Musings from Mandy

By Jackie MacMullan, Globe Columnist February 23, 2007 He was the guy who would miss 11 straight shots, then come down the court with everything on the line and drill the game-winner without blinking. That's how I will remember Dennis Johnson, the freckle-faced bulldog who joined the Celtics in 1983 and was a pivotal member of the 1984 and '86 championship teams. DJ's role was often diminished amid the long shadows of Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, and Robert Parish, yet he was the one Bird singled out as "the best teammate I've ever played with." Johnson collapsed and died yesterday in Austin, Texas, where he was the coach of the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League. He was 52 years old, too young to have his life cut so terribly short. "What a sad, sad day," said McHale. "I tell you, this one really hits you. I was just talking to a friend who had just talked with DJ, and he was telling me how excited DJ was about his team. I guess his guy...

Sad day in Boston sports… I know very little about the Celtics. I know a lot of the important things, 16 Championships, the retired numbers hanging from the rafters (most of them anyway), Bird, McHale, Parish, Auerbach, victory cigars, Lenny Bias, dead spots, and turning up the heat in the Garden and turning off the hot water in the visitors locker room. I loved Reggie Lewis and even tried to talk my dad into buying me a “35” jersey. That being said, I didn’t know a ton about Dennis Johnson, I knew he was a great player, World Champion, I even knew that he laid in Bird’s steal. When I did my nightly check of ESPN.com and saw, Dennis Johnson: dead at 52, I guess the highest form of flattery would be that when I told my mom, she was legitimately sad. (this is the same woman who asked me if Walter Payton was Peyton Manning’s father before the Super Bowl because she had heard that Peyton Manning’s father played football). The second form of flattery is that neither one of us wanted to be ...