YouTube Gold: Larry Bird Gets The Best Sort Of Revenge Against Bill Laimbeer

Fans saw Bird’s famous steal against the Detroit Pistons, but few knew the backstory.

It’s amazing how many of the best NBA stories involve Larry Bird.

A lot of them are about Bird telling a defender exactly what he is about to do and then doing it, and a lot are about him getting bored and finding ways to challenge himself. On one occasion, he played the game left-handed to make it more interesting.

Those are funny stories but they aren't all funny, least of all the ones involving Bill Laimbeer.

Because Bird hated Bill Laimbeer, basically because he felt like Laimbeer tried to hurt people.

A lot of this video is about the back-and-forth between Laimbeer and the Celtics, including the time Robert Parish just laid Laimbeer out during a playoff game.

But the best part of this story is that that was the series where Bird famously stole the ball with the game on the line and hit Dennis Johnson for a layup as the clock nearly ran down.

He stole the inbounds pass from Isaiah Thomas that was intended for Laimbeer, which the narrator points out, was a sublime sort of revenge.