Name: Fan Request: Magic Johnson & Larry Bird | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-03-22T15:00:33.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Magic Johnson & Larry Bird | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Fan Request: Magic Johnson & Larry Bird | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-03-22. Transcript available.

Our first guests are NBA legends.
Their rivalry forever changed the game of basketball.
Their relationship is the focus of a new Broadway play entitled Magic Bird,
which opened earlier tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Larry Bird and Irvin Magic Johnson.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I saw the documentary the two of you did, and I guess it was produced by HBO.
I'm right about that.
I found it compelling. I found it moving.
I found so much humanity in the production,
and it stayed with me for quite some time.
Now, you guys lived those lives.
When you saw the documentary, did you have the same feelings,
or was it just, oh, yeah, that's us, that's what we did?
Yeah, they did a great job of capturing our feelings
and how we feel about one another,
but it was really all about the competition.
I mean, even today, if we could do something to compete
against one another, I'd still like to do that.
Yeah.
Magic, do you feel the same way?
Oh, I feel exactly the same way.
I wish we could compete against each other right now.
Well, you know what you could do is you could go out
and buy a baseball team now.
There you go.
I thought about buying the Cardinals,
but after finding out, I found out Urban paid over $2 billion
for the Dodgers.
I know the Cardinals are worth at least $500 billion.
That's a little bit much.
Yeah.
That's crazy stuff.
When you guys knew each other earlier,
you know, everybody knows about the NCAA championship game, 1979.
Do I have that date right?
But you guys actually played as in some sort of,
was it an amateur summer tournament or like that?
Where was that?
When was that?
Well, it was in Kentucky,
and that's the first time probably in both our lives
that we actually sat on the bench,
and I don't think neither one of us liked that at all,
but because we were on the bench, David,
and we got a chance to play against the starters every day
and at nighttime at practice,
and Larry and I were so upset we took it out on the starters.
So we beat them every single day, right?
But Larry was a special cat because it proved to me
this man could really play basketball.
I had heard about him,
but I never saw him play live and in person,
and he was incredible.
I mean, he dominated, and that's what it's all about.
So I went back home telling everybody,
oh, this Larry Bird guy is for real.
Right.
But you guys were kids then.
I mean, you're a little older than Magic,
but you were what, 17, 18, 19 in that range right in there
when that happened?
I think I was 19.
Yeah.
19 or 20.
You were probably 18 or 15.
Yeah, yeah.
And you were, from the beginning,
and correct me if I get any of this wrong
because it's your life and, well, you guys ought to know.
Magic, were you inclined early on to become friends with this guy
because you were drawn to him because of his basketball abilities?
Did you want to be friends with him from the beginning?
From the beginning, I wanted to be friends,
but Larry didn't want none of that.
And so I said, okay, if that's how it's going to be,
then we have to be like that.
That's right.
So I started disliking him too.
But, you know, he told me that, you know,
I smiled all the time and he knew that I would smile at you,
but I want to cut your heart out at the same time.
So he knew that that was part of my strategy
is to get him, lure him in as my friend.
So he didn't want to demonstrate any weakness
by becoming your friend.
Now, did you feel what his advances to being a friend
and you just rejected them?
You were not interested?
You didn't like him?
I mean, what was your side of that?
It's not like one of them old girlfriends, you know what I mean?
When you say advances, I get a little scared.
But, you know, my thing was when you compete,
you're really not friends.
You want to keep an edge.
And I was like that through high school and through college.
But Irving is an outgoing guy.
He loves everybody.
He wants to high-five and, you know,
he got that big smile.
My goal was to try to take three of them teeth home with me.
Two different perspectives.
That's interesting because Indiana, Michigan,
the same generation of basketball,
similar players, identical players,
similar ideology about playing?
Anything to do with the Midwest or the times
that you guys came from?
I think it's the Midwest.
And I think when you think about Indiana high school basketball,
I mean, everybody says it's the best.
You think about Michigan, we're right there with Indiana.
And so how we were taught to play the game, both Larry and I,
and then the way we wanted to play the game as individuals.
And so we're mirrors of each other.
I may smile a little bit more,
but the way we played the game of basketball was exactly the same
because we would do anything to win.
We didn't care about scoring points.
We cared about winning the game and making our teammates better.
And that's why I think that, you know...
Oh, thank you.
We were able to change not only basketball,
but we were able to change the NBA too.
And so that was great for both of us.
I want to talk about that in a little bit.
So now you guys meet the first time in this summer league tournament,
whatever it was.
