“Winning Time”: Sean Patrick and Michael Chiklis Engage in Small Talk Including Humanity in the Villain Origin Story of Larry Bird

“Winning Time”: Sean Patrick and Michael Chiklis Engage in Small Talk Including Humanity in the Villain Origin Story of Larry Bird.

SPOILER ALERT: This article discusses the Episode 3 of HBO’s “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty” Season 2, now streaming on Max.

After being unceremoniously bounced in the first round of the 1981 NBA playoffs, the spirits of the Los Angeles Lakers sink even further in the cold open of this week’s “Winning Time.” Unable to defend the championship, the team can only seethe in their living rooms as they watch the dreaded Boston Celtics take home gold.

However, the humiliation doesn’t end there. Not only do the newly minted champions steal the championship from the Lakers, but they also almost take over the HBO show for an episode. A sequence of flashbacks breaks up the aftermath as the Los Angeles organization licks its wounds. They widen the frame to widescreen and transport viewers to Indiana in the 1970s, where they tell the tale of a young man named Larry Bird (Sean Patrick Small), who moved to Boston to become a Lakers assassin.

These digressions have a tone that is more subdued and focused than the glitz and seediness that had been “Winning Time’s” mainstay, which fits with Bird’s fearless personality.

Bird’s life is turned upside down by his father’s suicide, but an Indiana State University assistant coach sees his potential and begs him to play again: “Unless someone truly loves what they do, nobody can excel at it as much as you have. Why do you behave as though you don’t?

Speaking to Variety, Small states, “He’s pushing away that thing that he thought was the reason for the tragic loss of his dad.” “At that time, when he dropped out of Indiana University and returned home, he was constantly wondering, ‘Were I the reason my father committed suicide?'”