Bill and Larry Bird have had a connection spanning more than 30 years…
If there’s one thing you know about Larry Bird and Bill Laimbeer’s friendship, it’s probably about this 1987 incident in which Bird threw a basketball at Laimbeer after Laimbeer hard-tagged Bird.
Although it was a pivotal occasion, it wasn’t an isolated occurrence.
It was a part of the ruthless and brilliant Boston to Detroit power shift of the late 1980s, a battle for supremacy in the Eastern Conference, but these two were more than just rival teams.
Indiana university basketball had its best period in the late 1970s.
Laimbeer and Bird came into it from rather different angles.
Raised in the affluent Chicago suburbs, Laimbeer was the seven-foot son of a wealthy manufacturing executive.
Just because he could, he played at Notre Dame for four years.
In 1978, Laimbeer assisted the Irish in making it to their first Final Four; nonetheless, he was set for life and had no desire to excel as a professional athlete.
Bird was the fourth of six siblings who were raised in poverty in a small Indiana town; this didn’t much change when the Cleveland Cavaliers selected him with the 65th pick in the 1979 NBA Draft.
Bird was courted by Bobby Knight to play at Indiana University, but the overwhelmed and homesick 17-year-old left before the start of his freshman year.
Despite his intention to return for his senior year, when the Sycamores advanced to the 1979 NCAA final against Magic Johnson’s Michigan State, Bird instead enrolled at the considerably smaller Indiana State, where he played so spectacularly that the Boston Celtics selected him sixth overall in the 1978 NBA Draft.
Although Laimbeer and Bird did not really meet in college, Larry was undoubtedly aware of Bill, even if only because Laimbeer was a favorite player of his mother Georgia.
Let’s fast-forward to 1985, when Bird was already a legendary player who had won two titles with the Celtics, who had defeated the powerful Lakers in the 1984 NBA Finals and had reclaimed Eastern supremacy from the Sixers.
In the NBA, Bird held the title of reigning MVP for both the regular season and the playoffs, defeating his friend and rival Magic Larry.
Nor was Laimbeer faring too poorly for himself. Bill was traded to the Detroit Pistons after spending a year overseas and a few years with the dreadful Cleveland Cavaliers. There, he joined up with young sensation Isaiah Thomas, a fellow Indiana University alumnus and, coincidentally, a longtime favorite of Georgia, Bird Laimbeer, who had established himself as a Piston.
He was a consistent all-star next to Bird, a strong rebounder and defender, and a proficient outside shooter.
Laimbeer fouled, flopped, and complained. Bird already knew the guy’s story from incidents such as this one from 1982, when he threw his elbows around aggressively before blowing off at the referee for calling a foul. That was only a hint.
Bird would receive intense, almost yearly doses of the Bill Laimbeer experience starting in 1985.
Over the course of seven seasons, the Pistons and Celtics engaged in five postseason series; Boston prevailed initially, Detroit took control towards the end of the decade, and both teams lost to Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the early 1990s.
It got nasty during the early power battle. In the first game of the 1985 Eastern semifinals, the Celtics thrashed Detroit. A frustrated Laimbeer attacked Bird with one elbow during a pump fake in the second half of the game that would see the Pistons lose again, and then another that caused Larry to bleed from his chin.
Bird was not done, even with blood splattering on his jersey, as he quickly veered to the other side and demanded the ball from Ray Williams.
Bird outscored every one of Laimbeer’s teammates in the fourth quarter, going on to score 30, 34, 36, and 38 points. Of Bird’s 42 points in the end, 17 came in the second game’s fourth quarter.
Regarding the events that spurred him on, he was reticent. Sure, the Pistons were able to get away with a couple of elbows, but the Celtics were primarily responsible for Larry’s basket.
He did observe that Laimbeer appeared agitated and wasn’t performing well.
Big Bill, though, made a comeback and won the third game.
With 27 points, he led Detroit and engaged Boston big man Robert Parish in a physical altercation.
