Tag: Larry Bird

Celtics legend Larry Bird reacts to news of new East finals MVP trophy being named for him

The Hick From French Lick HAD to take a shot at Magic Johnson here.

In 2022, the NBA revealed a new set of awards to be granted annually to the best individual player and team from each conference final. And Boston Celtics legendary small forward Larry Bird has his name attached to the Eastern Conference Most Valuable Player (MVP) award.

To let them know, deputy league commissioner Mark Tatum called the individuals about the new set of hardware to share the news their names would be attached to the awards. The Hick From French Lick was on the call, and his reaction, captured on video, was shared by the league on Instagram.

“Thanks, Mark,” said Bird after hearing the news of his name being attached to the trophy of the conference he won three titles. “I just wish I could win me one of those Magic Johnson trophies.”

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CddoC6igLIk/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

“That would be the highlight of my career,” he joked, poking fun at his career-long rival and friend Earvin “Magic” Johnson.

Watch the clip above to see Bird’s full reaction to the news.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Boston Celtics Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird’s best highlights: Volume IX

Check out part IX of this highlight series of Larry Legend himself.

We did not see as much of a certain legendary Boston Celtics counterpart to Los Angeles Lakers icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson as we might have liked in the hit HBO NBA basketball series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.“

However, Hall of Fame small forward Larry Joe Bird played an essential foil to the Los Angeles title teams of the 1980s. Better known as the ‘Showtime” Lakers, the team joined the Celtics, through the on-court wizardry of Magic and Bird, to help revitalize a moribund NBA in the early 1980s. With many younger Boston fans becoming aware of that era of play and the Celtics’ own titles teams of that decade, it behooves us to share more highlights of Larry Legend and his play with the Boston teams from that era.

And NBC Boston Sports has been putting out the best of Bird’s highlights, now up to its ninth edition.

Check out the clip embedded above for the latest installment of the Hick From French Lick’s (as Bird was lovingly called) best plays whether you’re just getting to know Larry’s game or know it like the back of your hand.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Boston Celtics Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird’s best highlights: Volume VII

Check out part VII of this highlight series of Larry Legend himself.

We have not seen as much of the legendary Boston Celtics counterpart to Los Angeles Lakers icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson in the hit HBO NBA basketball series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty.” However, Hall of Fame small forward Larry Joe Bird played an important foil to the Los Angeles title teams of the 1980s.

Better known as the ‘Showtime” Lakers, the team joined the Celtics, through the on-court wizardry of Magic and Bird, to help revitalize a moribund NBA in the early 1980s. With many younger Boston fans becoming aware of that era of play and the Celtics’ own titles teams of that decade, it behooves us to share more highlights of Larry Legend and his play with the Boston teams from that era.

And since December of 2021, NBC Boston Sports has been putting out the best of Bird’s highlights, now up to its seventh edition.

Check out the clip embedded above for the latest installment of the Hick From French Lick’s (as Bird was lovingly called) best plays whether you’re just getting to know Larry’s game or know it like the back of your hand.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Boston Celtics Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird’s best highlights: Volume V

Check out part V of this five-part highlights series of Larry Legend himself.

While we have not seen too much of the legendary counterpart to Los Angeles Lakers icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson in the hit HBO NBA basketball series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” Boston Celtics Hall of Fame small forward Larry Joe Bird plays an important foil to the Los Angeles title teams of the 1980s. Better known as the ‘Showtime” Lakers, the team joined the Celtics, through the on-court wizardry of Magic and Bird, to help revitalize a moribund NBA in the early 1980s.

With many younger Boston fans becoming aware of that era of play and the Celtics’ own titles teams of that decade, it behooves us to share more highlights of Larry Legend and his play with the Boston teams from that era.

And starting in December 2021, NBC Boston Sports has been putting out the best of Bird’s highlights, now up to its fifth edition.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Boston Celtics Hall of Fame forward Larry Bird’s best highlights: Volume III

Check out part III of this highlights series of Larry Legend himself.

While we have not seen too much yet of the legendary counterpart to Los Angeles Lakers icon Earvin “Magic” Johnson in the hit HBO NBA basketball series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” Boston Celtics Hall of Fame small forward Larry Joe Bird plays an important foil to the Los Angeles title teams of the 1980s. Better known as the ‘Showtime” Lakers, the team joined the Celtics, through the on-court wizardry of Magic and Bird, to help revitalize a moribund NBA in the early 1980s.

With many younger Boston fans becoming aware of that era of play and the Celtics’ own titles teams of that decade, it behooves us to share more highlights of Larry Legend and his play with the Boston teams from that era.

And NBC Boston Sports has put out the best of Bird’s highlights, with ep. III below.

Check out the clip embedded above for the first installment of the Hick From French Lick’s (as Bird was lovingly called) best plays, whether you’re just getting to know Larry’s game or know it like the back of your hand.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Best of Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird’s passing and assists: Part III

Scratch that Celtics basketball itch with a watch of the third clip in the series.

