By: Michael D. McClellan | He is born to run, and for 16 seasons John Havlicek is an unyielding force of perpetual motion for the Boston Celtics, breaking down defenders and NBA records alike, winning eight NBA championships, first as Sixth Man extraordinaire, and then as an All-Star standout in the waning years of the Russell Dynasty, and finally as an All-NBA First Team selection, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, and key protagonist in the NBA’s Greatest Game Ever Played. Havlicek, or “Hondo” to legions of adoring fans, will be forever immortalized by the most famous radio call in basketball history, but the most lasting image is that of an indefatigable small forward who, years before Boston Marathoner Bill Rodgers conjures legions of road racers, unbidden, out of the invisible fabric of the universe, runs an aging Oscar Robertson ragged on the way to the 1974 NBA Championship.
Havlicek’s story begins in Martins Ferry, Ohio, a small town on the West Virginia border. The son of Czechoslovakian immigrants becomes a three-sport star at Bridgeport High School, earning All-State honors in football, baseball, and basketball. Havlicek receives dozens of basketball scholarship offers. He chooses Ohio State, where he plays for the legendary Fred Taylor and teams with collegiate stars Jerry Lucas and Larry Siegfried, as well as with future coaching legend Bobby Knight. Havlicek’s time in Columbus is a fairy tale, as the Buckeyes roll to a 78–6 record over a three-season span and win the 1960 national championship.
Featuring six players drafted by the NBA, two future Hall of Famers in Lucas and Havlicek, and Knight, who goes on to become the winningest basketball coach in NCAA history, the Buckeyes lead the nation by averaging 90.4 points en route to the 1960 championship over California.
Ohio State reaches the title game the next two years, losing to Cincinnati in ’61 and ’62. Havlicek is selected by the Celtics in the first round of the 1962 NBA Draft. Boston, fresh off its fourth title in five seasons, is loaded with great players. It allows Havlicek time to assimilate. The unproven rookie finds his niche by bringing relentless energy to the court.
“Red loved defensive players,” Havlicek says. “At Ohio State, my role was to play hard-nosed defense. In Boston, I started out playing five minutes a game early in the season. My minutes increased as Red gained more confidence in me. I ended the year averaging 20 minutes per game, which was fourth best in the league for rookies.”
The Celtics capture their sixth NBA Championship, and Havlicek earns a spot on the All-Rookie Team. He puts in work during the summer, and then leads the team in scoring during the 1963–64 regular season. The Celtics, meanwhile, continue to roll, winning 59 games and easily defeating the San Francisco in the 1964 NBA Finals.
Havlicek’s signature moment comes during the 1965 Eastern Division Finals when the Celtics, winners of six consecutive NBA Championships, suddenly find themselves on the brink of elimination. Battling Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers, and clinging to a 110–109 Game 7 lead, Bill Russell’s inbound pass hits the guide wire supporting the basket with less than five seconds left. Havlicek’s ensuing steal of Hal Greer’s inbound pass – arguably the most famous theft in NBA history – keeps the championship streak intact and sends the Celtics to the Finals. Fans all over New England hang on the words of Celtics radio broadcaster Johnny Most, whose call instantly becomes part of Celtics lore: “Havlicek steals it. Over to Sam Jones. Havlicek stole the ball! It’s all over! Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!”
Havlicek continues to reprise his role of Sixth Man through the end of the Bill Russell Era, winning championships in 1965, 1966, 1968, and 1969. With Russell’s retirement in ’69, Havlicek is not only starting for the first time in his professional career, but he’s also the unquestioned leader of the next generation of Boston Celtics. New head coach Tom Heinsohn installs an up-tempo offense, and Havlicek responds with the best statistical season of his career: 24 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 6.8 assists. But after winning six championships during the Sixties, the new-look Celtics are suddenly NBA bottom feeders.
