tendance
If you know one thing about Larry Bird’s relationship with Bill Laimbeer, it’s probably this incident from 1987 when Laimbeer put a hard foul on Bird, and Bird threw a basketball at Laimbeer.
That was a climactic moment, but by no means an isolated incident.
It was part of a late 80s war for Eastern Conference dominance, a Boston to Detroit power shift characterized by brilliance and brutality, but these two weren’t just participants in a team rivalry.
The late 70s was an awesome era of college basketball in the state of Indiana.
Bird and Laimbeer entered it from very different directions.
Laimbeer was the seven-foot son of a wealthy manufacturing executive raised in the fancy suburbs of Chicago.
He played four years at Notre Dame simply because he could.
Laimbeer helped the Irish reach their first final four in 1978, but he was set for life with little motivation to become a great pro player.
That hardly changed when the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him with the 65th pick in 1979 bird was the fourth of six siblings who grew up poor in small-town Indiana.
Bobby Knight recruited Bird to play at Indiana University, but the overwhelmed and homesick 17-year-old dropped out before his freshman season even began.
Bird ended up enrolling at much smaller Indiana State and played so brilliantly there that the Boston Celtics drafted Bird sixth in 1978, even though he planned to stay for his senior year in which the Sycamores made the 1979 NCAA final versus Magic Johnson’s Michigan State.
Bird and Laimbeer didn’t really cross paths in college, but Larry definitely knew about Bill if only because Laimbeer was one of his mother Georgia’s favorite players.
So let’s jump ahead to 1985 bird was at this point already an era-defining superstar, already a two-time champion with the Celtics who’d wrested Eastern dominance back from the Sixers, then taken down the mighty Lakers in the ’84 finals.
Bird held reigning regular season and finals MVP over his friend and rival, Magic larry was on top of the NBA.
Laimbeer wasn’t doing so badly for himself either. After a year abroad and a couple of years with the miserable Cleveland Cavaliers, Bill had been traded to the Detroit Pistons where he joined young superstar point guard Isaiah Thomas, another product of Indiana college basketball and, for what it’s worth, another long-time favorite
of Georgia, Bird Laimbeer had made a reputation for himself as a Piston.
He was a powerful defender and rebounder, a deft outside shooter,
a regular all-star right alongside Bird.
Laimbeer fouled, flopped, and whined bird already knew the dude’s deal from moments like this one in 1982, Laimbeer wildly swinging his elbows, then exploding at the ref who called a foul. That was just a taste.
Beginning in ’85, Bird would get heavy, near-annual doses of the Bill Laimbeer experience.
The Pistons and Celtics played five playoff series in seven seasons with Boston holding the upper hand early on, Detroit taking over at the end of the decade, and both submitting to Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the early 90s
that initial power struggle got rough. The Celtics crushed Detroit in game one of the ’85 Eastern semifinals. In the second half of what would be another Pistons loss in game two, a frustrated Laimbeer hit Bird with one elbow on a pump fake, then another one that left Larry bleeding from his chin.
Bird immediately came the other way, demanded the ball from Ray Williams, and buried a jumper, and he wasn’t done, despite the blood collecting on his jersey.
In the fourth quarter, Bird scorched each of Laimbeer’s teammates to reach 30 points, then 34, 36, 38. Bird finished with 42 points, 17 of them in the fourth quarter of that second victory.
He was coy about the incidents that got him going. Yeah, the Pistons got away with a few elbows, but mostly it was the Celtics getting Larry the ball down low.
He did note that Laimbeer wasn’t playing well and seemed frustrated.
Well, big Bill turned around and dominated game three.
He led Detroit with 27 points and got into it with Boston big man Robert Parish.
The bird had more to say this time He trash-talked Laimbeer on the floor suggesting Boston was gonna sweep Detroit, and after the Pistons actually won game three, Bird and the Celtics accused the violent fouler of drawing fouls the other way by flopping like a fish out of water.
Bird said refs favored Laimbeer, that he got all the calls, and he specified that the other Pistons were fine. It was Laimbeer and Laimbeer alone with whom the Celtics had a problem
Laimbeer said the accusations and mockery didn’t bother him, but he fired back, calling the Celtics cocky, and this on the same day reporters spied Bird
impersonating Laimbeer on the practice floor.
Detroit took game four to tie the series, and Laimbeer accosted the guy who’d predicted a Boston sweep and shouted, “Where’s your (beep)-ing broom now, guy?” From there, things cooled down a bit.
Boston won the series in six games and went on to rematch the Lakers in the finals Laimbeer was chastened and never messed with Larry and the Celtics again.
