Summary
The Boston Celtics added center Robert Parish in a trade and drafted forward Kevin McHale out of Minnesota before the season opened. They teamed with Larry Bird and Cedric "Cornbread" Maxwell to give Boston a powerful frontcourt rotation with McHale as the team's sixth man. They also had future Hall of Famer Nate "Tiny" Archibald dishing out assists from the backcourt.
On the other coast, the defending champion Lakers lost Magic Johnson for 45 games with torn cartilage in his left knee. They still won nearly two-thirds of their games, but finished second to the Phoenix Suns in the Pacific Division.
Boston and Philadelphia, both in the Atlantic Division, tied for the NBA's best record at 62-20 and another Eastern Conference team, the Milwaukee Bucks of the Central Division, were next at 60-22.
The Eastern Conference playoffs went pretty as much as expected, with Boston and Philadelphia meeting in the finals. The 76ers took a 3-1 lead in the series, but the Celtics came back to win three straight hard-fought games by the grand total of 5 points.
The Western Conference, though, was topsy-turvy. Both first-place teams were eliminated in the semi-finals, Phoenix by Kansas City and San Antonio by Houston. Kansas City and Houston had finished tied for second place in the Midwest Division with records of 40-42, but the Rockets won the final series easily in five games and moved on to face the Celtics.
Houston was led by center Moses Malone, who finished second in NBA scoring and first in rebounding during the regular season. After the clubs split the first four games of the championship final, but Malone then made the mistake of saying he could take four players off the street of his hometown, Petersburg, Virginia, and beat the Celtics.
Boston responded with a 29-point blowout victory in the fifth game and then polished the Rockets off by 11 points at Houston to take the title.
