Bird, Larry 1957- and Johnson, Earvin "Magic" 1958-

American Decades | Date: 2001

BIRD, LARRY 1957- AND JOHNSON, EARVIN "MAGIC" 1958-

Heart and soul of the nba

The Two

On 26 March 1979 Earvin "Magic" Johnson, a brash and brilliant sophomore from Michigan State, and Larry Bird, the sharpshooting senior leader of Indiana State, held the first of many summit meetings. On that night Johnson's Spartans defeated Bird's Sycamores in front of the largest television audience ever to watch an NCAA title game. It was the beginning of a relationship between the two players which was fiercely competitive, consistently respectful, and always breathtakingly intense. The dramatic encounters between Bird and Johnson would characterize professional basketball at its best for much of the next decade and would permanently link the two in the annals of the game. As the scene changed from college to the professional stage—Johnson performed before the footlights in Los Angeles while Bird roamed the parquet floor of Boston—the association which began at the close of the 1970s was underscored and expanded by a series of memorable mid and postseason head-to-head contests in the 1980s. Their place in history was ensured by a string of individual awards and organizational victories for both players: each was a three-time MVP and led his team to at least three world titles in the 1980s (Johnson's Lakers won five). Their position at the head of the NBA's class was accomplished by way of competition and respect. "Larry and I always had each other," Johnson once explained. "Athletes live to get so up that they can't sleep for two or three days before competition. Nobody did that to me except Larry Bird." Each man directed the return of his respective franchise to a position among the league's elite. The strength of the partnership lay in the watchful eye each player kept on the other. For Bird each morning of an NBA season began by looking "at the box scores to see what Magic did." Likewise, Johnson would "check out Larry's line first thing." Each was so intent upon tracking and surpassing the feats of the other and so dogged in his pursuit of a championship that the league and its fans were inevitably drawn to watch and admire them at every opportunity. A Bird versus Magic game became an event, a happening. Jack McCallum suggested that "you were either a Magic guy or a Larry guy." In the public imagination, not to mention the world of television programming and advertising revenue, they became bigger than the game itself. Johnson explained, "when the new schedule came out each year I'd grab it and circle the Boston games. To me it was The Two and the other 80." In addition to their two regular-season meetings each year, they would meet in the league finals three times in the middle of the decade and play opposite each other in a total of thirty-seven games. Johnson's Lakers won twenty-two; Bird's Celtics won fifteen. The NBA won them all. For most observers of the game the 1980s became the hundred or so men who played professional basketball and "The Two" who played it better than anyone else. They became the standard for each other and for those who would follow in their footsteps.

Savior

In the midst of drawn-out contract negotiations between the Celtics and Larry Bird during the summer of 1979, club president Red Auerbach suggested to local reporters that "Larry Bird can help, but he's not a franchise player." As he prepared for his rookie season and dealt with a glaring media spotlight and the mounting expectations of frustrated Boston fans, Bird issued a similar warning: "very few people can turn a team around by themselves, and I'm not one of them." While one man was interested in lowering the cost of a highly touted rookie and the other was hoping to ease the pressure which affected his every move, both men were conservative in their estimation of Bird's impact upon the Celtic organization. The Celtics of 1978-1979 managed only 29 wins during the regular season, their worst record since 1950 and a far cry from the consistent dominance of the teams which had won twelve titles between 1957 and 1974. The team won the league title in 1976 but had fallen off dramatically by the time of Bird's arrival. Despite Auerbach's contract-time assertions to the contrary, the six-foot nine-inch forward from French Lick, Indiana, was expected to have a major impact on the team's fortunes. Bird quickly recognized the significance of being a Celtic: "when I got there and saw all those championship banners…then [I realized] that the Boston Celtics is the greatest franchise that has ever been put together." At that point he took it upon himself to uphold their great tradition. On his way to Rookie of the Year honors, Bird combined with veterans Cedric Maxwell and Nate "Tiny" Archibald to lead the team to a 61-21 record in 1980. The 32-game swing is still the greatest single-season improvement in league history. Bird managed to restore Celtic pride and earn the support of Boston's loyal fans by way of his hard work, precision passing, unselfish play, and clutch shooting. Though a quiet, relatively unsophisticated figure, Bird was appealing because of his style and dedication. Jack McCallum suggested that he was a crowd favorite "mostly because of the effort he expended," effort that was essential to the Celtics' return to the championship series.