The next time is for the NCAA championship.
Is that right?
What did that...
And it was like a 10-point loss.
Am I right, Larry?
Well, it was 10-point...
Thank you, Dave.
Yeah.
It felt more like a 20-point loss.
But, you know, when you're out there playing
and you get started in these games,
sometimes you go, uh-oh, these guys are pretty good.
Right.
And I had that feeling at halftime
that these guys were too much for us.
Now, at the beginning of the game,
did you meet Irvin there?
Why?
Do you remember trying to talk to Larry before the game?
Nope.
Yeah.
You had learned your lesson.
I learned my lesson.
And, uh, at that time,
he was going after something I wanted bad
and I was going after something he wanted bad.
So we didn't want to talk.
We wanted to get it on and see who was the best.
And in terms of basketball, in terms of your career,
in terms of your life and championships,
what did losing that championship mean to you
and how did it affect you?
Yeah, that's the toughest one I've ever taken
because, you know, you had all your friends.
You're out of college.
It's really when you step away from home.
I felt, um, in the end of the state,
they accepted me, brought me in.
It was tough, and it's still tough, but, uh...
Still tough today.
Yes.
And how about you, Magic?
What did winning that title mean for you?
Well, you know, you just heard him.
It's still tough for him.
That's cool.
Then you go to Los Angeles.
You go to Boston relatively in the same time frame
and your career's in the NBA takeoff
and the rivalry is cemented or begun anew.
And then there's somebody says,
we're going to sell shoes.
We've got a Larry Bird shoe and we've got a Magic Johnson shoe.
Let's get these guys together and we'll shoot a thing.
And you did want to do it, didn't want to do it.
Well, I wanted to do it
because we won the championship that year
and we beat Magic, so...
So, yeah.
I was up for anything else.
Feeling pretty good.
All right.
Pretty good.
Yep.
And then Magic, how did you...
I did not want to go to Indiana.
They won the championship.
I'm going to his home, too.
And I protested.
I didn't want to go.
Yeah.
But the story is that you were reluctant to do it
and you said, okay, if you can get Magic...
That's called negotiating, Dave.
Yeah.
Well, you prevailed because you said,
if you can get him here,
we'll do it in my backyard on my...
Literally, your home court.
And that's what happened.
Now, and he shows up.
What was you...
When you saw him, were you leery?
Were you worried about...
He's coming into my house, into my yard?
Well, I had my brothers there
and I was going to fight him.
Going to fight him?
And if I couldn't whip him,
surely one of them could.
Yeah.
No, I felt...
You know, my mom was pretty good about it.
She was all excited.
My brothers were excited.
They loved Magic.
We were all...
The town was excited about having to come in our hometown.
And, you know, coming from a small town,
it's pretty big news.
French Lick.
French Lick.
And...
They must be from the town over.
But he came in and we shot this commercial,
had my mom fix lunch,
and it was neat.
It was pretty neat.
But that, according to the documentary,
that was the beginning of a friendship.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, it's accurate.
We really didn't say too much once I arrived.
We actually had never really interacted with each other.
So we got to the basketball court.
We shot the first half of the commercial.
Then it was lunch break.
And so I'm going to my trailer,
thinking I'm going to eat alone and he's going to go.
He said, no, Urban, come on up.
My mom fixed lunch at the house.
So I was like, uh-oh.
All right.
So, but I said, okay, cool.
So we rolled up.
And Larry has this beautiful...
His house is beautiful.
Great acres and everything.
I mean, green grass.
It was unbelievable.
So we go up to the house,
and his mom just greeted me at the door.
They were with a big hug.
And that sort of just calmed me down.
I said, wow.
I'm getting a mom bird hug
like my mother would hug me, you know?
And so then she told me
I was, like, her favorite player.
And I said, okay.
It gets worse and worse.
So now I'm really sitting in the seat now.
I'm waiting for lunch now
because I feel good.
But at the end of the day,
what happened was
we found out we were much alike.
Midwest boys grew up poor,
hardworking families,
had the same values.
And I got to know Larry, the man,
and he got to know Irvin, the man.
Now, did things change for you
that day as well?
Yeah.
You know, I've always respected
my opponents and him greatly
because of the fact that he was so good.
You know, everybody said
there's a hate element to it.
And there never was a hate.
It's just that I had so much respect.
It's competition at its finest point, isn't it?
Yeah, and you never let your guard down.
And, you know, he was so good.
And I was trying to...
You know, I used to have this thing in my head.
