Even When Celtics Take a Fall, They Rise Again in East

The Boston Celtics are to the NBA what the old New York Yankees were to baseball, what Calumet was to horse racing, Notre Dame to college football.

They represent the highest state of the art. They’re not a team, they’re a mystique. It used to be, when they walked onto the floor, they were carrying a 10-point lead with them just because they were the Celtics.

Sometimes, it looked as if they had two or three more players on the court than the poor guys they were playing. They moved quickly, they struck fiercely. They were always in fine, furious motion. The fast break may have originated with them.

A player automatically moved up in class when he played for the Celtics. For one thing, his surrounding cast had high standards. It was like acting in a movie with Tracy, Hepburn, James Stewart or Fred Astaire. You had to turn it up a notch or get run over.

It used to happen on the old Yankees. Players who were journeymen elsewhere became All-Stars when they put on the pinstripes and got to play alongside Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Munson. Same with the Celtics. Players like Don Nelson, John Thompson, Larry Siegfried rose to the occasions when they had to share the ball with the likes of Cousy, Heinsohn, the Jones boys, Russell, Sharman and Havlicek.

Arnold (Red) Auerbach gave them their edge. Like Branch Rickey in baseball, Red Auerbach could spot a star player from the window of a moving train or in a crowd shot at St. Peter’s Square. If Red tapped you, you could play. It’s hard to believe five teams passed on Larry Bird in 1978. It’s hard to believe St. Louis gave the Celtics Bill Russell for Ed Macauley. The rich got richer.

Basketball needs the Celtics. It’s no fun beating the Charlotte Hornets or the Miami Heat. Beating the Celtics is climbing Mt. Everest, swimming the Channel, breaking the bank at Monte Carlo. Beat the Detroit Pistons and the country goes “Aargh!” Beat the Celts and it goes “All r-i-i-i-ght!”

The Celtics have fallen on lean times. They haven’t won a championship since 1985-86. They haven’t even been in the finals since ‘86-87.

Well, they’re back. They beat the Lakers at the Forum Friday night for the first time in five years. It was the first time in two years the Celtics had beaten the Lakers anywhere. They’re leading their division by--count ‘em--12 1/2 games.

The Celtics are like an old dowager. They never throw anything away. They keep trunkfuls of good players like old dance cards. They spot-play them as artfully as a riverboat gambler making good use of an ace showing.

Robert Parish is the oldest player in the NBA. A lot of teams would have talked him into retiring. The Celtics talked him out of it. He’s like the proverbial old-timer. He’s not as good as he once was, but he’s as good once as he ever was. He threw in 21 points in the first quarter against the Lakers the other night. He played only 20 more minutes, but he had buried the Lakers. The rest of the game was just a function of shoveling the dirt back in with defense.

Kevin McHale played no minutes. He sat in the locker room with his injured ankle elevated. He is not the oldest player in the league, but he is no pink-cheeked rookie either.

Coming into the game Friday, McHale was the leading scorer on the ’91 Celts. He has since been passed by Reggie Lewis, but should be back in the lineup momentarily.

The hard corps of the Celtics is still Parish, Bird and McHale. The team counts on them for 30-35 quality minutes a game and surrounds them with a chorus of net-picking young gunners like Lewis, Brian Shaw, Kevin Gamble and Dee Brown--16 to 18 points a night quick-drawartists.

“These guys have added to our careers,” McHale acknowledged as he sat with ice around his sprained ankle Friday night. “They give us good ball movement. When you’re playing on a team with six guys in double figures, as we are, the defense doesn’t know where to go first. They can’t double-up on you. You get more easy baskets. You don’t get as worn out going to the hoop.

“These young guys give us back the Celtic game. The fast break, the smooth transition, the open man. The game is more guard-oriented today, and this plays into our hands.”

What is good for the game might not be good for the league. The old Boston dynasty teams--nine championships in 10 years, 11 championships in 13 years--were such foregone winners, the season got to be just a formality. Did McHale find the old hostility returning. Had the Celtics become the league bad guys again? The despots of basketball?

“Not at all,” McHale claims. “You find Celtics’ fans everywhere. Even the people that love to hate us, love us. You heard them tonight. Almost as many cheers when the Celtics scored as when the Lakers. Happens everywhere.

“You don’t win championships in February. But being a Celtic means never having to settle for losing. It means never expecting to lose. This is a team that doesn’t stay down. You lose a Cousy and K.C. Jones takes up the slack. Then comes Nate Archibald and Dennis Johnson. You lose a Russell and a (Dave) Cowens comes along. You lose Cowens and Robert Parish is there. You play at home under all those championship banners and you don’t want to let themdown.

“What would the game be without the Celtics? I’ll tell you--a whole lot less fun. You beat the Portland Trail Blazers and everybody says, ‘Who?’ You beat the Boston Celtics and everybody says ‘Wow!’ ”