It doesn’t take long for the Celtics to bounce back. With Cowens, White, and Havlicek forming the nucleus of a revamped roster, the 1972–73 Boston Celtics post the best regular season record in team history, going 68–14 and looking like a slam dunk to win the NBA Championship. All of that changes when Havlicek injures his shoulder during the Eastern Conference Finals against New York, allowing the Knicks to take the series in seven games. The loss puts the Celtics at a crossroads, but Boston rebounds the following season by winning 56 regular season games and saving their best effort for the playoffs. After dispatching the Buffalo Braves in the first round, Boston exacts revenge by beating the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, 4–1.
Awaiting them are the Milwaukee Bucks, led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. The series goes seven games, with neither team able to protect home court advantage. With the Celtics up 3–2 and returning to the Boston Garden, everyone in New England prepares to celebrate the team’s 12th championship banner and its first without Russell.
“Game 6 in the Garden,” Havlicek recalls. “We wanted to win the championship in front of our fans, and the Bucks wanted to have the same opportunity in Game 7 back in Milwaukee.”
Facing a do-or-die situation, the Bucks’ season comes down to one shot. Abdul-Jabbar’s baseline skyhook at the buzzer sends the Celtics back to Milwaukee for Game 7. Robertson plays 46 minutes on dead legs. Boston wins easily, 102–87, securing the team’s first championship of the post-Russell era.
The Celtics fail to repeat, falling to the Bullets in the ’75 Eastern Conference Finals, prompting Auerbach to trade Westphal for Scott. The transaction is made to counter Rick Barry’s Golden State Warriors, who sweep Washington in the Finals.
“Red wanted more backcourt speed,” Havlicek says. “Charlie was one of the fastest players in the league.”
On October 24, the Celtics open the season by running past the Houston Rockets, 109–94. Havlicek leads the way with 24, the first step in a journey that culminates with a championship over the Phoenix Suns. The ’76 Finals is best remembered for that triple-overtime classic in the old Boston Garden.
“I hit that running bank shot with two seconds left on the clock in double-overtime, and the Garden went crazy,” Havlicek says. “The crowd immediately stormed the floor, and we headed to the locker room thinking that we’d won the game. The refs put one second back on the clock, and pandemonium breaks out. The scorer’s tables were toppled over. Richie Powers—a referee—got into a fight with a fan. Then Gar Heard hits that long, turnaround jumper to put the game into triple-overtime. We were able to win it and then go to Phoenix and close it out.”
That 1976 title is the last time Havlicek walks off the court a champion. Havlicek retires in 1978, his 38-year-old body worn down from 16 seasons of NBA pounding. That the Celtics are in disarray doesn’t help; Havlicek, who plays the game at the highest standard, can’t stomach the new breed of selfish players like Curtis Rowe, who emerges from the shower after a humiliating 30-point defeat to announce, “What’s everybody upset about? The Ws and Ls don’t show up on the paychecks.” Ironic then that Havlicek—the Celtics’ unstoppable running man, and one of the best-conditioned ballers on the planet—simply decides he’s had enough and walks away.
“It was time,” he says, and then, without a hint of irony: “It didn’t end the way that I’d hoped, but it was a good run.”
You won a national championship while playing alongside four future NBA players: Jerry Lucas, Larry Siegfried, Joe Roberts and Mel Nowell. How were you able to put individual agendas aside and win it all?
We had a great head coach in Fred Taylor, and we played for a program that was known for its winning tradition. Our team chemistry really fed off of those two things. Red was able to accomplish this in Boston, while Fred created that same time of atmosphere at Ohio State. Red had a theory that it’s not what statistics you have that measures your value to the team. Everyone wants to score 25 or 30 points a game and grab 15 or 20 rebounds. But you have to work together to be successful. You have to make sacrifices in your game in order to make the team stronger. That’s the same type of philosophy that Fred adhered to at Ohio State. Sacrifice for the good of the team. Put egos and agendas aside and do what’s necessary to be successful as a team. And with a strong leader like Fred, it was easy for us to play as a cohesive unit. So really, all of the credit goes to Fred for getting us to buy into that philosophy.
Looking back now, what do you remember most about winning the national championship against California?
