The Movie at Nine

“The Movie at Nine, more than the usual basketball epic, was a story of transcendent courage on the part of the gallant but doomed LA Lakers, as they struggled under hellish and subhuman conditions at Boston Garden against an unscrupulous foe, hostile referees, and fans whose behavior might have shamed their mothers had their mothers not been right there, screaming epithets, ruining Laker free throws, sloshing beer on their children in moments of high emotion, already. To be fair, the producers had tried their best to make the Celtics look good. Besides Sidney Poitier as KC Jones, there was Paul McCartney, in his first acting role, as Kevin McHale, with Sean Penn as Larry Bird. On the Laker side were Lou Gossett Jr. as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Michael Douglas as Pat Riley and Jack Nicholson as himself.”

— From Vineland by Thomas Pynchon