DETROIT — Magic Johnson and Larry Bird reunited Monday night to commemorate the 30th anniversary of their memorable matchup in the 1979 NCAA championship game.
Johnson's Michigan State team defeated Bird's Indiana State squad, 75-64, in Salt Lake City.
Bird played in the game but admitted, three decades later, he has still never watched a replay of it.
"Why?" Bird said at a Ford Field news conference before the national title game between North Carolina and Michigan State. "I don't like the memories of it."
Johnson leaned over to console Bird.
"I watch it enough for him and I," Johnson said with his trademark laugh.
Johnson added: "If he had won, trust me, I wouldn't have watched it either."
The game drew a TV rating of 24.1, still the highest for any college basketball or NBA game.
It was the start of one of the sport's great relationships. The two stars continued their battle into the NBA, with Johnson winning five NBA titles with the Lakers and Bird winning three with the Boston Celtics.
Johnson said Michael Jordan was the best player he ever saw in the air and Bird was the best player he saw on the ground.
Johnson then put his thumb and finger together to simulate Bird's vertical leap.
Johnson: "Larry couldn't jump so high."
Bird: "Not like you was flying in the air either."
The players mostly said how lucky they were to be involved in one of college basketball's most memorable games.
Johnson said: "There would be no Magic without Larry Bird."
Bird said: "I finally found someone who thought and played the game the way I thought it should be played."
Jordan's vision
Jordan, inducted into the basketball Hall of Fame on Monday, recalled playing in the 1982 NCAA title game and making the game-winning shot for North Carolina to beat Georgetown.
"Going over on the bus, I remember [thinking] I was going to have an impact on the game, at some point and in some fashion," Jordan said. "How that was going to translate I never knew. And lo and behold, I hit the game-winning shot. But that was the vision I saw prior to the game."
Jordan says he remembers that he wasn't nervous before the title game.
"I never knew what the national championship represented at the time," he said. "Because I was just new to the whole stage, so I didn't have time enough to be nervous. I was just happy to be in a college uniform, in Carolina. Now I'd probably be nervous as hell playing in a game like that."