Two days before the championship game I injured myself in the bathroom at Ohio State. I cut myself on a paper towel dispenser, and I ended up with 10 stitches on the ends of my fingers on my shooting hands. I remember being concerned about the injury and how it would affect my play in the game. The other thing I remember was how good we shot the ball in the first half – I believe we only missed four shots and were up big at halftime. We played extremely well in that game. We were a sophomore dominated group, and many people didn’t think we would go very far that season, let alone reach the title game and then win big.
That 1960 championship team was also known for its academics.
The unusual thing about our team was that we were true student-athletes. Everyone graduated. We had seven guys get masters degrees. Two received Ph. Ds and two received MDs. There was one quarter during the school year that our team GPA was a 3.4. That’s really hard to believe, but true, and I’ll bet that’s an NCAA record. We considered ourselves students first and foremost, and we took a lot of pride in our accomplishments in the classroom. And to a large degree, Fred [Taylor] was the architect of our academic success. Fred told me when he was recruiting me that I was here for an education, and that was going to be number one on my list of priorities. Number two was basketball. Number three was a social life. And after the first two, we all knew that there was not going to be much of a social life [laughs].
Please tell me a little about your coach at Ohio State, the legendary Fred Taylor.
Well, I don’t think I would have gotten anywhere without his tutelage. He shaped me tremendously, and I feel that he was the person most responsible for preparing me to play professional basketball. He stressed the fundamentals, and he stressed defense. Those were the things helped get me into the NBA, and those were the things that kept me there for all of those years. The foundation of my professional basketball career was truly based on what I learned from Fred Taylor.
Coaching great Bob Knight was a teammate on that national championship team. What kind of player was Coach Knight?
Let’s just say that Bobby wasn’t the quickest man on foot [laughs], but defensively he played hard. When you got fouled by Bobby, you knew you had been fouled. He definitely got his money’s worth [laughs]. Bobby played a reserve role and came off the bench quite a bit. He was a shooter, but his calling card was defense. If he’d been allowed to play more minutes he would have just fouled out, he was that aggressive [laughs].
Let’s talk Olympic basketball. Many people were shocked when you failed to make the 1960 Olympic basketball team. What happened?
That was probably the biggest disappointment of my athletic career. I thought I played extremely well during the Olympic trials, and I felt that I deserved to be selected to play on that team. The same argument could be made for my teammate, Larry Siegfried. In my mind, he played well enough to be chosen for that team. The system was a lot different back then. The AAU and NCAA were feuding at the time, and it really became a big political thing after the first team was selected.
You were selected by the Celtics in the first round of the 1962 NBA Draft. Boston had just won its fourth title in five seasons.
I was lucky to be drafted by the Celtics, no question about that. I remember that when I learned that I was drafted by the Celtics, Bob Knight said that that was the greatest thing that could have happened to me because the Celtics played my style of basketball. And like you just mentioned, I wasn’t forced to come in and be a savior or anything like that, because they had a lot of hall of fame players on that team. You did have a Bill Russell, a Cooz, a Sharman, a Sam Jones. You also had Heinsohn and KC [Jones]. You had Frank Ramsey. It made my transition a lot smoother than had I been drafted to play elsewhere. I was able to ease in. I just sort of became a part of that process, where they were using me a little bit here and there, and whatever, and over time it evolved into a bigger and better leadership role for me.
What was it like adjusting to the pro game?
I think the people that you involve yourself with, and who help you along the way, these people all play a part in some sort of design or pattern in what you’re going to become. The same was true with me when I joined the Celtics. Looking back at when I was drafted, in my wildest dreams I didn’t think I’d be able to do what I did during my career with the Celtics. I was able to learn from other people on that team, and you learn from winners like Bill Russell and KC and Sam and Cooz and Ramsey.
Hall of Famer Frank Ramsey was the team’s original Sixth Man. Now here you come, competing for his job. How did he handle that?