Charisma

Just as Larry Bird's game was characterized by his tireless dedication, Earvin Johnson's was marked by his equally relentless passion for the game. The standard interpretation was that the two men were opposites: one white and the other black, one from a small school and the other from a collegiate powerhouse, one on the East Coast and the other on the West, one a forward and the other a guard, one steadily intelligent and the other breathtakingly flashy. These apparent differences dissolve in the light of the single factor that united them: each man won NBA championships consistently. While Bird directed the resurgence of the Celtics, Johnson set about the work of invigorating a veteran Los Angeles Lakers team for a run at the 1980 title. As a rookie Johnson came to an experienced team fashioned around center Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but they were struggling to put together a championship season. The victim of injury and contract disputes as well as a largely apathetic public, the Lakers were in need of a boost. Enter Earvin "Magic" Johnson. Laker forward Jamaal Wilkes explained Johnson's impact in terms of his boundless energy and love for the game: "his enthusiasm was something out of this world, something I had never seen prior to him and…haven't seen since. It just kind of gave everyone a shot in the arm." The charismatic Johnson brought an unprecedented range of skills to the game, playing the point position at six feet nine inches and making seemingly impossible passes appear mundane. Along with Norm Nixon, he provided the Lakers with the best backcourt in the league and opened up the middle for a rejuvenated AbdulJabbar. Benefiting from this new chemistry, Los Angeles finished the regular season with a 60-22 record. If the beginning of Bird's NBA reign was revealed in the Celtics' remarkable turnaround in the standings, Johnson's long-range impact was foreshadowed in a single game. Throughout the playoffs he put up impressive individual numbers while facilitating Jabbar's resurgent game as the Lakers marched to a 3-2 lead over the Philadelphia 76ers in the finals. Abdul-Jabbar was injured in game five and was forced to watch game six from his home in Los Angeles. What he saw was Johnson's coming-out party. Playing all five positions at one time or another, the Laker rookie dazzled the crowd and confounded the Sixers with a transcendent performance. After the Lakers' victory Johnson said, "once we got the ball, we were gone. We beat Philadelphia in the transition game because they couldn't keep up." He finished with 42 points, 15 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals, and a block and left players everywhere wondering if they could keep up.

About Winning

Although Larry Bird's Celtics would win the NBA title in 1981 and Magic Johnson's Lakers in 1982, due to injuries and the ascendance of 76ers, led by Moses Malone and Julius Erving, the two did not meet in the finals until 1984. Roland Lazenby characterized that first series as the collision of forces of pride and ego between the two established superstars and suggested that the seven-game final was "the juice that grew the NBA." The Celtics claimed the title with a 111-102 victory in the seventh game. The series was marked by several dramatic turns; it is largely remembered as a series that the Lakers lost as much as one which the Celtics won. Bird's Celtics were not thought to be as talented as Johnson's Lakers, but they were tougher and more confident. Lazenby noted, "the Celtics had challenged them with psychological warfare and won." A new, more resilient brand of Laker basketball emerged in the next year's finals. This time Magic and Kareem were able to solve the Celtic puzzle and capture the championship on Boston's parquet floor. Johnson's "triple double" of 14 points, 10 rebounds, and 14 assists ended a long drought for the Lakers in head-to-head competition with the Celtics. The Celtics and Bird returned to reclaim the NBA championship trophy with a six-game victory over the Houston Rockets in 1986, a series which saw Bird team up with former UCLA star Bill Walton. In 1987 both Bird and Johnson reestablished their grip upon the basketball world by staging one last championship battle, won by the Lakers in six games. Johnson's "junior sky hook" over Kevin McHale and Robert Parrish in the final seconds of game four prompted Bird to exude, "Magic plays basketball the way you should play the game." Though they would never meet in the finals again, Johnson and Bird left an indelible mark upon the game, providing the league and its fans with a dramatic centerpiece for the decade. They established themselves as the heart and soul of the league by never losing sight of its ultimate prize. As Johnson explained, "we weren't about stats, we were about winning."

Sources:

Larry Bird with Bob Ryan, Drive: The Story of My Life (New York: Doubleday, 1989);

Earvin Johnson Jr. and Roy S. Johnson, Magic's Touch (New York: Addison-Wesley, 1989);

Roland Lazenby, The Lakers: A Basketball Journey (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993);

Jack McCallum, "Leaving a Huge Void," Sports Illustrated, 76 (23 March 1992): 20-25;

Bob Ryan, "The Two and Only," Sports Illustrated, 11 (14 December 1992): 44-55.

Copyright 2001, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.