Memories in Milwaukee
After 31 years, C’s back for big games
The Celtics will do something tonight that they haven’t done in decades.
Thirty-one years and one arena since the last occasion, they will be part of a playoff game in Milwaukee. It seems, at once, odd and oddly familiar, for back in the
1980s, trips to the selfproclaimed “Great Place on a Great Lake” seemed a springtime ritual.
Four times in a five-year stretch, the Celts and Bucks renewed postseason acquaintances. There was the C’s getting swept in 1983 to signal the end of the Bill Fitch reign, a 4-1 win by the Shamrocks in 1984, a sweep by them in ’86 and then in ’87 perhaps the most memorable of the decade’s meetings — for a number of reasons.
As with this year, the Celtics headed into Milwaukee with a 2-0 lead. That series would eventually become a seven-game sweat, with the C’s advancing to beat Detroit in the conference finals in seven and fall to the Lakers in six.
But it’s what happened in Game 3 at the old MECCA that truly reverberates from the series. It was a Friday night, and the Bucks were making a stand after losing by 13 and 2 in Boston. Kevin McHale had fouled out in overtime and was sitting on the bench. Then he wasn’t sitting on the bench. We’ll let McHale take it from there …
“There was this guy behind our bench,” he said. “You know, back then they didn’t have a whole bunch of security. So I fouled out and we’re going to lose the game. That was pretty evident, and I’m in a bad mood.”
It should be noted that McHale had been playing on a broken foot since March.
“Yeah, I was in a bad mood a lot,” he said.
“Anyway, the guy leans over and just starts yapping. He’s like right here. And there’s no security guy on the bench. I just jumped up and turned around and grabbed him by the tie and the shirt and I dragged him down to the floor.
“I was going to hit him, and then his eyes were like this big (very wide), and I was like, ‘Oh, what am I doing? This is going to be bad.’ And about the time I thought I wasn’t going to hit him, Greg Kite kneedropped him like it was big-time wrestling. Jerry Sichting hammer-drops him like WWF.
“The cops come, and they think the guy like attacked the bench, so they’re beating the hell out of him. Other than grabbing him and starting it, I didn’t do anything else, but by the end the guy looked like he’d been in a brawl. His shirt was ripped. I was like a gigantic mess.
“That was back before they had cameras everywhere, and the league ended up fining me for it. I don’t even remember how much. I can’t remember what they fined me, but Red (Auerbach) covered it. Red goes, ‘Ah, the guy had it coming. We’ll take care of that fine.’ Which you couldn’t do. You weren’t supposed to do that.
“I remember David Stern called up and asked what happened, and I said, ‘I don’t remember.’ David and all their security guys were all mad. I’m like, ‘You know what? I don’t quite remember. The guy must have attacked us or something.’ It was pretty funny.”
By the way, the fine was a whole $3,000, and McHale wasn’t suspended. He had 34 points in Game 4.
“I always remember Red stepping up,” McHale said. “That’s what made Red great. Nowadays they’d find out that the team paid for it and they’d take away a draft choice or something.”
Taking the regular playoff trips to Milwaukee as a whole, he said, “I loved that gym. I loved those places. There was no lighting in the end zones, so the basket looked really big. I always had a lot of fun there, because I had a bunch of friends that would come up.”
That crew of pals, featuring legendary characters Big Joe and Bones, led us to wonder whether they may have been a bigger obstacle for McHale than the Bucks.
“Oh, those guys were way tougher on me,” McHale said. “My liver would hurt after those guys would come up, I can tell you that. … One time we had a regular-season game there and we were busing down to Chicago from Milwaukee. KC (Jones) said, ‘Are those guys coming to Chicago?’ I told him no, and he said, ‘Thank goodness.’ I just started laughing. Yeah, we used to have quite a contingency that
‘I thought it was an exciting series every time we played. There was a real respect that we had for them.’ — CELTICS PRESIDENT DANNY AINGE On past playoff clashes with the Bucks in Milwaukee
would come to Milwaukee.
“I thought the old MECCA was a great place to play, and part of it was you really had to play well against those Bucks teams.”
Danny Ainge had a similar feeling, musing on those series as he sat in a small room off the back hallway at the Garden this week.
“I had a lot of respect for those Milwaukee teams,” he said. “I remember guarding Ricky Pierce and Brian Winters, great shooters — and, of course, Sidney Moncrief. They had great bigs and great guards. Those were really, really good teams. Marques Johnson was a great player …”
With that, Johnson walked down the hall and poked his head in the doorway.
“Marques Johnson?” exclaimed Ainge.
“Danny Ainge?” said Johnson, smiling as he tried to recreate Ainge’s surprise.
“I just said your name like one second ago,” Danny said. “How are you doing?”
“Everything’s good, baby,” Johnson said. “Good to see you.”
Outside in the hallway, Cedric Maxwell, who’d been walking with Johnson, chimed in.
“Danny, you’re just going to shake his hand like that?” Max said. “I mean, I played with the guy, but you? C’mon … Damn.”
A moment later, the room had cleared. Ainge said he didn’t remember much about McHale going into the stands.
“There were good crowds, and they had an us-against-the-world mentality in Milwaukee,” Ainge said. “I thought it was an exciting series every time we played. There was a real respect that we had for them.”
The Celts’ president of basketball operations might want to remind his current crew to bring respect for their opponent to the Bradley Center tonight, lest this become a lengthy series like ’87.