In the summer, I go shoot 700 jump shots that day
and I get ready to leave and I go,
God, I know he's shooting 800.
And it dropped me back out there.
So it was mind games, too.
But I always respected him and his teammates.
And we had great teams.
And it's just unfortunate
that we got cheated
in a lot of them games in the playoffs.
Cheated.
Cheated.
Cheated.
I think we were talking about that episode
where you guys did the commercial
and you had lunch and so forth.
I think I remember from the documentary
that said that you really liked Irvin.
You were less fond of magic.
Is that correct?
And what does that mean?
Well, Irvin, the man, is one thing.
But Irvin, the basketball player,
I had a little problem with him.
It ended, of course, 20 years ago.
But therefore, God, what?
Well, I can't really say what I think.
But...
Now, when you hear that about you,
that he liked Irvin, didn't like magic,
how do you interpret that?
How do you feel about that?
You know what he's talking about.
It made me feel good.
David, hey, I was a thorn in his side.
Right.
You know, I'm supposed to be.
I'm supposed to go out there to kick his butt.
That's what my job was.
And his job was to kick mine, you know?
And so I didn't want Larry to like me.
He didn't have to like me.
But, you know, we both respected each other.
I knew Larry could beat me.
If I made mistakes,
if we didn't play our best game,
Larry made me have sleepless nights, right?
No, he did.
He did.
He had me...
Because I was scared to death
that I knew he could beat me.
And so that's what a great player does to you
that you have to go up against.
And not only was he great,
the Celtics were great.
So, and I was the same way,
hopefully, you know,
in his mind when he went to sleep,
thinking about me.
Because I was thinking about him
when I went to sleep.
That was for sure.
It's, let's forget everything else.
Forget the statistics,
forget the friendship,
how it evolved, the teams.
Do you now, in your heart,
believe you're the better player?
Actually, I've always said that
I go by success.
And he's won more championships,
so I'll give him the nod.
Oh.
Being very gentlemanly.
Now, Magic,
same question to you.
Is Larry the better player?
I've always said that Larry was the better player.
Really?
Because he could do more,
shoot from the outside,
all those type of things.
You know,
to us,
really,
at the end of the day,
it really doesn't matter.
Yeah.
Because
what matters to me
is that
I played against the best.
I got to know
the man,
Larry Bird.
And that we got
this friendship right now.
That's all that matters
because the fans
are going to say,
hey, Larry Bird was my man.
Just like I run into
a lot of Celtic fans.
You know,
I just,
I hate you.
I get that all the time.
I get that all the time.
And so,
but they say,
I hated the Lakers,
but why do we love Magic?
Yeah.
You know?
And so,
but what matters
is that we're friends now.
We can do so many things together.
I still will hate them now.
If we play checkers
or basketball right now,
then both of us
are changing to
those players
that we used to be
because we still
want to beat each other.
You think you were
the better player.
Seriously,
don't you?
He was the better forward
and I was the better guard.
There you go.
That's the perfect way
I'm handling it.
Tell us,
there's a,
this documentary is,
I think,
the best sports documentary
I've ever seen.
And it's not because
of anything other than
you two gentlemen
and who you are,
the kind of men
you guys are.
And one of the points
that is very,
well,
when you have
your press conference
and announce
that you have HIV,
the infection,
your reaction
and your reaction,
what,
tell us about
your feelings.
Well,
my feeling was
the first time,
you know,
I told Lon,
my agent,
I said,
we got to call Larry.
And I said,
I want to tell him myself.
And so,
I want to talk to him.
Well,
actually,
we couldn't get a hold of him.
Then Lon told him,
and then Larry wanted
to talk to me.
And so,
we were able to talk.
And the best feeling,
David,
is when a friend
supports you.
And this young man
came and supported me.
That's what it's all about.
Forget the sports,
forget the championships,
the MVP.
He came to my side
and supported me.
And I'll never forget that.
And that's the type of man
Larry Bird is.
It's not.
Gladly,
it's not the way
it was in those days.
In those days,
if you heard anything
having to do with this,
it seemed like
an immediate death sentence.
Exactly.
And gladly,
like I say,
medical treatment
has progressed
where it's not that at all.
But that must have been
what you were thinking.
Yeah,
we always heard
nine years.
Right.
But I remember the day
we had a game that night.
I always took a nap
in the afternoon.
My wife woke me up
and said,
hey,
Lon Rosen called.
You need to call Magic.
So when I heard that,
I couldn't believe it.
I mean,
I can remember back
when my father died
and my heart just sort of,
you know,
he fluttered a little bit.