When I came to Boston, Ramsey could have felt threatened and could have made life hard on me, but he didn’t. He was the opposite of that. He said, ‘I’m so glad you’re here because you’re going to add two years to my life, because I can’t do it as much as I used to and I’m hoping you’ll step in and help me.’ That was totally different experience from what I expected as a rookie, because when you go to training camp everyone is working to protect their job. They don’t want to see some guy come in and knock them off the team or take away their minutes. It was totally different with the Celtics. It was a secure team, and we embraced each other, and it was a great marriage.
As a rookie, how did you find your niche on team loaded with stars?
Well, one of the things that I knew about Red Auerbach was that he loved defensive players. He understood that defense was what meant the difference between simply reaching the playoffs and winning a championship. If you look at those early Celtics teams that he coached, they were very good on the offensive end but weren’t the best defensively. All of that changed with Bill Russell. When I arrived I knew that Tom Sanders, KC Jones, Russell and Sam Jones were all great defenders. At Ohio State, that was basically my job – to be the defensive stopper. So, I felt then and still feel today that the quickest way into the NBA is to play defense. If you have NBA ability and can play defense you’ll have an opportunity to succeed, because great defenders are never a liability. Offense is all about instinct, and with the great teams that I was on I had an opportunity to find my place on offense as well. I had great hands, which really helped me, and I loved playing with Cousy that one year that we were together because the ball was going to be right where you needed it most of the time. As I started out as a rookie I was playing maybe five minutes a game early in the season. But as I gained more confidence, and as Auerbach gained more confidence in me, I ended the year with about twenty minutes per game, which was about fourth best in the league for rookies. So, that’s how I fit in with the Celtics – I came in, played solid defense, and I worked hard on the offensive end to earn the trust of my coach and teammates.
Were you surprised to be selected by the Celtics?
No, not really. It never hurts to be on a team that is successful, and I knew Red Auerbach often times would draft a person based on the type of program the person was involved with. He was well aware of Ohio State’s program and the success that we’d enjoyed, and he knew the caliber of players we had on those teams. He knew that we had won a national championship, and that we were competing for a championship every year. So there were a lot of good things about me that he took into consideration based on the kind of program that I came from. He knew that if I could contribute at a high level on such a successful team, he figured that I should be able to make the transition to the pros and be able to help the Celtics.
Your rookie season with the Celtics was also the final season for the incomparable Bob Cousy. Even though you only played one season together, what were you able to learn from one of the greatest players in NBA history?
As a rookie, I quickly came to appreciate Cousy’s court vision. I think that was the one thing that I learned from him, and I was able to develop it because Bob Cousy was such a visionary on the floor. I think that you pick up a lot from your teammates. I was never a great ball handler or anything like that, but I tried to never lose sight of the ball at any time while I was on the basketball floor. The other thing is that I had a lot of movement to my game, a constant motion that really challenged defenders on a number of levels. I was never standing around. And that creates a lot of opportunities. Cousy always had the presence of mind to find me in situations where I was able to move and free myself for an open shot. His court vision was unbelievable, and it helped me to see the court better – the passing lanes, the angles, things like that. Those are the things that I took away from my rookie season with Bob Cousy.
You were such a great athlete that the Cleveland Browns also drafted you, intrigued by your potential as a wide receiver. What was it like experimenting with a career in the NFL?
I had decent speed, especially for that era, but it wasn’t great speed. I believe I was timed at 4.6 in the 40-yard dash. That’s slow by today’s standards. Today you have plenty of defensive linemen who run faster than that. But I could catch the ball. I had really good hands. That, and my height, were the things that really caught the Browns’ interest.
Please tell me a little about the Browns’ hall of fame head coach, the late Paul Brown.
Interestingly enough, Paul Brown and I really liked each other. I really appreciated the way he ran things as a coach, the way everything was so precise. He was very meticulous, very detail-oriented, which really matched who I was as a person, so Paul Brown was definitely my kind of coach. I enjoyed my time in a Browns uniform, even though it became clear early on that football wasn’t my strong suit athletically – especially when compared to playing basketball. Brown was very nice about it when he let me go. He knew I had something to go to, that I had a future playing professional basketball. So it really worked out best for everyone involved.
