Jason Kidd works the media

Larry Bird rules the airwaves

Number one reason to root for Dallas?

What Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd said on Saturday about Jaylen Brown.

The Celtics were duller than a brown Datsun, but now Kidd’s re-cranked the feud, turned the track from Jayson Tatum to Jaylen Brown.

Fake intrigue where there wasn’t any. Kidd gave us the right to watch for body language on Sunday, pretend we know what people are thinking.

Kidd wants to watch the pair turn Game 2 into an All-Star Game, or a too-careful charity match. A Team USA loss, stars afraid of stepping on each other’s toes. Brown doesn’t want to be the bad dude, Tatum won’t be the bad guy. And we can be sure Jason Kidd didn’t say this because he has a clear favorite between the duo.

No, he said it because he wants the pair to play nice. To over-pass and look for each other, to kick out instead of driving in. Maybe Kidd thinks so little of Brown that he expects Jaylen to overplay, a wild assumption, but heartily worth it in the face of an otherwise dreary outlook for Dallas.

This is petty, I love it. Phil Jackson stuff, complaining about slippery courts (Phil did this in Milwaukee) or bent rims (Detroit) or over-inflated basketballs (Miami).

Pulling this on a Saturday, at least a full day before Game 2 but zero time allotted for weekday cable to have its say. Yakkers will have to sit until Monday, losing that alluring chance to be wrong about Game 2, to tell us What It All Means.

Kidd’s Saturday afternoon statement holds no bearing over Game 2. Rather, 25-foot jumpers on ten-foot goals will load the largest weight.

That, and whatever Phil Jackson tells us is wrong with Boston’s arena (slow elevators).

This is the Jason Kidd who fed all those bloggers a decade ago, doing weird things because nobody else was stepping up to act super weird. He’ll have competitors in weirdness soon enough, once Alex Rodriguez takes over the Timberwolves full-time, but for this glorious weekend, the WHAT?!?!? was mostly about Jason.

Mostly about Jason. Joe Mazzulla decided to get super weird, too!

Game 2 will be Boston’s 16th game in 56 days. Lotta space between tips.

Mazzulla’s weirdness also dominated Thursday, the Celtics coach stuck to his gamesmanship throughout the pregame interviews, when we knew he’d start Kristaps Porziņģis, and Joe refused to admit as much. Turns out, Joe knew he’d be starting Al Horford all along, and refused to admit as much.

BOSTON NOW OR BOSTON LATER

There are reasons to root for Boston, too. Karl Malone might be the biggest one.

If the Mavericks and Celtics battle another five times beyond Sunday’s contest, a seven-game series with perfect attendance from Al Horford leaves the veteran with 188 career playoff games. If Boston loses, Horford creeps further up on Malone (a creep), and John Stockton (a John Stockton) for the most NBA playoff games without a title.

Here’s the problem. If Boston loses in 2024, we’ll have to root for Horford and the Celtics as our hopeful title favorites throughout 2024-25, because we cannot have Malone (193 playoff games) and Stockton (182, same as Horford) fall from their perch. Al Horford has to either retire early Sunday afternoon to remain tied with Stockton, or win a title this month.

If Horford declines upon bowing before Game 2 and Boston misses out on another championship, it otherwise rebounds to our full cheering effort toward a Celtic championship in 2024-25, OF WHICH I WILL GIVE, because Karl Malone and John Stockton must keep the records for most NBA playoff games without an NBA title.

There are other reasons to root for Boston. Jrue Holiday’s first legitimate NBA title, for one.

I’ll let Maverick forward Markieff Morris rationalize this:

“If Giannis ain’t put his foot under [Kyrie Irving], they would’ve had a championship,” said Morris, who was playing for the Lakers at the time.

I understand Markieff is Kyrie Irving’s teammate, but this sounds like an awfully specific stretch to own a horse for.

“Milwaukee would still be without a championship.”

OK, yeah, this is mostly about Milwaukee.

Who hurt you in Milwaukee, Markieff? We all have someone.

“I know so. They were going to get swept. They know that. You can ask anybody on their team,” added Morris, pointing out that former Bucks point guard Jeff Teague said the same on his podcast.

Well, if Jeff Teague said so, I’m in. That dude is hilarious.

That settles it. Jrue Holiday, beloved NBA legend and, in my opinion, future Hall of Famer, deserves his first NBA championship.

Milwaukee’s was bogus, Markieff Morris mentioned as much, this chip counts.

SPORTS UPDATE

CELTIC DISHARMONY

Not on Sunday, not buying it, but it’s been there, specifically 1983.

Boston barely beat the Atlanta Hawks in the first round of the 1983 playoffs, a year after losing to Philly in a failed title defense. As Boston steadied to play the Bucks in 1983’s second round, another championship-less run felt like it was wrapping up.

Well, some Celtic watchers foresaw problems … actually, let Sports Illustrated tell it:

Some Celtic watchers foresaw problems even before the season began.

See!

By trading the rights to Dave Cowens, who retired in 1980, to Milwaukee for Guard Quinn Buckner, Boston had acquired a quality "Celtic-type" player, but also had created a glut in a backcourt that already included [Danny] Ainge, Tiny Archibald, Gerald Henderson, as well as swingmen Charles Bradley and M.L. Carr.

Everyone but Carr started at least five games, resulting in a hodgepodge of combinations, reduced playing time for some individuals and bruised egos.

People at least liked Buckner.