When I heard about Magic,
it's just like,
I had no energy.
I didn't want to,
it's the first time
I can ever remember
not wanting to play basketball.
And it had a pit in my stomach
for days after,
even after I talked to him
because in my mind,
nine or ten years,
he's going to be gone.
And,
you know,
we had the Olympics,
you know,
down the road.
We had things
we wanted to accomplish,
but it's,
man,
here he is.
Yeah,
happily,
things didn't work out
the way we feared.
Now,
I mentioned we talk about it
in the introduction,
change the NBA,
change professional basketball.
give us a couple of ideas
how the game has changed
because of you guys' career.
Well,
I think that,
you know,
the games were taped delayed
when Larry and I came
into championships.
And I remember
when we beat the 76ers
when I was a rookie,
the games came on
at 11.30 at night.
And so,
to put now
the championships
in prime time,
the salaries
that people make,
I mean,
we affected a lot
of the change
that is happening.
and then Michael Jordan
came in right after us
and took it
to another level
as well.
Do you guys see
kids playing
in the league now?
They say,
oh,
geez,
this is the way
I would have approached it?
Or is that,
the game has changed
so much
that your style of play
doesn't exist
or can't exist?
Oh,
it can exist.
I mean,
there's not many
six,
nine point guards
out there.
Yeah.
but I think
what I see
is there's a lot
of kids
coming to our league
and take it for granted
but there's also
a lot of kids
coming to our league
that want to get
better every day
and they do
the work necessary
to do better
and better
and they care
about their communities
and they care
about their team.
I see a lot of that.
When I first
came to the league,
I didn't see
hardly any of that.
I think what me
and Irvin did
when we came in,
people started
watching basketball again
and David Stern
which was our commissioner
at the time
first year came in
and just took us
to another level.
Then you've got to remember
Jordan Barkley,
Patrick Ewing,
Carl Malone,
John Stocken,
all of us sort of came in.
They came in a couple
years after us
and the league got good
right away
so we were just happy.
We didn't know
any of that was going on.
We just wanted to play
and compete
but in 84 it changed.
But also we made
passion,
passing fashionable
again in the NBA.
Well, I think
from a fan's standpoint
from a guy from Indiana
who grew up loving
and watching
high school college basketball
and trying to play
and so forth,
the great legacy
that the two of you leave
is a demonstration
of how to be a guy.
You know,
just how to be guys.
You know,
and that's invaluable.
I know what you're thinking
at home.
You're thinking to yourself,
geez,
just like Dave and Leno.
Well,
I wish you could come back
tomorrow and the next night
and the next night
but I know you guys
got to get to the theater
to rehearse your big number.
It's Magic Bird
at the Longacre Theater.
God,
what a pleasure
to meet you
and to see you again,
Magic.
Thank you.
Good luck with your Dodgers.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
We'll be right back
with Jim Gaffigan,
everybody.

Fan Request: Magic Johnson & Larry Bird | Letterman

Our first guests are NBA legends.
Their rivalry forever changed the game of basketball.
Their relationship is the focus of a new Broadway play entitled Magic Bird,
which opened earlier tonight.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Larry Bird and Irvin Magic Johnson.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I saw the documentary the two of you did, and I guess it was produced by HBO.
I'm right about that.
I found it compelling. I found it moving.
I found so much humanity in the production,
and it stayed with me for quite some time.
Now, you guys lived those lives.
When you saw the documentary, did you have the same feelings,
or was it just, oh, yeah, that's us, that's what we did?
Yeah, they did a great job of capturing our feelings
and how we feel about one another,
but it was really all about the competition.
I mean, even today, if we could do something to compete
against one another, I'd still like to do that.
Yeah.
Magic, do you feel the same way?
Oh, I feel exactly the same way.
I wish we could compete against each other right now.
Well, you know what you could do is you could go out
and buy a baseball team now.
There you go.
I thought about buying the Cardinals,
but after finding out, I found out Urban paid over $2 billion
for the Dodgers.
I know the Cardinals are worth at least $500 billion.
That's a little bit much.
Yeah.
That's crazy stuff.
When you guys knew each other earlier,
you know, everybody knows about the NCAA championship game, 1979.
Do I have that date right?
But you guys actually played as in some sort of,
was it an amateur summer tournament or like that?
Where was that?
When was that?
Well, it was in Kentucky,
and that's the first time probably in both our lives
that we actually sat on the bench,
and I don't think neither one of us liked that at all,
but because we were on the bench, David,
and we got a chance to play against the starters every day
and at nighttime at practice,
and Larry and I were so upset we took it out on the starters.
