October 17, 1983
The regular season is almost two weeks away, but it didn’t matter to the Philadelphia 76ers and the Boston Celtics in their preseason game Sunday night in Boston Garden. Things became so heated that three players, including Larry Bird, were ejected for fighting, and now the National Basketball Association is conducting an investigation.
An unlikely participant was Red Auerbach, who rushed onto the court after Bird and Marc lavaroni of the 76ers were ejected for fighting four minutes into the game. Auerbach got involved in a taunting match with 6-foot-10 Moses Malone of the 76ers. "Hit me, you big … " Auerbach, the Celtics’ president, said to Malone after taking off his glasses. “Go ahead. I’m not big, hit me.”
“If Moses had hit Red, Harold Katz (the 76ers’ owner) would be paying Red, not Moses,” said Boston’s M.L. Carr. “Moses’ money would be referred instead of deferred.”
Ejected along with Bird and lavaroni was Boston’s Gerald Henderson, who punched rookie Sedale Threatt in the third period. lavaroni said the fight occurred because “he (Bird) had been pushing me so I tried to pin down his arms. He said, ‘Don’t hold me’ and tried to pick me up by the shirt. I told him to get his hands off.”
The NBA’s director of security, Jack Joyce, will conduct the investigation. Game videotapes arrived yesterday at league headquarters, as did reports from the referees; next will come interviews with participants in the incident. The teams have a short cooling-off period: they will meet Wednesday in Chattanooga, Tennessee.