Celtics Get Perfect Relief Off Bench From Wedman

BOSTON —  When Danny Ainge made his last six shots of the first quarter, including an off-balance jumper from 20 feet at the buzzer, the Boston Massacre was on.

Then, his Celtic teammate, Scott Wedman, came off the bench to hit four shots, including three three-pointers. That was in the second quarter.

Before the game was over, Wedman had hit 11 of 11 shots, 4 of 4 from three-point range, to establish an NBA championship series record with a 1.000 shooting percentage.

Forget the cliche. There is one record that’s not made to be broken.

Another one that may not be broken for a while was the Celtics’ .608 shooting percentage as a team, although that was down from their .623 in the first half.

Obviously, it was the day of the shooting stars.

Greg Kite sank a skyhook.

Carlos Clark hit a spinning 10-foot bank shot.

Quinn Buckner made a 20-footer.

When M.L. Carr came from the end of the bench to hit a three-pointer, the Celtics’ seventh in nine attempts, it was the Lakers who were waving the towel.

“When you see Greg Kite hitting left-handed hooks, forget it,” Magic Johnson said. “When Carlos what’s-his-name makes shots, you know that you can’t win.

“I was very surprised that they shot so well. We’ve done the same thing to a lot of teams. We know what it feels like now to be on the other end.”

Laker Coach Pat Riley said: “I’ve never seen a team, except ours at times, shoot like that.”

This, of course, is how his team was supposed to beat the Celtics, by forcing them to take so many outside shots.

The Celtics, of course, weren’t supposed to make so many of them.

After all, this is a team that was shooting .487 from the field in the playoffs. This was a team that shot over .500 only once in five games of the Eastern Conference championship series against Philadelphia.

Even Larry Bird said most of the Celtics’ offensive problems this season, on those rare occasions when there were any, were caused by the guards shooting when they shouldn’t.

Some nights he would return to his locker after a loss and mutter that the guards must be crazy.

But, he pointed out, there also were days when the guards should shoot, and this obviously was one of them.

“I was worried about Danny because I didn’t know how he’d react today,” Bird said. “He’s like me, a streak shooter. But when he’s on, we’ve got to get him the ball.”

Ainge, who is 6-5, gave notice that he was going to have to be reckoned with early, when he split the lane for a fast-break basket over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is 7-2.

The next time Ainge had the ball, he made a 17-footer from the right side, then followed that with a 19-footer from the baseline. His three-point shot with 37 seconds remaining gave the Celtics a 12-point lead, which they extended to 14 on his last-second shot from 20 feet.

“When Ainge scores 15 points in the first quarter, it makes you wonder if he’s ever going to miss,” Laker guard Byron Scott said.

Scott later was the victim of another direct hit by Ainge, who threw the ball at the Laker guard in the third quarter, claiming he had been elbowed by Scott.

When Riley addressed Boston reporters afterward, he said: “I don’t hear anyone crying for Gerald Henderson any more.”

Starting in the position Ainge now holds, Henderson played a crucial role in the Celtics’ triumph over the Lakers in last season’s championship series.

But Ainge played in the California summer leagues during the off-season, reported to training camp in excellent condition and convinced Celtic Coach K.C. Jones that Henderson was expendable. Henderson was traded to Seattle in a move that wasn’t universally hailed.

“We took some heat for that one,” Jones said. “During the season, Danny had his good times and his bad times. But he’s arrived in the playoffs.”

While Ainge, 26, finally is coming into his own, Wedman, 32, was believed to have already seen his best days.

An All-Star in 1976, he played in Kansas City for seven years and Cleveland for a year and a half before the Celtics got him last season to do what he did Monday, come off the bench and score from the small forward and big guard positions.

The problem was that not even a long-range shooter such as Wedman could score from the bench.

It wasn’t until Cedric Maxwell went down with a knee injury in February, and Larry Bird began suffering from floating bone chips in his elbow a month later that Jones began working Wedman into the rotation.

In the playoff game that Bird missed against Cleveland, Wedman hit his last nine shots and scored 30 points.

“Here’s a guy who was an All-Star, who was making big dough, who came in here and was playing five minutes a game,” Jones said.

“He could have asked to be traded or started complaining and missing practices, but he never caused a problem. He’s always standing by, waiting for his chance.”

Wedman said he had to make an attitude adjustment.

“You have to decide whether it’s important to play a lot of minutes or whether it’s important to play for a team that has a chance to win championships,” he said. “I decided it’s more important to win championships. At this point in my career, there’s nowhere I’d rather be than here.”

Standing next to Wedman’s locker, Maxwell told reporters: “If I were Scotty, I’d put a cast on my arm and not even lift it tonight to eat dinner. He’s dangerous, armed to kill.”

But Wedman acted as if he hadn’t done anything special.

“It’s pretty simple really,” he said. “You just keep trying to get open. If you make your shots, you get confidence and you keep shooting. If you miss your shots, you lose confidence and you don’t shoot any more.”

The Celtics like to keep it simple.

Asked if he were surprised by the shooting of Ainge and Wedman, Bird said, “They get paid. That’s their job.”