed the first, not the second. That’s why I went down to the free-throw line and stood where our guards usually stand. If the ball rebounded long, I wanted to get it.”

And now the game would just be remembered for its last minutes?

“It should,” Bird said. “A lot happened in that last minute-and-a-half. Robert (Parish) gets the ball taken away from him. I throw the ball at Kevin’s feet. They miss a free throw, and we don’t get the rebound. How many chances do you need to win a game?

“How do I like my position? (Grin) How would you like it? I know, when we’re up, 3-1, I always say it’s over. It’s not a good position.

“There’s no question we’re in trouble. We’re not a good road team. I don’t know if we can beat them twice out there. But we’ll give it a try.

“Our backs are completely against the wall.”

But his miss, that last miss, the shot that could have changed it back the way it was before Magic’s hook, before the Celtics got tired and hurt, to a time when they were all even again?

“There were two seconds left,” Bird said. “I thought they’d grab me when we inbounded the ball. They had some fouls to waste. I don’t know who was there. I just beat (James) Worthy, and DJ (Dennis Johnson) threw me a good pass.

“It was there. I didn’t know whether I’d made it or not. I was floating to the left. It was right there. It’d either be short, long or in the hole. I was surprised.

“(Grin). It was one of those times you’d like to just freeze it up there.”

He couldn’t. The ball kept going to its rendezvous with the back of the iron. The moving finger, having writ, moved on. Toward the West, it seems.