On this day in history: Nov. 15, 1988, marks the day that injuries finally forced Larry Bird out of the game and brought an end to the third Celtic dynasty. The Bird-led team had made it to the East Finals every year save one, in 1980–88, and would never play again. Double Achilles surgery early in the 1988–89 season meant certain disaster.
In the fall of 1988, the aging but proud Boston Celtics were still at the top of the NBA pecking order, however precariously, after nearly a decade of dominance.
Since Larry Bird entered the struggling league in 1979 and resuscitated a flagging franchise, Boston had posted the best composite record in the league and won three NBA titles, despite playing two-thirds of its games in the rugged Eastern Conference – and having key injuries cost them at least two more crowns, and probably more.
But just six contests into the 1988-89 NBA season, the fortunes of the franchise and in turn the league took a dramatic downturn.
Already the Celtics, seemingly on the verge of another run of championships after a transcendent 67-15 title season in 1985-86, had been shaken by the death of top draft pick Len Bias that summer, as well as the injury-forced retirements of top reserves Bill Walton and Scott Wedman.
Many basketball observers consider that the best team in league annals, and adding sure-fire star Bias to the roster would have allowed its stars more rest instead of playing too much and getting injuries which curtailed careers.
Without Bias and their top two reserves, an aging and battered Boston squad still had managed to soldier on, remaining title contenders, a feared team built on great skill and halfcourt execution, high basketball IQ, competitive grit and guile.
The signs were there that the third Celtic dynasty was starting to crumble, however. Kevin McHale had missed the first 21 games of the 1987-88 campaign due to foot surgery after the grueling and heroic run of the short-handed Celtics to the 1987 Finals.