McHale was heroically playing with a broken navicular bone in his foot. An injury the doctor and Larry advised him against playing.
He also had a sprained ankle on his other foot and had battled through flu earlier in the post-season, causing him to lose weight.
McHale would go on to have foot surgery after the 1987 playoffs and missed the first 21 games of the 1987-88 season. He still limps to this day because of playing through that injury.
The 1985-86 Sixth Man of the Year, Bill Walton, played just ten games in the 1986-87 season due to many injuries to his foot and hand. He played precisely one scoreless minute in the entire Pistons series. One.
Seventh-man/swingman sharpshooter Scott Wedman missed the playoffs with an injured heel that caused his retirement the following season.
Starting guard Danny Ainge completely missed the first three games of the Detroit series with a sprained knee suffered in the Game 7 win over Milwaukee in the semifinals.
Valuable third guard Jerry Sichting was plagued by a mysterious stomach ailment much of the season and playoffs. Underrated fourth guard Rick Carlisle, a heady passer and shooter, was also on the disabled list.
Larry Bird was en route to grinding through the most playoff minutes in NBA history that post-season. Instead, he gutted 1,015 minutes out in 23 pressure-packed games for the defending champion Celtics, staring down about every challenge imaginable on and off the court.
Larry was also dealing with back troubles, double Achilles issues, and a 17-pound late-season weight loss down the stretch as he lived on a 7-Up and popcorn diet to get quicker.
Boston’s starting lineup at the time-averaged 31 years of age, with only Ainge under 30. Plus, the Celtics had gone deep into the playoffs eight years in a row (making the Finals five times and the conference finals seven), severely shortening their off-season recovery time and increasing their workload each year.
Detroit’s starting lineup was 27, with Dantley the elder statesman at 31, and two of their top three reserves were rookies.
In addition, the older Celtics were playing their 14th grinding game in 26 days against two formidable straight foes (Milwaukee and Detroit) amid a boiling spring.
The much younger and healthy Pistons had swept Washington 3-0 in the first round, then took out Atlanta 4-1 in the second round. Despite Boston being the top seed, Detroit was much better rested than the elder, banged-up Celtics.
Boston won the first two games, but the Pistons dominated the Celtics in Detroit, winning Game 3 122-104 and then crushing the Celtics 145-119 in Game 4.
In Game 3, the Pistons lived up to their “Bad Boys” reputation when Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman clothes-lined Larry Bird in flight, provoking a fight that would get both Laimbeer and Bird ejected.
In Game 5, Robert Parish had enough and clobbered Laimbeer, knocking him to the ground.
Amazingly, he was not ejected and finished the game with 11 points and eight rebounds, but he was suspended for Game 6 in Detroit.
With the series tied at two games apiece, the Pistons held a one-point lead and had the ball with five seconds left. It seemed Detroit would take a 3-2 series lead and head back home to close things out.
Nobody in the Boston Garden thought the Celtics had a prayer in the waning seconds of Game 5.
The Pistons held a 107-106 lead and looked to seal the deal after gaining possession after the ball went out of bounds off Jerry Sichting on the sideline with five seconds to go.
Instead of looking at his bench, where head coach Chuck Daly wanted a timeout, Pistons guard Isiah Thomas hurried to get the ball in bounds.
Thomas’ teammate Rick Mahorn said he was the one who usually inbounded the ball and had no idea what Thomas was doing.
“I’m looking at the bench,” Mahorn said, “and I’m looking at Chuck Daly, and Daly’s calling timeout. Isiah ran. I usually take it out, but he ran and had a brain fart.
So he threw it in, and I was like, hell no. Why are you taking the ball out? That’s my job.”
Thomas attempted to lob the ball to center Bill Laimbeer, but Bird raced in and intercepted the pass. His momentum nearly carried him out of bounds near the baseline.
Instead, Larry quickly turned and flipped a pass to a cutting Dennis Johnson, who laid it in for the game-winning basket in Boston’s improbable 108-107 victory.
Boston would win the series in seven at home and earn a rematch with the Los Angeles Lakers for the 1987 NBA Finals.