NBC Sports Boston once put together an excellent 10-part video series on the best highlights from Hall of Fame Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird that helped carry fans through the slowest part of the pandemic-inflected 2021-22 regular season.

Though that is well behind us, the folks at NBC Sports are at it again. This time, they have put together a series of videos dedicated to highlighting the so-called Hick From French Lick’s best passes and assists of his storied career with Boston. Spanning Bird’s entire career with the Celtics, it is a great way to learn or revisit just how good the Boston icon was at moving the rock.

Scratch that Celtics basketball itch with a watch of the third clip in the series embedded below to help keep you busy until actual Boston basketball returns in the fall with training camp and preseason.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

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Dan Shaughnessy on what it was like to cover Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics in the eighties

To be a fly on the wall in those years — and Shaugnessy was!

In today’s NBA, there are countless media outlets to follow each team, and the number of full-time beat writers has never been greater. Oddly, the level of access for such reporters, while broader than ever, is also much less in-depth than it once was.

The level of access available to team reporters has been compared to the last era of dominance of the Boston Celtics prior to their last title is comparatively shallow, with most of us forced to rely on the access we can get. But during that era, the Boston Globe’s Dan Shaughnessy covered the team in the 1980s featuring Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, he would fly with the team — and drink with them after games.

You can imagine how these kinds of experiences flavor the reporter’s workday in a very different manner than they do today, with the press — and Shaughnessy — having plenty of Bird’s-eye views (pun intended) to the peak of Larry Legend’s powers.

Watch the video embedded above to hear NBC Sports Boston’s Chris Forsberg talk turkey with Shaughnessy on what it was like to cover Boston in those days (and which such tales made into print in his book detailing that moment in Celtics sports history).

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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What Tommy Heinsohn thought about Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird before he joined the NBA

Believe it or not, many people questioned whether Bird was worth his historically large rookie deal.

The same loophole that allowed Boston Celtics legend Red Auerbach to draft Celtics legend Larry Bird out of college before he had graduated (he had transferred from Indiana to Indiana State after his freshman year) allowed Bird to turn the tables on Auerbach and demand what was then the biggest salary ever given to a rookie in NBA history.

Now the deal, a five-year, $3.25 million contract, seems like a bargain of bargains — particularly considering he basically walked into the league playing at an All-Star level. But at the time, there was considerable doubt whether Auerbach had committed a critical mistake by letting the future Hall of Famer force his hand.

At the time, Celtics Hall of Fame player and coach Tommy Heinsohn was writing a column on the team he rose to fame with, and spoke on a television show about what he believed about Bird’s future in the league and the value of the signing.

Watch the video embedded above to hear what Heinsohn said about one of the greatest to play the game before he ever graced an NBA hardwood (you may want to turn on the closed captioning and crank the volume — father time has not been kind to the audio).

If you enjoy this pod, check out the “How Bout Them Celtics,” “First to the Floor,” “Celtics Lab,” and the many other New England sports podcasts available on the CLNS Media network.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Every play by Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird in the 1981 NBA Finals vs. the Houston Rockets

See every play made by Larry Legend vs. Houston on the way to his first title.

The Houston Rockets have long been a sneakily dangerous team even when they were losing, dating from when the Rockets faced the Boston Celtics in the 1981 NBA Finals with a losing record. Houston had gone 40-42 in the 1980-81 regular season compared to Boston’s 62-20 season under second-year Celtics sensation Larry Bird — you may have heard of him.

And while Bird, series MVP Cedric Maxwell, Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and company clearly outmatched Moses Malone and the Rockets on paper, it took six games to put away Houston.

If you want to see how that second-year phenomenon hailing from French Lick, Indiana was an instrumental part of the team’s 14th title, check out the clip embedded below with every play made by Bird in the series (courtesy of CLNS Media’s “NBA History and Legends on CLNS” YouTube channel).

If you enjoy this pod, check out the “How Bout Them Celtics,” “First to the Floor,” “Celtics Lab,” and the many other New England sports podcasts available on the CLNS Media network.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Why you should never talk trash to Boston Celtics legend Larry Bird

Larry Bird taught a team of college all-stars that they should never talk trash to the “Dream Team”

You may have heard the legendary story about the one game that the 1992 USA basketball “Dream Team” actually lost.

The story goes that the team’s head coach and former NBA champion with the Detroit Pistons, Chuck Daly set up a pre-Olympics scrimmage against a college basketball all-star team. Daly stopped the game early and purposely made strange substitutions to ensure the USA lost a game and knew they weren’t invincible.

On The Players’ Tribune podcast entitled “Knuckleheads” hosted by former NBA players Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles, former NBA All-Star Jamal Mashburn tells a different story from those scrimmages. Mashburn was part of the college team put together to play against the greatest basketball team ever assembled, and a moment with former Celtics legend Larry Bird is one he will never forget.

Former Celtic Rodney Rodgers made the poor decision to talk trash after his college team beat Bird’s Team USA. Bird not only gave him around eight buckets in a row during the next scrimmage, but he actually told Rodgers the exact move he was going to score on before he did it.

The lesson is clear: Never talk trash to Celtics legend Larry Bird.

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Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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