This column caught me by surprise, much the way — well, much the way a baby catches you by surprise. I was having dinner with some friends for the first time since these crazy NBA playoffs began. I excused myself to call the office. It’s a habit I should learn to break.
“Did you hear about Isiah?” the voice asked.
“No. What?”
“His baby was born. A boy.”
They had a mean look all night, a look you would not want to cross. Sweat down their temples, sweat down their arms, sweat dripping off their chins. No smiles. No give. Mean.
“Backs to the wall,” the Pistons seemed to say, reciting their playoff battle cry, as they grunted and pushed and soaked their way to a 111-86 win over the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 4 of the National Basketball Association final. “Backs to the wall. You know what that means?”
He woke up once an hour, always in a sweat.
“WHO WON GAME 3?”
The voice screamed inside his head. He could not answer. Why couldn’t he answer? Why couldn’t he remember? Who won Game 3?
And then Chuck Daly took a breath, in the dark, and suddenly realized where he was and who he was. And why he couldn’t answer. This was Saturday night; Game 3 hadn’t been played yet.
The burning question of this NBA final, to me anyhow, is no longer who will win or when will they win but if they win — the Pistons, that is — how will Adrian Dantley celebrate?
“I’ll do something crazy,” he told me a few days ago. And since then, these pictures keep running through my brain. Something crazy? Adrian Dantley? Like what? Will he kiss a fan? Will he moon the TV camera? Will he pull off his sneakers and run barefoot through the Silverdome?
PALOS VERDES, Calif. — I am walking past the cliffs that drop into the Pacific Ocean. I am walking past the Corvettes and the BMWs and a dark blue Mercedes. I am walking past the tennis courts and the long turquoise pool.
I am visiting Bill Laimbeer’s old high school.
High school?
“Do people really go to class here?” I ask Laimbeer’s former coach, John Mihaljevich, 52, who greets me dressed in a red windbreaker, sunglasses, shorts and a deep tan. “Do they actually study, you know, math and science and all that?”
“Oh, yeah,” he says. “All that.”
The only newsletter dedicated to updates, exclusive content, and giveaways of Mitch's books!
