Hear how the iconic moment unfolded from the players who were there at the time.
The Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics have perhaps the premier rivalry in the NBA if not of all sports as a whole, and a fair amount of that stems from both teams being in the title hunt for much of the 1980s.
Countless classic moments were had between the two battling franchises in that decade, and perhaps none of them were more so than when former Celtic guard Gerald Henderson stole a particular ball on a particular play in the 1984 NBA Finals. This iconic moment was the topic of a recent discussion had between Henderson himself and fellow Boston legends Cedric Maxwell and M.L. Carr.
We also hear from Laker luminaries Bob McAdoo and Michael Cooper on the game where Henderson stole the ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etpATtXCp58
Watch the video embedded above produced by our friends at CLNS to hear the inside scoop on that historic play.
On this day, point guard Gerald Henderson stole the ball to secure a critical Game 2 win vs. the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1984 NBA Finals.
On this day in 1984, Boston Celtics point guard Gerald Henderson stole a pass lobbed across the court by forward James Worthy of the Los Angeles Lakers.
With 13 seconds left on the clock in Game 2 of the 1984 NBA Finals and Boston down 113-111, Henderson would score on a layup to send the game into overtime, forward Magic Johnson dribbling out the game’s final seconds inexplicably.
The historic steal would give the Celtics a critical 124-121 win after dropping Game 1 of the series, and forward Larry Bird would later say the team might have been swept on Los Angeles if not for the timely steal.
While Boston would lose Game 3 of the series, they would eventually win the series in seven games to secure their 15th banner, then the most in league history.
Boston Celtics team president and former guard Danny Ainge thinks Gerald Henderson’s steal in 1984 was a bigger deal than Hondo’s iconic theft.
To Danny Ainge, Gerald Henderson stealing the ball was an even bigger deal than when Hondo did it.
The iconic play by Boston Celtics forward luminary John Havlicek is one of the most well-known plays in NBA history, but to Ainge, its impact was far smaller than then-teammate Gerald Henderson’s late robbery of Los Angeles Laker forward James Worthy in Game 2 on the 1984 NBA Finals.
The steal and subsequent layup would give Boston life, sending the game to overtime and an eventual win that likely saved the series.
Havlicek’s theft did secure a series win, but the Celtics held the lead already in a lower-stakes Eastern Conference championship series against the Philadelphia 76ers.
Appearing on the “Locked On Celtics Podcast” Monday, current Celtics team president and former guard Ainge related his opinion on the gravity of that play.
“Henderson’s steal in Game 2 [of the 1984 Finals], that might have been one of the biggest plays, right there with Larry Bird’s steal of Isaiah [Thomas] in Detroit [against the Pistons in Game 5 of the 1987 East Conference Finals]” opined Ainge via MassLive’s Karalis. “That steal from Henderson was better than the Havlicek stole the ball play.”
“If we don’t get that steal and win that Game 2 in Boston, we probably don’t win the series,” added the team’s president. Henderson would relate in a 2014 interview that without that play, the Celtics might even have been swept, with many viewing L.A. as the better team that season.
To hear more about that fateful play, other critical pick-pocketing in Boston’s past and many other aspects of Ainge’s tenure with the team throughout the 1980s, listen to the podcast embedded above.
It’s a treasure of all sort of little-known nuggets from that glorious era of Celtics history, and more than worth the listen.
