Rick Barry and Larry Bird after Celtics win the 1981 NBA Championship

Larry Bird’s basketball exploits had been well chronicled prior to leading the Boston Celtics to the NBA Finals in 1981. Two seasons into his professional career, Bird had already earned Rookie of the Year honors and All-Star status. But the mythical figure we now know as “Larry Legend” didn’t officially arrive until French Lick’s finest went for 27 and 13 in Game 6 to win his first ring.

Larry was 24 years old when his Celtics met Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets in the ’81 Finals. Bird opened the series with 18 points, 21 rebounds and nine assists in Game 1 but eventually found his team tied with the Rockets at 2-2. Boston would then win Game 5 by 29 before closing out the Houston 102-91 in Game 6 to secure the title.

As champagne sprayed throughout the Celtics locker room, Hall of Famer Rick Barry caught up with Larry Bird for the postgame interview on CBS.

LARRY BIRD POSTGAME INTERVIEW | CELTICS vs ROCKETS MAY 14, 1981

“We have a very jubilant Boston Celtics team as they come into the locker room,” Rick Barry declared just moments after the 1981 NBA title was decided.

“Now, the champions of the world. We’re going to talk to Larry Bird who just came on incredibly strong at the end.

“Larry, there was a lot of talk about the great defense done on you. Your shooting wasn’t going very well. But you really came back with a super performance.

“How do you feel about having come so close in college and now you’re in the pros and you got the big one?”

“This is a very big one for us,” Bird replied after winning his first of three NBA championships.

“We practiced awful hard this year. We stuck together. When the going got tough we came through. They came back on us, but we got it done.”

“Well they’re taking care of Larry here,” Barry said as Bird’s teammates began dousing him with champagne.

“He’s the man who did it. Larry what was going through your mind at the end there when your team was struggling and the Rockets made that gallant comeback and you just took over?”

“I knew if we just made a couple baskets and kept our poise we’d come through,” Bird replied. “Like always, guys just kept on playing hard. We got a couple baskets, and we got it.”

The pressure the Rockets applied on Bird defensively during the series held him to single-digit points in Games 3 and 4. But Larry would slam the door on Houston’s hopes for a title with a monster performance in Game 6. For the series, he averaged 15 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists while closing it out with a double-double.

During Game 1, Bird also offered a put-back finish that legendary Celtics coach Red Auerbach described as, “The greatest play I’ve ever seen.”

Larry Legend the MVP

Soon after his postgame interview with Rick Barry on CBS in the wake of the ’81 championship, Bird would go on one of the most elite three-year runs in NBA history. From 1984-86, Larry would be named NBA MVP every year while leading Boston to two more titles. He is the only player not named Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain to have ever been named NBA MVP for three years in a row since the award was first given out in 1956.

Bird was 27 years old when he added the first MVP chapter to his storied career. He’d finish just ahead of New York Knicks star Bernard King who totaled 11 first-place votes that season as compared to 52 for Larry on the MVP ballot. In 1985, he was nearly the unanimous MVP while earning 73 first-place votes as compared to only one for Los Angeles Lakers legend Magic Johnson who finished second.

The following season, Atlanta Hawks superstar Dominque Wilkins finished second in the MVP race with five first-place votes compared to 73 for the pride of Beantown.

Over that unprecedented 241-game stretch as the league’s reigning MVP, Larry helped further his legend by averaging 26.2 points, 10.1 rebounds and 6.7 assists. He’d also bookend the regular-season honors by being named Finals MVP during Boston’s championship runs in ’84 and ’86. It was arguably the most dominant individual effort over a three-year period by any NBA player ever. In every sense of the word, Larry Joe Bird was legendary.

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