So we beat them every single day, right?
But Larry was a special cat because it proved to me
this man could really play basketball.
I had heard about him,
but I never saw him play live and in person,
and he was incredible.
I mean, he dominated, and that's what it's all about.
So I went back home telling everybody,
oh, this Larry Bird guy is for real.
Right.
But you guys were kids then.
I mean, you're a little older than Magic,
but you were what, 17, 18, 19 in that range right in there
when that happened?
I think I was 19.
Yeah.
19 or 20.
You were probably 18 or 15.
Yeah, yeah.
And you were, from the beginning,
and correct me if I get any of this wrong
because it's your life and, well, you guys ought to know.
Magic, were you inclined early on to become friends with this guy
because you were drawn to him because of his basketball abilities?
Did you want to be friends with him from the beginning?
From the beginning, I wanted to be friends,
but Larry didn't want none of that.
And so I said, okay, if that's how it's going to be,
then we have to be like that.
That's right.
So I started disliking him too.
But, you know, he told me that, you know,
I smiled all the time and he knew that I would smile at you,
but I want to cut your heart out at the same time.
So he knew that that was part of my strategy
is to get him, lure him in as my friend.
So he didn't want to demonstrate any weakness
by becoming your friend.
Now, did you feel what his advances to being a friend
and you just rejected them?
You were not interested?
You didn't like him?
I mean, what was your side of that?
It's not like one of them old girlfriends, you know what I mean?
When you say advances, I get a little scared.
But, you know, my thing was when you compete,
you're really not friends.
You want to keep an edge.
And I was like that through high school and through college.
But Irving is an outgoing guy.
He loves everybody.
He wants to high-five and, you know,
he got that big smile.
My goal was to try to take three of them teeth home with me.
Two different perspectives.
That's interesting because Indiana, Michigan,
the same generation of basketball,
similar players, identical players,
similar ideology about playing?
Anything to do with the Midwest or the times
that you guys came from?
I think it's the Midwest.
And I think when you think about Indiana high school basketball,
I mean, everybody says it's the best.
You think about Michigan, we're right there with Indiana.
And so how we were taught to play the game, both Larry and I,
and then the way we wanted to play the game as individuals.
And so we're mirrors of each other.
I may smile a little bit more,
but the way we played the game of basketball was exactly the same
because we would do anything to win.
We didn't care about scoring points.
We cared about winning the game and making our teammates better.
And that's why I think that, you know...
Oh, thank you.
We were able to change not only basketball,
but we were able to change the NBA too.
And so that was great for both of us.
I want to talk about that in a little bit.
So now you guys meet the first time in this summer league tournament,
whatever it was.
The next time is for the NCAA championship.
Is that right?
What did that...
And it was like a 10-point loss.
Am I right, Larry?
Well, it was 10-point...
Thank you, Dave.
Yeah.
It felt more like a 20-point loss.
But, you know, when you're out there playing
and you get started in these games,
sometimes you go, uh-oh, these guys are pretty good.
Right.
And I had that feeling at halftime
that these guys were too much for us.
Now, at the beginning of the game,
did you meet Irvin there?
Why?
Do you remember trying to talk to Larry before the game?
Nope.
Yeah.
You had learned your lesson.
I learned my lesson.
And, uh, at that time,
he was going after something I wanted bad
and I was going after something he wanted bad.
So we didn't want to talk.
We wanted to get it on and see who was the best.
And in terms of basketball, in terms of your career,
in terms of your life and championships,
what did losing that championship mean to you
and how did it affect you?
Yeah, that's the toughest one I've ever taken
because, you know, you had all your friends.
You're out of college.
It's really when you step away from home.
I felt, um, in the end of the state,
they accepted me, brought me in.
It was tough, and it's still tough, but, uh...
Still tough today.
Yes.
And how about you, Magic?
What did winning that title mean for you?
Well, you know, you just heard him.
It's still tough for him.
That's cool.
Then you go to Los Angeles.
You go to Boston relatively in the same time frame
and your career's in the NBA takeoff
and the rivalry is cemented or begun anew.
And then there's somebody says,
we're going to sell shoes.
We've got a Larry Bird shoe and we've got a Magic Johnson shoe.
Let's get these guys together and we'll shoot a thing.
And you did want to do it, didn't want to do it.
Well, I wanted to do it
because we won the championship that year
and we beat Magic, so...
So, yeah.
I was up for anything else.
