Getty It was Kevin McHale's takedown of Kurt Rambis that shifted momentum of the 1984 NBA Finals.
Has there ever been a better era of NBA basketball than the 1980s? That’s when centers were centers, and the 3-point line was a bonus instead of the focal point of offenses. The Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers were star-studded squads that were must-see TV.
Boston’s Larry Bird and LA’s Magic Johnson were the faces of the league, and they met for the first of three times in the NBA Finals in 1984. While Bird and Magic shined, a blatant takedown of Lakers forward Kurt Rambis by Boston’s Kevin McHale proved to be the turning point of a series that the Celtics won in seven games.
Kevin McHale Clotheslined Kurt Rambis for the Desperate Celtics in Game 4
Through three games in the 1984 NBA Finals, the Lakers owned the Celtics. Led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s 32 points, the Lakers stormed into Boston Garden and pulled out a 115-109 victory in Game 1 to steal homecourt advantage.
LA nearly made it two straight wins in Boston, but Gerald Henderson stole a lazy James Worthy pass intended for Byron Scott with the Lakers attempting to run out the clock with a two-point lead. Henderson converted the steal into a game-tying layup that sent the game into overtime. Boston escaped with a 124-121 win.
In Game 3, the Lakers embarrassed the Celtics 137-104. The lopsided loss infuriated Bird, who lashed out at his teammates, calling them “sissies” for their soft play.
“I wanted to fight every teammate I had after Game 3,” said Bird, quoted in Jackie MacMullan’s book “When the Game Was Ours.”
“I did everything I could in the papers to get them fired up, and I knew if something didn’t change, we were going to lose. So I called them sissies, told them they played like girls. I didn’t know if there would be some backlash, but I didn’t care.”
Today in 1984, Kevin McHale takes out Kurt Rambis. I miss the old NBA.
McHale seemingly took Bird’s message to heart. With Boston trailing 76-70 in the third quarter and his team in danger of falling behind 3-1 in the series, McHale took down Rambis with a hard clothesline foul as Rambis drove in for a layup. Benches cleared, no technical foul was called, and there were no ejections.
Momentum clearly turned in Boston’s favor. The Celtics went on to win another overtime game, and somehow found themselves tied at 2-2 in the series before heading home in Game 5. The Celtics eventually pulled out the series in seven games.
Rambis Recently Discussed McHale’s Hard Foul
Rambis has made some appearances on podcasts hosted by some of his former teammates, and McHale’s foul always seems to find its way into the conversation. During a 2021 appearance on the “Showtime With Coop” podcast hosted by Michael Cooper, Rambis said he’d be in a lot of trouble if he were able to get at McHale after the incident.
“You know, I would probably be in jail right now if I had been able to do what I wanted to do after he upended me,” Rambis told Cooper. “I was going after him. If you watch the tape, I’m headed right toward him. Worthy pushes me into the reporters, and I end up falling down. Larry Bird ends up helping me up.
“It’s just something you don’t do in basketball, so I was going after blood. If I had a clear path, I was going after him, so I may have gotten in a lot of trouble.”
On Scott’s “Off the Dribble” podcast in 2022, Rambis did say that he believed McHale meant no harm.
“I really don‘t believe Kevin had any intention to do that,” Rambis said.
“I agree,” said Scott.
In MacMullan’s book, McHale insisted it wasn’t a planned attack.
“People say it was planned,” McHale said, per MacMullan. “It wasn’t. If I thought about it ahead of time, I would have done it to Magic or Kareem or Worthy. They were a helluva lot more important than Rambis.”