The M.L. Carr Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012
Let’s talk
about Bill Fitch’s replacement, KC Jones.
KC Jones was the perfect coach for that team at that time. Just like Bill Fitch was the perfect coach for the Celtics when there were a lot of younger, immature guys with very little professional experience on the team. As a veteran team, KC was a perfect fit. He worked us hard but he treated us like veterans. He wasn’t soft – he was a very demanding coach who held us to the highest standards set by Celtics teams from the past, and he had a point of reference because he was on many of those championship teams. And he let us know it. No matter how many rebounds you got, your head couldn’t get too big because [Bill] Russell had gone out and gotten 40. No matter how many points you scored, it didn’t matter because [John] Havlicek had the team record with 56.
And when it came to the games, KC was cool under pressure. He’d played in so many important games where the Celtics would be down six with a minute to go, so he knew how to get the best out of us without leaning on us in a negative way. By the time KC arrived Larry [Bird] had already matured, and he had a bunch of veterans around him – Robert Parish, Kevin McHale, guys like that – so it was an ideal time for KC to come onboard.
That 1983-84 team
was special.
Our motto that year was ‘Don’t Be Denied’. And we weren’t. We won the championship that no one thought we would win.
What do you remember
most about that unbelievable NBA Finals
against the Lakers?
More than anything, the last seconds of Game 7. No one thought we could beat the Lakers. They were the thoroughbreds, we were the Clydesdales. It was a very physical series, and that’s exactly what we wanted because we knew that’s the only way we could beat those guys. If you remember, there was Kevin McHale’s hit on Kurt Rambis, and there was Larry Bird’s poke of Michael Cooper out-of-bounds. The series was full of things like that. We knew that we had to physically beat them, because they had never played that kind of game. It didn’t take the Lakers long to learn, but in that series it was the element of surprise that we needed. So for me, being back in the old Boston Garden for Game 7, with twelve seconds left on the clock, and knowing that we were going to be world champions when absolutely no one gave us a chance but us…that is the thing that I remember the most.
That series is still
one of the highest rated series in NBA
Finals history.
There were so many things that captured the fascination of fans everywhere. You had Jack Nicholson in the stands, giving us the choke sign. You had the fight with Rambis and McHale. You had the east coast team going up against the west coast team. Glitz going up against blue collar. And the history between the two teams – that intense rivalry between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain – only added fuel to the fire. It was the perfect storm and it seemed like everyone stopped what they were doing to focus on that series.
Your passion and
positive attitude are well known – do you
feel like this had an influence on how that
series played out?
I think so – the media didn’t get to see us at practice or behind-the-scenes, but I made sure I kept reminding the guys that this opportunity was special, and that we might not get this chance again. I kept telling them that we had to stay focused and to seize the moment today.
People remember me as an antagonist because I waved that towel and got under the opposing team’s skin. That was all part of the plan. If I could take some of the pressure and attention off of Larry, Robert and Kevin, then I was doing my job because they could loosen up and focus on playing basketball. Just leave the antagonizing to me. It was a bravado that got under the skin of the fans more than the players, but it helped us as a team remember who we were. I never let them forget that we were the Celtics and that we expect to win.
Like I said, it really got under the skin of the fans. I remember going to LA after that series and a guy at a restaurant refused to serve me. He said he wasn’t going to serve anyone associated with the Boston Celtics. I just said, ‘Great, I don’t want your greasy burgers anyway’.
But getting back to your question, my goal
was to make sure that the Celtics played as
loose and as confidently as possible, and if
that meant being a cheerleader and a
motivator, then that was my role. And at
that point in my career I wasn’t on the
court a lot. When I did get in the game I
tried my best to make a positive impact to
help the team – a big steal, a three point
shot, a key rebound, a couple of minutes of
tough defense, whatever I could contribute.
You won 2 NBA Championships. Which one
means the most to you, and why?
The 1984 championship, without a doubt. The first one was really special but everyone expected us to beat the Houston Rockets. No one thought we’d beat the Lakers in ’84. Even the writers in our own city. And not only that, we didn’t have a lot to prove in terms of being the best in the ’81 NBA Finals, because once we got by the Sixers everyone knew that we’d just beaten the best team in the playoffs.
We had to prove we were better than Kareem
Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson, and we were
able to do that. That series is talked
about today because we were able to defy
those odds. So many memories – Gerald
Henderson with the big steal, Dennis Johnson
with the big baskets when we needed them the
most in Game 4, Cedric Maxwell telling us to
jump on his back in Game 7 and then
delivering with a huge game to help wrap up
the series. McHale dominating down low,
Larry hitting shots from all over the
court. It was a great team effort.
You weren’t there for that ’86
championship, but I hear you stayed closely
connected to the players.
To me, that 1986 Celtics team is the greatest team ever assembled. But the team that impressed me the most was the ’87 team. I have more respect for that team than any team that I ever saw play. There was so much adversity. Parish playing with two twisted ankles in the playoffs. Larry with the elbow injury. Kevin McHale playing on a broken foot. Bill Walton battling the foot problems and unable to play. And these guys take this thing to Game 6 of the ’87 NBA Finals – a series that they had no business being in, quite frankly. They just kept getting up off the matt and battling. They lost that series to the Lakers, but they didn’t get beat.