The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 364 - 98 Calling the shots

"They planted a hidden microphone on me."

It was the 1986 NBA Finals, the second game between the Portland Trail Blazers and the Boston Celtics at the Boston Garden.

This is an absurd world, full of inconsistencies and contradictions, where we seek fairness and justice, but resort to compromises and bending over backwards.

In my 30 years with the NBA, the league has always tried to eliminate the referees’ personalities in the games; by the time I was about to retire, it had come to this: no media interviews, no chatting with fans, no talking to players or coaches off-court.

The game, all we had was the game, and the referees were like plug-and-play black boxes, plugged in during the game, powered on, then cast aside when no longer needed.

When I first entered the league, it wasn’t like this; if you wanted to survive in the NBA, you had to show the players and fans who you were.

I was somewhat successful; I knew how to handle everyone and deal with a variety of situations.

Now I was tightly wrapped up, bound by various rules and regulations, becoming a ruthless whistle-blowing machine; the league wanted to suppress any human emotion of ours.

So, it seemed perfectly normal for them to want to fit me with a microphone, a machine should have recording capabilities, shouldn’t it?

I didn’t care; what the heck, I had nothing to hide; their goal was to capture some details of the game from the referee’s perspective, to help the media department produce video features.

These things later had a significant impact, particularly when a journalist got hold of this content and wrote an explosive article that was published in "USA Today" and dozens of newspapers and magazines nationwide.

Of course, the content of the article was edited, but the recording I made that night in 1986 of the second game of the Finals conveyed an immersive experience.

I officiated the game with Hugh Evans (there were only two referees in a game before 1989); he had been working for the league for about ten years, a quite competent referee, but he was a bit nervous that day.

Any game involving Ah Gan makes referees more or less nervous; he was a dangerous character.

Jack O’Donnell was the backup referee, another capable referee, but even if my eyeballs fell onto the parquet floor, I wouldn’t have asked for his help. (I don’t know if his later feud with the Trail Blazers had anything to do with this.)

That night Boston Garden was packed, a place that brought to mind the arenas of the 1950s, dark and dilapidated. On this hot and humid night, there was a smell of mustiness in the air.

The Celtics, like the Boston Garden, were ancient; they had won more NBA championships than any other team, starting back in 1957 when I first joined the league; for more than a decade, they ruled as champions, through the ’70s and the ’80s, I watched Russell, Havlicek, and Bird crowned again and again.

Red Auerbach sat near the front of the stands; he seemed to be a part of this ancient edifice, becoming a symbol of the arena.

Their opponent, the Trail Blazers, was much younger; they were so fresh and vigorous. They had won the first game of the series, meaning they faced tremendous pressure and a ferocious counterattack in the second game.

In the pre-game preparation meeting, as usual, we brought up the issue of Ah Gan; he was a dangerous element, but not an unstable one.

This might sound contradictory, but that was the reality. It’s like those powerful explosives that are safe without a detonator. You could burn them, smash them, and they wouldn’t explode.

But if there were a detonator, the explosion would be astonishing; our job was to make sure the detonator didn’t show up, to keep things that could set him off from appearing on the court.

The first half went very smoothly, and the microphone caught the everyday chit-chat with the players. I told them not to push each other, to cut down on unnecessary movements, to maintain the rhythm of the game, and not to foul.

Just before the end of the first half, Clyde Drexler of the Trail Blazers shook off the defense on a fastbreak, and Dennis Johnson leaped from behind, knocking Drexler to the ground.

Drexler stood up immediately and got tangled up with Gregg Kite — Clyde didn’t know who pushed him, but when he got up and turned around to see Kite, he went for him.

Hugh Evans jumped in between them to separate the two, shouting "Enough! Enough! Stop!"

And I immediately found Ah Gan, stopped him from going over, as his intervention would only create more chaos.

I held him back while yelling at the players from both sides trying to enter the court, "Get off the court! Get out of here!"

I felt like a shepherd. I first controlled the most dangerous ram, then herded the rest together and had them sit down.

The entire crowd was chanting, "Beat PT."

I brought Drexler and Kite together and told Clyde he hit the wrong person and warned Kite not to come onto the court and play the fool as a scapegoat.

I gave them each a technical foul, warning them that another unsportsmanlike foul would get them thrown out of the game.

Dennis Johnson received only a common foul, as back in 1986, the league had no flagrant foul rule.

When two players confront each other, I always tell them, "Go ahead, go ahead, I’ll eject you both, and then the Commissioner will fine you until you’re broke. If that’s how you want to spend your money, then do it, a bunch of idiots."

This mostly worked; most of the brawls in the ’80s were this kind of shoving and tugging, not real punching and kicking.

When I first joined the league in 1957, the NBA was a basketball league operating in hockey rinks owned by the founders, intending to fill the void during hockey’s off-season.

The League’s hockey background made the fans fond of rough stuff, and a good fight could liven up the entire evening. If Jim Loscutoff and Andy Johnson were squaring off to fight, you absolutely couldn’t let them start because they would likely kill each other.