Were you really serious about playing football for the Browns?
I was going to try and play both sports. But the good Lord has a way of playing a part in those types of decisions. I think He made it pretty clear that I was cut out for basketball and not football.
You’ve mentioned the great Bill Russell, and what he meant to turning the Boston Celtics into world champions. Please tell me what it was like to play with Russell.
There was no bigger winner, no better champion in basketball history, than my friend Bill Russell. Russell was the kind of player who never concerned himself with personal goals – he put his team above all else, and in the process he made his teammates better players. If you were a scorer, you were six-to-eight points better because Russell was around. If you were a good defensive player you became a great defensive player, because with Russell hanging around you were able to do things that you weren’t ordinarily able to do. You could take more chances, apply more pressure, knowing that Russell was back there protecting the basket.
Obviously, playing with Russell for all of those years meant that you were going to be in the mix for a championship, and winning those titles were the most important things in my career. Forget about the points, rebounds and assists or whatever, the championships are things that they can’t take away from you, and with Russell being involved, and being involved with him, you always knew that you had a chance. And obviously, eleven championships in thirteen years is quite a remarkable feat, and that’s exactly what Russell accomplished during his career with the Celtics. I was happy – and fortunate – to be on eight championships teams, six of them with Russell.
You followed Ramsey as the next great Sixth Man.
Coming off the bench never bothered me, because basketball is a team game. It takes a total team effort, and it takes everyone buying into their role and playing it to the best of their ability. The sixth man role is very important to a ball club – it was back then, and it is equally as important today. I had confidence in my game, and I knew that I had the ability to start, which is something that evolved over time, but joining a team loaded with talent meant that I would have to wait my turn. We had Tom Heinsohn, Satch Sanders, Frank Ramsey, Jim Loscutoff and Gene Guarilia. All of these guys played the forward position, and all of them had the NBA experience that I lacked as a rookie. So coming off the bench didn’t affect me in a negative way. Like I said, I was confident in my ability to play the game of basketball. Besides, one thing I learned from Red Auerbach was that it’s not who starts the game, but who finishes it, and I generally was around at the finish.
You were involved in one of the greatest plays in NBA history. Take me back to that famous steal in the closing seconds of the 1965 NBA Eastern Conference Finals.
Well, it’s Game 7 against Wilt Chamberlain and the Philadelphia 76ers. We’re up by a point with five seconds to play, 110-109, and we have possession of the basketball. Bill Russell takes the ball out of bounds and hits the guide wire, and Philadelphia immediately regains possession. At this point, everyone was concerned about the ruling because of the guide wire, but we quickly learned that Philadelphia was going to retain possession of the ball.
Red always said that you always needed to figure out some way to find an edge. Some of the things he would come up with were just ridiculous [laughs], but he really drove that into us from the very beginning. So, when I found myself on the court in that situation, I said to myself that the only thing that I could do to get a possible edge, is that when the ball is handed to Hal Greer, who was taking the ball out of bounds, I could actually try to time the pass and have a shot at deflecting or stealing the inbounds pass. I knew that as soon as he was handed the ball that he had five seconds to put in in play. So I counted. One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…
Most of the time the ball is delivered within the first three seconds. But I get to one thousand four, and the ball hasn’t been inbounded yet. So at that point you’re trying to keep visual contact with the man out of bounds with the ball, and with the person that you’re defending. When I got to four a gave a little look, and it allowed me to see the play develop a little better. Had I had my back to the ball, Hal Greer would have lobbed the ball right over my head. But that little look allowed me to get a better perspective, and it convinced me that I could get a hand on this one. And I got up in front of the ball, and momentarily controlled it before kicking it out to Sam Jones.
Bill Russell acted as player/coach of the Boston Celtics following Red Auerbach’s retirement in 1966. Were you ever interested in coaching?
No, not really. I knew very early on that I wouldn’t enjoy coaching, in large part because I was such a disciplined player. I felt that I was a very coachable player because of that, but that isn’t always the case when it comes to the relationship between the coach and the players. Oftentimes, players don’t get on the same page as the coach, and I would have found that frustrating. I would have been very hard on myself.
