The NBA : Celtic-Laker Rivalry Turns Another Page

For the typical Laker fan, there’s much to hate about the Boston Celtics. Red Auerbach’s cigars. Tommy Heinsohn’s shilling on television. Danny Ainge. And perhaps most of all, those transplanted Celtic fans who seem to materialize with their green jackets and T-shirts and pennants and banners whenever the Celtics are in town for a game.

If it’s supposed to be so hard to cop a ticket at the Forum, why is it that so many tickets seem to wind up in the hands of Celtic fans?

Just how many Celtic fans have infiltrated Southern California? No one knows for sure, of course, but one transplanted Bostonian, Lorenzo Benet, has an idea.

“I think it’s got to be in the thousands,” Benet said. “I went to a soldout Clippers-Celtics game at the Sports Arena a couple of years ago, and at least half of the people there were Celtic fans.”

Those people crave news of their beloved Bird, Benet believes, which is why in the heart of Laker country he has began to publish a newsletter exclusively for Celtic fans. It’s called “Celtic Scene,” and it’s four pages of news you can’t normally get west of the Charles River.

Benet--who in his less frivolous moments works as a newspaper feature writer--said the newsletter will be published 10 times a year. Subscriptions can be ordered by writing P.O. Box 5124, Chatsworth, 91313.

Of course, a certain amount of Laker-bashing is to be expected, as in this excerpt from an interview with actor George Wyner, who played Irwin Bernstein on “Hill Street Blues.”

Said Wyner: “I have virtually no respect for Laker fans. I don’t think they understand the guts of the game. Look at the Lakers and what they represent. I see Chick Hearn and Dancing Barry, and the Laker Girls, and all this garbage. That’s perfect for this town.

“They’d run the Laker girls out of Boston. We don’t have mascots and dancing; we play basketball.”

You get the idea. Just the thing to send Magic Johnson for Christmas.

The news out of Boston at the moment, of course, is grim. The Celtics have lost 4 straight--something they haven’t done since November, 1984, and Larry Bird is trying to decide whether to undergo surgery on his feet.

Bird has bone spurs in both ankles that are aggravating his Achilles’ tendons and it has drastically affected his play. In Boston’s most recent loss, 108-100 to the Milwaukee Bucks on Saturday night, Bird played just 26 minutes and scored only 12 points on 6-of-19 shooting.

Bird has just 1 offensive rebound in 173 minutes this season. He has yet to attempt a 3-point shot in 5 games. He did not shoot a free throw against Milwaukee, something that happened only once last season.

“I don’t like to blame my play on my injury, but I don’t want to play like I played tonight,” Bird said after Saturday’s loss. “I’m going to have to keep playing for a while to see what happens.”

If there are more games like Saturday, Celtic Hall of Famer and broadcaster Bob Cousy says, Bird should think about proceeding with an operation immediately.

“If last night is what it’s going to be like, I just don’t know how he’ll keep his sanity,” Cousy told Peter May of the Hartford Courant.

Said Chicago Coach Doug Collins, whose own playing career was cut short by injury: “When your foot hurts and you’re not the same, it changes everything. Something you love, and we all know Larry loves basketball, all of a sudden becomes a chore. Every morning you get up, you don’t know how you’re going to feel.

“It takes all the fun out of a game, especially for a guy like Larry Bird.”

While Bird is clearly in a great deal of pain, what’s Sacramento’s excuse? The Kings christened their new arena, the Arco Arena II, by scoring 75 points and getting booed off the floor. “It was the ugliest game I’ve ever seen,” Coach Jerry Reynolds said.

Unfortunately for Reynolds, the Kings were just warming up. The next night, they scored 81 points against the Utah Jazz, a game in which Rodney McCray went 0 for 15 from the floor and his backup, Ed Pinckney, went 0 for 5.

They then bottomed out in Dallas, scoring 30 points in the first half, finishing with 71 points and losing by 40 to the Mavericks. They shot 31% against Dallas and were outrebounded, 73-55. Starting center Joe Kleine and starting point guard Kenny Smith both scored 0 points.

The league’s two hottest teams, meanwhile, come out of the Central Division, where the Detroit Pistons (no surprise there) are 5-0 and the Cleveland Cavaliers (!) have yet to lose in 12 games--8-0 in exhibitions, 4-0 in the regular season.

So far, the Cavaliers have outscored their opponents by an average of 22 points in getting off to their best start since 1976-77, when they opened 8-0.

The Cavaliers gained two starting forwards in their trade last February with Phoenix--Larry Nance and Mike Sanders--to go along with center Brad Daugherty and the emerging backcourt tandem of Mark Price and Ron Harper. But what makes the Cavaliers a contender is their bench, which includes such additions as center Tree Rollins (from the Atlanta Hawks) and point guard Darnell Valentine (from the Clippers).

Politicking: Denver Coach Doug Moe, on the state of presidential elections: “You can’t expect somebody competent to be president anymore. With all the attention they get, they’ve got to be perfect. You’ve got to be an angel to get elected.

“But it takes a mean streak to be a great leader. You’ve got to have some conniving in you. Take Bobby Knight. Could he be elected president? Hell, no. He’d get up at a press conference and throw a chair at someone. But he’d make a great president.”

Ex-UCLA center Jack Haley, after playing 1 scoreless minute for the Chicago Bulls in his first pro game: “I’ll always remember it as the night Michael Jordan and I combined for 52 points.”