Incoming forward Scott Wedman, a former All-Star, was not nearly as welcomed in Boston, unloved by Larry Bird particularly so (source — every Boston Celtic book, even Larry’s own):

The frontcourt, already perhaps the best in the league, became even deeper in mid-January when Boston traded bench-warming rookie Center Darren Tillis to Cleveland for Forward Scott Wedman, a career 15.3-points-per-game scorer. Now it appeared for sure that the Celtics had too many able bodies, which can be almost as deadly as having too few.

The Celtics did not have too few opinions. And in the middle of a playoff race!

"What you want is eight really good players and four mediocre ones," says one really good Celtic. "Before, guys like Eric Fernsten and Terry Duerod [subs on recent Celtic teams] really had no aspirations of being great players and didn't demand playing time.”

I didn’t make those names up.

“Now, with so many good players on the team, it's easy to get disgruntled."

The Celtics were also in the franchise’s final season under head coach Bill Fitch, things were familiar.

"The man has a lot of good things to say, he just has some awful ways of saying them," says one Celtic.

If anonymous quotes were any indication, the Celtics learned from their leader.

"You can only call someone dumb or stupid for so long."

Adds another, "Everyone rebels in his own little way. I can't get into someone yelling about why I didn't get over a double pick. I wonder if someone in a normal business gets yelled at for not getting over to the Xerox machine the right way."

Says [Kevin] McHale, who isn't as obsessed with basketball as Fitch might like, "I long for the day when something I do out on a basketball court affects Wall Street."

I don’t know what that means.

McHale did give Fitch credit …

"I think he recognized what a difficult year it was for all of us, and he eased up quite a bit," McHale says.

… but possibly because McHale knew it would be his head coach’s final season with the C’s.

As soon as the playoffs sniffled to a close.

The Hawks pushed Boston around in the best-of three opening round, Dominique Wilkins’ first playoff series, Bird outscoring the rookie 26 to 21 in Game 1:

The Hawks took Game 2 in Atlanta, Wilkins holding Bird to 4-18 from the floor:

When asked if he thought Wilkins had won the battle between them Friday, Bird snapped, "I didn't know me and him were playing one-on-one. I thought this was a team game."

If it were a one-on-one battle, Bird had it: Wilkins missed 1-6 shots in the deciding Game 3, turning the ball over five times. Bird scored 26 points on 10-19 from the floor, nine points and nine assists, a steal, two blocks, three turnovers.

The Hawks, to Sports Illustrated, still went down swinging:

"Said one Hawk official before Game 1: ‘With the Celtics, the whole is definitely greater than the sum of the parts. It's just that you freeze a little bit when you think about playing the Celtics.

I'll concede that Bird is one of the two best players in the league, but Cedric Maxwell can be beaten, can't he? Is it stupid to say that Archibald has reached the end of the line? Is it inconceivable to feel that Ainge isn't ready yet and that Henderson is a pretty ordinary guard?’"

Front offices are larger than ever than ever in 2024, thus making it tougher than ever to determine the identity of an anonymous single source. So why doesn’t the losing team get to trash the winning group in any of these season-concluding columns?

After beating Atlanta, the 1983 Celtics were swept from the next round in four games by Milwaukee. Bird missed Game 2 with the flu, K.C. Jones became head coach, Boston won a title in 1984.

OK, RICK

“Everybody has at least one weakness,` said Rick Barry, the former NBA scoring star. “Mine was offensive rebounding.”

Offensive rebounding, sure, Rick Barry’s only weakness.

There was a time when Rick Barry not only did color but play-by-play on NBA telecasts.

It could be worse, unless Draymond Green usurps Dave Pasch’s job.

LAR-LAR

“He`s a prehistoric basketball player,” Tommy Heinsohn said. “Somewhere in French Lick (Ind.), there was a cave covered by ice. They chipped away at it and he came out.

“I think Bird came into the league with a real true knowledge. He`s a throwback to the `40s and `50s, when they used their heads.”

This is, well, this is how they used to talk about Larry Bird.

They were less flattering ways of discussing him:

“He`s ugly,” Dallas guard Derek Harper said with a straight face. “I don`t know if it`s that mustache or what.”

“He talks garbage,” said Harper`s teammate, Mark Aguirre, who typically guards Bird. “Aside from that, the only thing he doesn`t do is block shots.”

Aguirre would know: Bird played 40 minutes in this Boston win over Aguirre’s Dallas Mavericks a month before this quoted scouting report, zero blocks:

Ten boards, six assists, three steals, 39 points, Aguirre finished with 38.

Bird finished his career with 755 blocks in 897 games, Aguirre with 296 in 923 games.

“He can`t jump, and he`s not quick,” said Chicago`s Michael Jordan, who clearly can and is. “But you can`t increase your jumping ability or your quickness. He makes up for it by using his head, analyzing the opponent. It makes him better than the competition. Consequently, he doesn`t have a weakness.”

Bird disagreed.

“It’s my speed and my ability to guard guys one-on-one,” said Bird.

Only one other disagreed with Larry:

Only one of those asked, veteran guard Mike Woodson of the Los Angeles Clippers, considered Bird flawless. “I can’t find a weakness,” Woodson said. “There are better jumpers among the league`s small forwards, but he gets the job done and then some.”

Earvin “Magic” Johnson, the Los Angeles Lakers` guard and Bird`s archrival since college, thought it over and finally concluded: “Probably that he can`t win jump-ball situations. That`s about it.”

“He doesn`t sell popcorn and hot dogs during the game,” said Richie Adubato, the Dallas Mavericks` assistant coach.

Laugh at Richie all you want but hot dog and popcorn profits combined for nearly 38 percent of Basketball Related Income in 1987-88.

PLAYIN’ BY THE RULES

May I suggest a Sunday morning album?

Thanks for reading!