The Celtics used to call me about coaching, but they pretty much knew what the answer was going to be, so they finally stopped calling. Whenever the Celtics were changing coaches in the 70’s and 80’s, Red Auerbach would call and say, ‘Okay, for the record, do you want to coach?’ I’d always say, ‘No,’ and then he’d say, ‘Goodbye.’ I think Red knew that coaching wasn’t for me, but he wanted to extend the offer anyway. It was a show of respect on his part. The Celtics were a family, and for the most part he looked within the family when hiring his coaches. Russell, Heinsohn, Satch Sanders, Dave Cowens, KC Jones. Red hired his guys because he trusted them, and he knew that they were going to do their best to help the Celtics win another championship.
You had an up-close view of those great battles between Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain. What stands out in your mind?
It wasn’t a matter of Wilt-versus-Russell with Bill. He would let Wilt score 50 if we won, and there were times when that was the case. The most important things to Bill were championships, rings and winning. He was never after the personal stats. Wilt could raise the level of his game, he could do things that were eye-popping when you reviewed the box score, but he could never figure out how to make his teammates around him better. Bill was always there to win the important possessions, to grab the key rebounds, to make the key blocks, to trigger a key fast breaks. He played a completely different game than Wilt. It was a mental game, a psychological game. And it was a big weapon whenever Bill went up against Wilt, because in Wilt’s mind, Bill already had Wilt’s number. The battle was already won before it ever started. Wilt would never admit it, but Bill knew he was in Wilt’s head. And he used that to his advantage.
What makes the Lakers-Celtics rivalry so special?
Well, it started in the 60s, with all of those great battles in the Finals. Jerry West and all of those guys going up against Bill Russell, Sam Jones and the rest of us. And then you had the Bird-Magic rivalry that increased the intensity to a completely different pitch, because you had two great players who basically saved the league from irrelevance and also took it to a new height. In the nineties you had the Dream Team, with Larry and Magic on the same team, and that added something to it. And then you had a renewal of the rivalry with Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant going at each other in the Finals. You had Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen going for their first title. You had Paul injuring his knee in that first game, only to come back and win the MVP award while leading the Celtics back to the title.
Today everything has gotten so big. There is some much media coverage, in so many forms. Newspaper, radio, television, the Internet. Those things all help fuel the fire when it comes to great rivalries. I don’t even think there were people who traveled with us when we won some of those early championships [laughs].
The continuity of those great Celtics teams is truly remarkable.
The Celtics always had an older, more experienced person to pass along the team philosophy. Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman were a great backcourt tandem, and they passed that along to KC and Sam [Jones]. Frank Ramsey passed the Sixth Man role to me. Russell retires, and along comes Cowens. It’s just the way we did things, and it was a big part of our success.
With Red, he was very loyal to his players. The first eight or nine years of my career we never even made a trade. We picked people up off of waivers, but Red had this ability to see a player, and see the talent that he had, and basically mold that individuals talent into a team effort. It wasn’t who scored the most points, or who did this or that. He always said it was about your value to the team. And everyone had a certain value. As I mentioned before, Tom Sanders and KC Jones were great defensive players. Of course there’s no one like Bill Russell. He was the guy who made the Celtics great.
During your Celtics career you played for Red Auerbach, Bill Russell and Tom Heinsohn. What did these men have in common, and how were they different?
Red Auerbach was a person who was able to motivate people, and I think that this was probably his strongest asset. Red had a situation where he could yell at people a little bit and get away with it. He was intense. What made him so smart was that he knew which players he could yell at and which ones he shouldn’t. He yelled at Tommy quite a bit, but you didn’t see him doing those types of things to Bob Cousy.
With Russ, I knew that we were going to have basically the same system, and also pretty much have the same core group of players. I think Russ’s biggest adjustment as coach came with cutting players in training camp, because cutting players was something that he really didn’t like to do.