Just kidding, Detroit got Laimbeer a new fouling companion, Rick Mahorn, in the summer of ’85.
Here are those two giving Larry a nice thump in November of that year.
When Larry found out Bill had been left off the ’86 Eastern All-Star team after making it three straight years, he said, “Good.
“Now I won’t have to worry about him saying ‘Hi Larry’ “and me having to say ‘(beep) you, Bill.”
Bird definitely wasn’t shy about his feelings toward Laimbeer.
When SI’s Jack McCallum asked the Celtics about their foe in ’86, Bill Walton wouldn’t let his response be printed.
Parish said, “If you can’t say something nice about someone, “then don’t say anything.”
Bird delivered the blunt answer everyone else was withholding. We don’t like him that good.
Bird and friends were lucky to avoid his company that post-season. Detroit lost in the first round, so Boston didn’t have to battle Laimbeer and the Pistons to win their way to the ’86 championship.
No such luck the next season The Celtics and Pistons met in 1987
Eastern Conference finals, and it was not a cordial meeting, not with the man Michael Jordan had just dubbed the NBA’s dirtiest player involved.
Just like in ’85, the Celtics took care of the first two games at home, so just like in ’85, Laimbeer made his presence felt in game three.
The climax of a tense and violent Pistons victory arrived when Bird pump-faked Laimbeer into the air, and Laimbeer came down with a sledgehammer.
The bird was not pleased and had to be pried off Laimbeer in a dogpile, so Larry found himself a long-range weapon and pegged Laimbeer with the basketball Laimbeer got ejected for starting a fight.
Bird got ejected for the ball-throwing. The Pistons went on to win that game, and now the real game was afoot the beef game.
The bird was still fuming in the locker room. He reminded everyone of what M.J. said, then went in on Laimbeer.
He wished the refs would have just cleared the court and let them fight because Bill didn’t want any part of Larry.
Bird acknowledged that he was at fault for throwing the ball, but he wasn’t intimidated and had to protect himself from someone like Laimbeer.
The opposing recollection was vintage Laimbeer. I didn’t do a thing.
I was trying to break his fall, and Larry just came up swinging.
I was victimized by my reputation.
The bird wouldn’t hear it Sure, he wasn’t trying to hurt me, and I was trying to throw the ball to the referee.
Bill’s face just got in the way. The beef ran more icy than hot in game four.
Bird refused to shake Laimbeer’s hand before the game and, even though a lineup shift put Bird on Laimbeer as a defender, the two of them didn’t really get into it.
Laimbeer just quietly dominated the smaller Bird, and Detroit tied the series with a blowout victory at home, but afterward, Bird made clear he wasn’t over the game three incident.
Laimbeer suggested he’d made snidey comments after the denied handshake in game four and asked about said snidey comment, Bird repeated it as go blank which I guess doesn’t stand for go enjoy yourself since Larry also said, “I don’t like Bill Laimbeer.
“Why should I shake his hand?”
Laimbeer, well you never know until you try. This was very much Bill Laimbeer’s M.O., incite conflict on the court, laugh it off and play dumb later.
Anyway, back to Boston for game five Laimbeer, who had just been fined $5,000 for the fight, sarcastically anticipated a warm reception after he’d knocked down the hero of Celtics fans.
The bird was actually kinda wary He didn’t like Laimbeer, but he also didn’t want someone to hurt him or anything like that Bird was talking about the fans in that quote.
He neglected to share that sentiment with his teammates. In-game five, Bird made his point with another refused handshake.
Bird’s pal Robert Parish emphasized that point with his hands.
These claws to the face didn’t even get a foul call, let alone a technical or ejection. Anyway, in this pivotal game five, the basketball eclipsed the beef.
With just seconds left and the Pistons up one, Bird got his shot blocked, and the ball caromed out of bounds off the Celtics.
As Isaiah Thomas hurried his in-bound to Laimbeer, Detroit had the win in hand, but then Bird engineered one of the most legendary plays and one of the best Johnny Most radio calls in Celtics history.
Underneath to D.J., he lays it in right at one second left.
What a play by Bird!
That was the decisive play of the series Parish got suspended for the attack that Bird deemed a good deed, and Boston lost game six without him, but back home for game seven, the Celtics won the series, thanks in part to Adrian Dantley and Vinnie Johnson cracking heads, which knocked Dantley out and out of the game.
After the final buzzer, Laimbeer predictably sought Bird out for a handshake, and Bird just kinda walked through it.
Larry remained clear at the series end that his grudge wasn’t going away.
