The Hick’s Last Lick : Celtics Go All Out to Honor Legend Who Always Did

This is the thing we should remember about Larry Joe Bird of French Lick, Ind., long after Thursday night’s extravagant farewell ceremony at the Boston Garden is only a dim memory:

There was nothing the game could demand that he could not deliver.

Hit the trailer on the break, between defenders, going full-tilt, with a no-look pass?

No problem.

As Bird himself said to Michael Jordan in the McDonald’s commercial that was the big hit of last weekend’s Super Bowl barrage, try this.

Game-ending, fade-away rainbow jumper, scrape the clouds, nothing but net.

Now ask for something really tough.

Carry a team on your back, thrill the fans, think like a coach, talk trash, launch after loose balls like a Patriot missile, pass like a little man, defend like a bigger man, swipe the biggest rebound, and take the most important shot night after night?

C’mon . . . there must be something more demanding that.

As it turned out, the one thing Bird never could manage through 13 seasons in the NBA was to make a fuss over himself and his remarkable gifts.

And so, when a chronic back problem forced him to call it quits last August at age 35, he taped a “Gone fish’n’ ” sign to the back of his dressing stall, walked out the door, and hoped that would be the end of that.

Wrong.

On Thursday night, some 15,000 of Bird’s closest friends insisted on holding a proper send-off, shelling out between $12 and $45 each, despite the fact there was no game after the two-hour ceremony.

The show began with an unveiling of Bird’s portrait, done by artist-sports gadfly LeRoy Neiman and reproduced on the tickets already being zealously guarded as collector’s items.

When a black curtain was pulled to reveal the nearly 5-foot tall likeness of Bird shooting a basketball, he looked up at the stands and said: “What, are they giving away free food tonight?”

The show was scheduled to end with a goodby from The Legend His Own Self. And in between there was the raising to the rafters of a white banner with the familiar green No. 33, a laser show, and so many tributes from so many notables that Bird probably wished he had worn a flak jacket to avoid getting hurt by the fusillades of praise.

Of course, it’s not as though Bird asked for any more tributes. He has the three championship rings he cares about most, the three MVP awards that came with them, and more fans and memories than most lifetimes could hold. But there should be room for at least one more.

Along with Magic Johnson, whom he met three times in the NBA finals, Bird revolutionized the game like no one before and no one since. These two made the court, concrete or hardwood, once again the province of streamlined, mid-sized athletes, instead of plodding big men. They also inspired millions in a way that basketball failed to do for decades.

Together they lifted the NBA out of the doldrums of the late 1970s and transformed it into the hot, international game it is today.

Bird has heard this countless times before, from teammates and opponents. He heard it again Thursday night from strangers who found a way to shoehorn themselves into the Garden. But it is worth repeating one more time:

Thanks.