sports columnist Jackie MacMullan tells the whole story behind basketball’s greatest all-time rivalry

Anybody who followed basketball in the 1980s knows about the heated personal rivalry between Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson. But even long-time sports columnist Jackie MacMullan, who covered sports for The Boston Globe for 25 years, was surprised to learn how deep that rivalry ran.

“I had no idea how obsessed they were with one another. It just absolutely astonished me,” MacMullan said.

She offered an example. In 1980, Bird won the Rookie of the Year award over Johnson by a vote of 63 to 3. Johnson got the news the day before Game 6 of the NBA Finals between his Los Angeles Lakers and Julius “Dr. J” Erving’s Philadelphia 76ers. Johnson was privately furious that he lost the vote by such a resounding margin. The next day, determined to prove himself, he played all five positions and propelled the Lakers to victory with 42 points and 15 rebounds, sealing the championship and becoming the youngest player ever to win a Finals MVP award.

Meanwhile, Bird watched a live feed of the game from a club in Boston, his Celtics having been eliminated by the Sixers in the Eastern Conference Finals. After witnessing the Lakers’ victory, he was overcome with jealousy and utterly consumed by his need to beat Magic Johnson. That sentiment carried over to the next season, when the Celtics won the championship over the Houston Rockets.

“Some of those stories really surprised me, because in all the years I’ve covered these guys—and I knew them both very well—I had never heard any of that,” MacMullan said.

She’s author of the new book “When the Game was Ours,” an in-depth look at the parallel careers of two of basketball’s biggest legends. She’ll sign copies of the book and answer questions at Portsmouth Public Library on Monday, March 22.
MacMullan spent eight months interviewing Bird and Johnson, as well as many of their family members and teammates.

Although Bird and Johnson are credited as co-authors, everything except the introduction is written in the third person. The book reads more like a nonfiction novel recounting the storybook clash between two titans of pro sports, a one-on-one rivalry equaled only by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.

Bird and Johnson first took the court together in 1978 as teammates, both reserves on a team of college All-Stars competing in the World Invitational Tournament. Their rivalry was born the following year, when Bird’s Indiana State went head to head with Johnson’s Michigan State in the NCAA championship. Michigan State came out on top, and Johnson was named Most Outstanding Player of the game.

“In Bird’s mind, he has this mental scoreboard, and he was down one to nothing,” said MacMullan, who previously worked with Bird on his 1999 autobiography “Bird Watching.” “He needed to get one on Magic. It’s what drove him.”

Although they played different positions, their rivalry could not have unfolded more fittingly. Bird and Johnson entered the NBA the same season, on opposite coasts, as members of teams that already had a deep-seated rivalry. Bird’s blue-collar ethic meshed easily with the Celtics, and Johnson’s larger-than-life persona was a perfect fit for Los Angeles. Bird versus Magic quickly became synonymous with Celtics versus Lakers, East Coast versus West Coast and, to some, white versus black.

Even their personalities seemed diametrically opposed. Whereas Bird was quiet and somber, Johnson was charismatic and gregarious. Early in their careers, MacMullan said, Bird’s idea of a fun weekend consisted of staying home with his family and mowing his lawn. Johnson, meanwhile, was visiting the Playboy Mansion in L.A. and club hopping with Lakers owner Jerry Buss.

“Boston was perfect for Larry, and L.A., as it turned out, was perfect for Magic. It just fit perfectly,” MacMullan said.

Bird and Johnson first squared off in an NBA Finals series in 1984. The Celtics won that contest in seven games, but the Lakers returned the favor by beating the Celtics in the 1985 Finals. The Celtics won the ’86 championship over the Rockets, and Bird won his third consecutive MVP award. But the Lakers defeated the Celtics in their final championship match-up of the Bird-Johnson era in 1987.

The rivalry between Bird and Johnson helped resuscitate the NBA, which was “saddled with drug scandals, image problems and dwindling revenues,” MacMullan writes. She credits NBA commissioner David Stern with promoting the budding rivalry to the advantage of the league, winning over sponsors.

“Magic and Larry sold,” she said. “It became very clear that this was something companies would latch onto.”

Initially, the enmity between Bird and Johnson extended outside the court. For several years, they privately disliked each other and barely spoke to one another. Their relationship began to turn a corner in the summer of 1985, when they did a commercial shoot together for Converse. Bird agreed to do the commercial on the condition that Johnson travel to his hometown of French Lick, Ind., for the shoot. Johnson surprised him by agreeing to that condition, according to MacMullan. Bird’s mother cooked a large meal for the occasion, and Bird and Johnson had their first real conversation.

“They sat down and started realizing maybe they weren’t as different as they thought they were,” MacMullan said, noting both players hailed from large, poor families in houses full of siblings. “A lot of those boundaries were broken down that day.”

But their newfound rapport did little to alter their fierce competition on the basketball court. It wasn’t until Johnson announced he was HIV-positive in 1991 that his friendship with Bird blossomed. Only when he thought Johnson was going to die did Bird realize how integral their relationship had become.

“It just was devastating to him. At that moment he realized, ‘Man, I’m so connected to this guy,’” MacMullan said. “Larry didn’t feel like playing anymore. It wasn’t the same.”

Johnson retired after his announcement (although he would make a couple of short-lived comebacks). Bird, who suffered back problems in the early ’90s, retired a year later. But he and Johnson remain close friends to this day.

In addition to revitalizing the NBA, MacMullan credits Bird and Johnson with breaking down racial barriers that still plagued pro sports in the 1980s. She said many white basketball fans aligned themselves with the Celtics, while many black fans despised Boston and rooted for the Lakers. But Bird and Johnson transcended the race issue.

“I don’t think Larry and Magic spent a lot of time thinking about it. Both of them are truly colorblind,” MacMullan said. “I think they were great agents for social change, to be honest. But how the public perceived them was a different matter.”

Today, the NBA faces some of the same challenges it did before Bird and Johnson entered the league. Most purists prefer college basketball, insisting that NBA players are lazy showboats driven by individual stats.

MacMullan disagrees. She said young point guards like Deron Williams of the Utah Jazz and Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets demonstrate the unselfish approach that helped Bird and Johnson elevate the game.

“There are players that think pass first, and I think that’s what made Larry and Magic special,” she said. “They reintroduced the art of passing to the NBA.”

MacMullan does not have high hopes for the Celtics this year, however. She said the deteriorating health of aging stars like Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce is alarmingly similar to the sunset years of Bird and his old teammate Kevin McHale.
“It reminds me a lot of the final days of Larry, Kevin and Robert (Parrish). They’re starting to break down,” she said. “It’s really hard when elite players break down. They don’t know how to deal with it.”

But the legacy of Magic and Bird lives on, as evidenced by the hype surrounding the 2008 NBA Finals between the Celtics and Lakers. The Celtics won that round, but the Lakers rebounded with a championship in 2009. And the bitter rivalry continues.

Jackie MacMullan will appear at 7 p.m. on March 22 at Portsmouth Public Library, 175 Parrott Ave., Portsmouth, 603-427-1540. For more information, contact RiverRun Bookstore at 603-431-2100.