Ben Affleck Told Bill Walton About The Time He And Matt Damon Drove To Indiana To Try And Go To Larry Bird’s House

On Monday evening, Bill Walton and Jason Benetti hosted the “Throw it Down with Bill Walton” alternate telecast of the headline-grabbing matchup between the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers. In addition to the appeal of a matchup between top-four teams in the Eastern Conference, Walton is always entertaining and, this time around, the host pairing was joined by noted Celtics fan Ben Affleck.

Affleck and Matt Damon are making the rounds to promote their upcoming Air movie about Michael Jordan’s courtship with Nike, and Affleck told an amusing tale of how the two friends once drove to French Lick, Indiana to check out Larry Bird’s house and try to meet Larry — who wasn’t home at the time.

Affleck acknowledged he and Damon had no plan whatsoever in just popping into French Lick. Then, he brought it back around to emphasize the level of fandom required to make the pseudo-pilgrimage.

“We went and rang the bell. Nobody answered,” Affleck said. “We took pictures out front. That’s what kind of Celtics fans we were. We probably watched that ‘Larry Legend’ VHS tape, narrated by Daniel Stern, 200 times.”

It seems logical that Affleck and Damon weren’t the only fans to show up at Bird’s house unannounced in the last few decades. Still, it is something different given that they became quite famous in their own right, and it would’ve been interesting to see what happened if Bird was home and welcomed the duo in.