He always respected opponents but believed Laimbeer had tried to hurt him, and Sydney Green, who left the Pistons after that season, told people that Laimbeer had premeditated an attempt to injure Bird.
That storyline might have lingered if Dennis Rodman and Isaiah Thomas hadn’t said some spicy stuff that commandeered everyone’s attention, but even still,
Laimbeer had more than secured his place among the NBA’s so-called thugs.
His Pistons would soon come to be known as the bad boys. ’88 brought a conference finals rematch, and Laimbeer was certain that would be Detroit’s year. He had the utmost confidence.
The bird was like, “I’m sure he’s confident. “I’m sure he was confident last year, too.”
The ’88 series was less explosive but still cranky. Laimbeer hurt his shoulder early on, and Birdshot poorly all series long.
They still got into it a bit like this brief tangle during game two, but the extracurricular behavior was relatively tame early on.
By game four, Bird was guarding Laimbeer again, which led to the usual shoving and the occasional technical and also Laimbeer having a big scoring night.
The Celtics won that game to tie the series, and Bird mocked
Laimbeer a bit for passing up the final shot, but as Larry remained ice-cold, the Pistons pulled away in games five and six to seize the Eastern crown.
In a move the Pistons would one day famously imitate, the bitter Celtics starters walked off the floor before the final buzzer commenced the Silverdome celebration.
That was the beginning of the end of an excellent Celtics era.
The bird was too hurt to face the Pistons in the first round the following season.
Detroit swept Boston that series and eventually swept the Lakers to win Laimbeer and company their first title in ’89.
Detroit repeated the following season while Boston once again bounced in the first round.
The Celtics and Pistons met again in the ’91 Eastern semi-finals, but Bird was once again slowed by back injuries, and this was just a battle to see who would become the Bulls’ conference, the final victim.
It was finally Jordan’s time to wear the crown. M.J., by the way, was pretty clear in 1990 how he felt about Bird and Laimbeer’s chippy play on the floor.
If you had 273 professional basketball players and you say who’s the dirtiest player in the NBA, I’d say 95% would say Laimbeer or Larry Bird.”
Granted, I think neither guy would deny this characterization.
Laimbeer for one released a video game called “Combat Basketball” in 1991.
Anyway, both guys’ careers wound down in the early 90s, and fans were left to wonder whether their mutual distaste would cool in retirement.
Well, when the Celtics retired Bird’s jersey in 1993, Bob Costas joked that it was a perfect night, even though Laimbeer couldn’t attend,
and Bird said, “We’d probably hang him up there with my jersey.”
When Laimbeer contemplated his retirement later that year, he said, “I don’t wanna go out like Larry Bird,” aka worn down and injured in his final game,
but what about later?
In the decades since retiring, both Bird and Laimbeer have stayed close to basketball, coaching, managing, and making media appearances, and when you make media appearances, this stuff comes up now and then.
In 2008, Laimbeer as head coach of the WNBA’s Detroit Shock.
The bird was an executive for the Indiana Pacers who were in the middle of a playoff drought.
When the Shock visited Indianapolis to play the Fever, Laimbeer went on local radio.
He got asked about Bird, and he answered.
I can’t find the audio, but the wonderful Indy Cornrows blog transcribed it at the time.
Laimbeer said he didn’t pay attention to how the Pacers were doing, but also betrayed that he kinda did.
When Bob Kravitz confirmed the Pacers hadn’t been making the post-season, the guy who had coached the Shock to multiple rings was like, “That would drive me nuts.
“I’d probably quit.”
After piling on a bit more about Bird’s inability to lead Indiana to a title, Laimbeer was asked about staying in touch with Larry and said he just didn’t care to.
They didn’t grow up together, they were never friends, so why hang out?
Finally, Laimbeer was asked what he would do if Bird called him and offered him a job with the Pacers, and he guessed that the entire premise was faulty,
and while Bird did go on-record in 2009 to say Laimbeer was a hell of a coach, I think Laimbeer guessed correctly.
In 2013, Bird was interviewed by a fan and didn’t sound like he’d forgiven Laimbeer for the way he played.
in any social situation.
drawing blood and throwing basketballs, but beef between Bill Laimbeer and Larry Bird may never die.
Laimbeer was a very good player who thrived on starting shit.
He said it best.
it turns out one of the greatest players of all time wasn’t just going to let him walk away, not this guy, not that night in ’87, not before, and not since.
Years of playoff conflict that culminated in a power shift all but guaranteed personal feuds.
Of all those sub-plots, this is the one that never went away.
Sometimes, when you agitate people, they stay agitated forever.
