The Dennis Johnson Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Tuesday, October 1st, 2002
Larry Bird paid
you the ultimate compliment:
He said that you were the best teammate he played with because of your his ability to
come through in the clutch.
Please tell me a little about Larry.
He was a special player, one of the best
ever. What made him so great was his drive -- he practiced the way he
played the game, going full-speed all of the time. He never took a
play off. You hear sportswriters talk about how he would dive for
loose balls in games, but he did that stuff in practice, too. So it
wasn't for show. That was the real Larry Bird that you saw on the
court.
The practices were his way of making a statement, because Larry wasn't a big talker -- although he was a very big trash-talker [laughs]. He was one who always led by example, and he never let you know how bad he was hurting. Practices were the same way. Larry never took a practice off.
Larry Bird and Dennis Johnson will forever be linked, in large part because
of the steal versus the Pistons in Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference
Finals. That play rivals Havlicek's famous steal as perhaps the
greatest in Celtics history. Where does this rank for you?
That play ranks as the greatest that I've ever been a
part of. Hitting that big shot against the Los Angeles Lakers in the
Finals was huge for me, but being involved with Larry's steal is my all-time
favorite.
Had we lost that game, Detroit would have taken a commanding lead in the series. It would have been extremely hard to come back from a 3-1 hole, which was part of what made that play so special. We never lost confidence, because we were so hard to beat at home those two years ('85-'86, and '86-'87). We always felt we'd find a way to win the game, no matter how bad the outlook. And I can't lie -- things looked pretty bad in that situation [laughs].
The
Celtics paid you the highest honor by retiring your number on
December 13th, 1991.
What does this mean to you?
To look up and see my number with all of the other
greats is a special feeling. I will always consider myself a Boston
Celtic.