Feeling pretty good.
All right.
Pretty good.
Yep.
And then Magic, how did you...
I did not want to go to Indiana.
They won the championship.
I'm going to his home, too.
And I protested.
I didn't want to go.
Yeah.
But the story is that you were reluctant to do it
and you said, okay, if you can get Magic...
That's called negotiating, Dave.
Yeah.
Well, you prevailed because you said,
if you can get him here,
we'll do it in my backyard on my...
Literally, your home court.
And that's what happened.
Now, and he shows up.
What was you...
When you saw him, were you leery?
Were you worried about...
He's coming into my house, into my yard?
Well, I had my brothers there
and I was going to fight him.
Going to fight him?
And if I couldn't whip him,
surely one of them could.
Yeah.
No, I felt...
You know, my mom was pretty good about it.
She was all excited.
My brothers were excited.
They loved Magic.
We were all...
The town was excited about having to come in our hometown.
And, you know, coming from a small town,
it's pretty big news.
French Lick.
French Lick.
And...
They must be from the town over.
But he came in and we shot this commercial,
had my mom fix lunch,
and it was neat.
It was pretty neat.
But that, according to the documentary,
that was the beginning of a friendship.
Is that accurate?
Yeah, it's accurate.
We really didn't say too much once I arrived.
We actually had never really interacted with each other.
So we got to the basketball court.
We shot the first half of the commercial.
Then it was lunch break.
And so I'm going to my trailer,
thinking I'm going to eat alone and he's going to go.
He said, no, Urban, come on up.
My mom fixed lunch at the house.
So I was like, uh-oh.
All right.
So, but I said, okay, cool.
So we rolled up.
And Larry has this beautiful...
His house is beautiful.
Great acres and everything.
I mean, green grass.
It was unbelievable.
So we go up to the house,
and his mom just greeted me at the door.
They were with a big hug.
And that sort of just calmed me down.
I said, wow.
I'm getting a mom bird hug
like my mother would hug me, you know?
And so then she told me
I was, like, her favorite player.
And I said, okay.
It gets worse and worse.
So now I'm really sitting in the seat now.
I'm waiting for lunch now
because I feel good.
But at the end of the day,
what happened was
we found out we were much alike.
Midwest boys grew up poor,
hardworking families,
had the same values.
And I got to know Larry, the man,
and he got to know Irvin, the man.
Now, did things change for you
that day as well?
Yeah.
You know, I've always respected
my opponents and him greatly
because of the fact that he was so good.
You know, everybody said
there's a hate element to it.
And there never was a hate.
It's just that I had so much respect.
It's competition at its finest point, isn't it?
Yeah, and you never let your guard down.
And, you know, he was so good.
And I was trying to...
You know, I used to have this thing in my head.
In the summer, I go shoot 700 jump shots that day
and I get ready to leave and I go,
God, I know he's shooting 800.
And it dropped me back out there.
So it was mind games, too.
But I always respected him and his teammates.
And we had great teams.
And it's just unfortunate
that we got cheated
in a lot of them games in the playoffs.
Cheated.
Cheated.
Cheated.
I think we were talking about that episode
where you guys did the commercial
and you had lunch and so forth.
I think I remember from the documentary
that said that you really liked Irvin.
You were less fond of magic.
Is that correct?
And what does that mean?
Well, Irvin, the man, is one thing.
But Irvin, the basketball player,
I had a little problem with him.
It ended, of course, 20 years ago.
But therefore, God, what?
Well, I can't really say what I think.
But...
Now, when you hear that about you,
that he liked Irvin, didn't like magic,
how do you interpret that?
How do you feel about that?
You know what he's talking about.
It made me feel good.
David, hey, I was a thorn in his side.
Right.
You know, I'm supposed to be.
I'm supposed to go out there to kick his butt.
That's what my job was.
And his job was to kick mine, you know?
And so I didn't want Larry to like me.
He didn't have to like me.
But, you know, we both respected each other.
I knew Larry could beat me.
If I made mistakes,
if we didn't play our best game,
Larry made me have sleepless nights, right?
No, he did.
He did.
He had me...
Because I was scared to death
that I knew he could beat me.
And so that's what a great player does to you
that you have to go up against.
And not only was he great,
the Celtics were great.
So, and I was the same way,
hopefully, you know,
in his mind when he went to sleep,
thinking about me.
Because I was thinking about him
when I went to sleep.
That was for sure.
It's, let's forget everything else.
Forget the statistics,
forget the friendship,
how it evolved, the teams.
Do you 