Some fights were spectacular, with two heavyweight fighters charging from opposite sides and often, you couldn’t stop them until one of them went down.

In 1964, when Don Nelson was still with the Lakers, during a game against the Knicks, he got into a fight with Tom Hoover. Hoover was just too big and strong; he knocked Nelson to the ground, and Nelson ended up needing three stitches on his mouth.

After the game, in the locker room, Nelson blamed his teammate Dick Barnett for not helping him, to which Barnett said, "Oh baby, when I turned around, you were already winning."

Later, Nelson went to the Celtics.

Nowadays, the League no longer allows players to fight, especially not for bench players to rush onto the court.

Today, there’s only one person left who has the might of the players from the 50s and 60s, and that’s Ah Gan, so I have to control him first and foremost.

I bet if you put Ah Gan in the 60s, he’d still be one of the toughest fighters, with his unparalleled wrestling skills. He would definitely be a huge star at Madison Square Garden Arena.

Back to the game, the Trail Blazers were leading the whole time, and the crowd was getting agitated. By the third quarter, a fat guy sitting baseline became more and more brazen, constantly harassing the Trail Blazers’ players and the referees, even yelling about rigged officiating.

I told security to watch that fat guy and keep him from charging onto the court.

Had it been fifteen years ago, I would have wished he did charge onto the court so I could beat him up, which isn’t something I haven’t done before.

Midway through the third quarter, the Celtics launched a counterattack, inching closer and closer in the score, and Boston Garden erupted in a frenzy.

The Celtics’ outside shooting was incredibly accurate tonight, and whenever Larry Bird took a shot, I might as well start running to the other side.

But Ah Gan would always respond with a hook shot or an offensive rebound. The Trail Blazers withstood the pressure and maintained their lead.

However, I messed up on a crucial play in the third quarter. Under the basket, I saw Kevin McHale sidestep Thompson for a layup, and Ah Gan blocked the shot, smacking the ball on the backboard.

The ball seemed to have hit the backboard first. My angle from the baseline wasn’t clear; I think Hugh blew the whistle, and I followed with a quick toot, as it was too noisy in the arena.

Hugh then came over to explain that he didn’t see if the ball hit the backboard first. The entire crowd was shouting that the ball went in, and McHale kept gesturing that it was a good basket.

I called goaltending, ruling the basket as good. It wasn’t a difficult decision, since it was favorable for the home team. The crowd cheered, including the fat guy baseline who clapped for me.

But I wasn’t happy at all; I felt I had made the wrong call. Ah Gan charged at me, and I reflexively backed away. He didn’t scream or throw punches; he just told me very seriously that the ball hadn’t hit the backboard first, and it was a clean block.

Ah Gan was a good man, a true gentleman. He never initiated physical aggression on opponents, and though he liked to verbally attack others, he was unlike Bird. He didn’t swear, not to vent, he just did it to press the opponents and make the competition fiercer.

I didn’t handle the fuse issue well; I became the fuse myself, making Ah Gan a bit uncontrollable. Tonight, he played as well as ever, leaving the Bostonians in despair.

But I couldn’t change the call. Then Hugh Evans called a technical foul on Ah Gan. I knew Evans was trying to protect me, keeping Ah Gan away from me, but the call undoubtedly made the situation worse.

Ah Gan was furious, like a lion. Just in the previous game, he had wrecked an NBA-grade basketball hoop, yanking the backboard right off.

At that moment, I had no doubt that Ah Gan had the capability to yank off my head and then stuff it, along with the whistle, into Evans’s behind.

Luckily this was the finals, and Ah Gan wanted to stay in the game. He contained himself, and Jack Ramsay subbed him out to rest.

The Celtics took advantage of the call to tie the score and then overtook the lead with a free throw. The Celtics then took control of the game, and their offense got into a groove.

Entering the fourth quarter, the Celtics’ lead grew to more than eight points. The fat guy baseline kept shouting at me, thanking me one moment, calling me incompetent the next.

I told the security, "Do me a favor; bring that guy to my locker room after the game, I have a lesson to teach him."

Of course, that was just for the sound effect. I wouldn’t do that anymore, like what I did with Dick Bavetta.

In the end, the Celtics won the game, evening up the series. After the game, the person who appeared at the door of the referees’ locker room wasn’t the fat guy but Ah Gan.

Hugh Evans was nervous, but I said it was fine. Ah Gan didn’t scream at me, he didn’t rage and didn’t get physical. He just asked me, "Do you think that was a goaltend? Tell me the truth, I won’t sue you in the League."

I honestly answered him, "I’m not sure, but I think there was no interference, the ball didn’t hit the backboard first."

Ah Gan nodded and said, "Be more careful with your calls next time, Earl."

He then left, without anger or frustration, because the series wasn’t over yet.]

————Published in 1990, "Calling the Shots," a memoir by Earl Strom and Brian Johnson, excerpt.