Danny Ainge TELLS a Larry Bird STORY

foreign e is a former professional basketball player he played for the Boston Celtics in 1981 to 1988 for eight seasons alongside Larry Bird Kevin McHale and Robert Parish Danny Ainge has a Larry Bird story to tell I was blessed to play with a lot of good players in my NBA career a lot a lot of very good players but yeah I think that playing with bird and Mikhail ML car was another one Cedric Maxwell I mean those guys had unbelievable confidence I always felt in my thought of myself as a very very confident player yeah but uh like they bird especially and and we had a whole nother level of confidence than I ever was able to accomplish and Achieve but he just gave you so much confidence like you could just you could depend on them you could just see like his confidence like everybody just like added to everybody else's confidence how was it when you first met him like what was that interaction like and getting it like getting to know him he was great I mean he was a worker we played a lot of one-on-one full court like half court full court basketball just you know in practice every day I got to know Larry really well but he was a great worker a great teammate um you know he told me like when I when he didn't think I was taking good a good shot I tell people all the time uh when they start complaining oh the coach doesn't believe in me or the my the star player on our team doesn't believe me go bro when I played with bird he he'd pass it he'd double teamed he'd throw me the ball but if I miss three he's not come I'm not coming back to me you gotta earn those shots you do you've got to earn the respect of your coach and your star players all the time you got to earn that respect get you know every game you gotta like be reliable and dependable and that was what I loved about bird everybody talk about how a bird his trash talking is legendary as his teammate like what was it like the first time you saw or or can you give a story him telling somebody I'm about to come off this screen because I wouldn't have Worthy on here and where are you like yo he said I'm about to do this that that then he come right off and do it well I mean Larry had it Larry was a quiet guy and he wasn't like a a loud and obnoxious personality um but he had a great sense of humor and he he was a character and most of the time his trash talking it seemed like it was for motivation it wasn't like he was just always trash talking to everybody it was just it was spotty but when he did it it was big right you know like I'm gonna you know is uh Xavier McDaniel story where you know I'm gonna shoot a fake here fake here shoot it there and you know they did exactly and it had nothing to do with the play call right like our coach had called time out and we're gonna do this and like we walk on the court and bird just looks at me and goes no give me the ball right there yeah and then he does but he told me Daniel he was gonna do uh I saw playoff games where you know we're trying to exploit a match at McHale's having an amazing game against Milwaukee I remember in Milwaukee and uh so we're running a post-up for him against Marcus Johnson and so I set a cross green for Mikhail comes in the post I come off a down screen and I look up I go he ain't passing the ball he's just holding the ball like looking at Michaela in the post like this and then boom just shoots three and makes it but you know he just had his he just really wanted to motivate himself but the most uncharacteristic one was he didn't usually trash talk to like magic Dr J you know guys like that he just you know he had so much respect for them but I remember the big fight between him and Dr J with Moses and was and we're holding him back and Dr J was swingers like so uncharacteristic of Dr J as you guys know Dr J I mean he's the nicest guy in the world but uh Larry had scored like 35 on him like halfway through the third quarter and was just jogging back down the court and said man you need to retire and it was just like Dr J lost his mind and like and that's where that story had started but my favorite trash talking by Larry and Kevin was a pretty good trash talker too but uh Larry was when they when they Trash Talk coaches like when they Trash Talk Hubie Brown and you know they're sitting there and playing in Madison Square Garden and he's just going like taking the ball out of bounds in front of the bench so the whole bench can hear him right he can go like he'll be this all you got for me tonight like you got no one else who can guard me this is getting ridiculous you know and and then Hubie would put in like Johnny Newman would be running in the game he goes wait are you serious that's the guy you're putting on me but it was it was those subtle things that he said that were just I mean they were so funny but we loved it but even the other bench you know even hube's team in New York is like laughing yeah at Birds trash talking [Music]

Channel: AllBasketballTV

Views: 261,262

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Id: SpcdfRHGsaM

Length: 5min 23sec (323 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 22 2023