THE NBA PLAYOFFS : For Celtics, It’s All Over; Pistons Headed to Finals

As a new decade dawned, the Detroit Pistons were coached by Dick Vitale, now a TV talking head, and by Richie Adubato, now a Dallas Mavericks assistant coach. By the time the 1979-80 season was done, Vitale was going elsewhere, Adubato was going elsewhere, and the Pistons were going nowhere. Their record: 16-66.

“I can remember my wife and I sitting in this building, counting the crowd on two hands,” Piston General Manager Jack McCloskey said Friday night at the Pontiac Silverdome, where 38,912 eyewitnesses--pro basketball’s third-largest playoff crowd--testified to the dawning of a new era in the National Basketball Assn., an era in which the Boston Celtics no longer were the supremes of the court.

Motown’s crowd spilled onto the floor, covering every inch of it, after the Pistons put away the Celtics, 95-90, to take the Eastern Conference championship, 4 games to 2.

A Detroit team is about to make an appearance in the National Basketball Assn. finals for the first time--possibly against the Lakers, possibly against the Mavericks.

K.C. Jones’ last game as Celtic coach was enough to drive anybody into retirement. Not only did he go into Game 6 of this tooth-and-nail series with two injured starting guards, Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge, but he lost starting center Robert Parish to a bruised left knee soon after the game began. Parish played only six minutes.

Ainge played 31 minutes but made only 1 of 11 shots and had only 2 points. In the last two games, Ainge went 1 for 17. Johnson played 42 minutes Friday night and made 6 of 16 shots, scoring 17.

The one bright spot for Boston was Kevin McHale, who scored 33.

Seizing the lead by scoring the first eight points of the second period and never surrendering it the rest of the night, the Pistons did not even mind that neither of their starting guards, Isiah Thomas or Joe Dumars, scored in double figures. Third guard Vinnie (Microwave) Johnson popped like microwave popcorn, canning 10 of 15 shots and 24 points--the same Vinnie Johnson who went scoreless in Game 5--and forward John Salley came off the bench to block 5 shots.

In Boston, this will be the series remembered as Bird’s Bad Dream. Whatever Larry Bird did to deserve this, he never intends to do it again. His 4-of-17 shooting Friday was the insult added to his teammates’ injuries. The man who made 52% of his shots during the season made 35% in this series.

Was Bird that bad, or was Detroit’s defense that good?

Little of both.

On second thought, a lot of both.

That defense definitely could bother the Lakers, Bird said. “If the Pistons are allowed to hold, grab and push, and hold James Worthy like they held me, it’ll be to the Pistons’ advantage,” Bird said.

On the other hand: “If the Lakers get out and run, I can’t see it being much of a series,” Bird added.

He neglected to say how he thought Dallas might do, and everybody forgot to ask.

As for the Pistons, they say they care not whom they play.

Well, all except Salley, anyway. He already has his team going to California for the finals.

Long tall Salley cornered Stevie Wonder in the Silverdome locker room afterward, curled an arm around the singer’s shoulders and said: “Stevie, you need me. You do the music, I’ll do the lyrics. Really, man. It’ll be good.”

To demonstrate, the Piston forward crooned his latest tune:

“Salley’s going to Cali,

“Oh, baby. Salley’s going to Cali.”

Well, maybe, baby. Depends on the Lakers now. But the Pistons sure are going somewhere.

They started going places when McCloskey drafted players such as Dennis Rodman, Thomas, Dumars and Salley, traded for players such as Bill Laimbeer, Adrian Dantley, Vinnie Johnson and James Edwards, and hired a coach in Chuck Daly.

“I was always looking for the day when we could play a perfect game,” McCloskey said. “I never knew if that day would come.”

Came pretty close Friday night. Nerves got the better of the players at the outset, when they fell behind, 8-2, even though Laimbeer kept assuring and reassuring his teammates that they were going to win this game.

Laimbeer reported to the locker room before the game, carrying a small sickle in his duffel bag. It was a tool he brought from home, one he usually uses on weeds. This time, it was a handy prop, a motivating tool.

“Chuck (Daly) said earlier this week that the Celtics were like a snake, and if you were going to kill them, you’d better cut off the head,” Laimbeer said. “So, I told everybody that tonight we were cutting off the head. I waved the sickle around, whoosh, whoosh. It got everybody’s attention.”

When did the head roll?

“When we got up by 16 in the fourth quarter,” Laimbeer said. “The crowd knew it, we knew it and I think the Celtics knew it.”

After trailing early, 21-14, the Pistons got it going. The Microwave got hot, and Detroit was down by only four at the end of the quarter. And Parish was in the locker room, doing stretching exercises. He left the game with 7:34 remaining in the first quarter, and, when he reported back in the second quarter, Parish’s knee held out only one more minute’s worth.

The Celtics were out there scrapping with people like Mark Acres, Dirk Minniefield, Brad Lohaus, eggie Lewis and aging Artis Gilmore. They used 11 men before halftime. “Even with Parish out of the game,” said Dantley, who scored 22 points for the Pistons, “we still couldn’t put them away.”

Detroit’s depth, in the end, proved much too much.

“Boston’s got the better starting five, by far--we still concede that,” Laimbeer said. “But five guys can’t beat nine guys. Not if the nine guys are as good as ours.”

It was tight at halftime, 48-46, but Detroit blew out to a 10-point lead early in the third period. Bird, who had 9 points and 8 boards in the opening quarter, struggled thereafter. Salley started swatting shots right and left.

Early in the final period, the Pistons broke free to an 84-68 lead. Even a fistfight in which Rodman and Lohaus were ejected couldn’t change the momentum or worry the crowd. Detroit was home free.

Playoff Notes

Detroit this season was 0-2 against the Lakers, 1-1 vs. Dallas. . . . Forum-Reunion alert: Detroit has won four of its last five road games in the playoffs. . . . By winning today, Dallas would sway home-court advantage Detroit’s way. A Laker-Piston championship series would begin Tuesday night at the Forum, and a Piston-Maverick series would begin the same night in Pontiac.

The Celtic bench got outscored in the series, 190-58. . . . Boston hit the 100-point mark once in six games. . . . Detroit’s John Salley answers to several Darryl Dawkins-esque nicknames, including “Spider,” “Long Tall” and, one he created himself, “The-Man-of-the-Hour-Too-Sweet-to-Be-Sour.” . . . Dawkins left the Pistons last December after appearing in two of their games, retiring at age 30. He is living in New Jersey, and his attorney, Harvey LaKind, told Ian Thomsen of the Boston Globe he had no idea if Dawkins planned to watch any Piston playoff games on TV. Asked if his client was happy, LaKind said: “I don’t know. What constitutes being happy? That’s a hard question to answer. Is he happy? I don’t know how to answer that.”