Tommy was totally different that Red and Russ – he was far more relational with his players. When I was a player, Tommy and I were roommates, and we used to call him the social director because he knew where all of the good restaurants and movie houses were at the time. Didn’t matter what city, Tommy always had those types of things figured out. Suddenly I find him as my coach, and all of a sudden all of these things have restrictions and limits to them [laughs]. But Tommy was the right man for the job of rebuilding the Celtics after Russ and Sam Jones retired. I think he was more patient than Russ or Red would have been, which was crucial since he inherited such a young club.
You won six championships playing alongside Bill Russell, and following his retirement the Celtics were in a rebuilding mode. How difficult a period was this for you?
Well, it was really quite difficult for me, and I was short-tempered a lot of the time. During my first seven seasons we had veteran teams, and I was really the kid on those teams. Suddenly everything was flip-flopped; I was the old man on a team loaded with young players. When all of the rookies came in, I can recall the first exhibition game we played in 1970. You had Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, Don Chaney and Garfield Smith on the court with me. The referee turns and looks at me, and asks if this is really the Boston Celtics on the floor [laughs].
Rookies and younger players are going to go out there and make mistakes, and that’s exactly what happened. I tried my best to help them get over these rough spots, but I really had a hard time with it. That’s why I don’t think I could have ever been a coach.
The 1972-73 Boston Celtics posted the best regular season record in team history, going 68-14 and looking like a slam dunk to win the NBA Championship. All of that changed during the Eastern Conference Finals against the New York Knicks. What happened?
I thought all year long that we would win the championship. We won 68 games during the regular season, had the best record in the NBA, and heading into the playoffs I thought we were playing with tremendous confidence and momentum. We won our first round series against the Atlanta Hawks, and really didn’t have much trouble in that series against them. Three of our wins were blowouts. Unfortunately, I separated my shoulder during the series with the Knicks, and it became an issue. The injury kept me out of a key game that we lost in double overtime. I thought that ’72-’73 was going to be our year, but the shoulder injury just devastated the whole thing. Injuries are an important factor in any championship run. You have to be fortunate not to lose players or have people laid up, because if you do then it is going to take something away from the team. Suddenly you’re not as deep, the rotation is different, the combinations aren’t the same, the chemistry might not be what is was before the injury. That’s what happened to us. We didn’t have the same confidence, and everything was suddenly a lot more difficult. Credit goes to the Knicks for beating us. They capitalized on the injury and beat us in seven games.
By 1974 the rebuilding was complete – the Boston Celtics were world champions once again, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks in a thrilling seven game series.
That particular championship was probably the one I enjoyed the most, because it was probably the one that I played the best in. I can recall that double-overtime game when Don Chaney deflected the ball and I ran down the court – there were fifteen seconds left on the clock, and Heinsohn was calling timeout. Well, I shot the ball, followed the miss and put it back up and in the basket as time expired. That sent the game into double-overtime. I hit three shots in the period, we were up 99-98, but then Mickey Davis hits a big shot to take the lead. We ran a play with time winding down, and I make a shot on the baseline to put us back up by one. The Bucks responded by running a play for Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and he hit that famous hook shoot along the baseline as time expired to beat us on our home floor.
Many people came up to my after the game and said that I didn’t look like the same person who started the game. I can understand that, because I played 58 minutes, and it was a grueling experience. But I was prepared to continue, and to play as long as it took to win that game. Unfortunately we lost it, which meant that we had to travel to Milwaukee for Game 7. We were determined to win that game, and that’s exactly what we did. It was an unbelievable feeling.
That 1976 title would be your last, and the eighth time that you would walk off of the floor as an NBA champion. Did winning ever get old for you?
Winning never gets old. It only gets old if you lose, and that’s what made it so special to play for the Celtics. The organization was committed to wining, and this started with [team founder and original owner] Walter Brown, and was reinforced daily by Red Auerbach. Those two men created a winning atmosphere within the Celtics organization, and this made it easy for the players to put team success ahead of individual accomplishments. If you look at any of those great championship teams, you’ll see players who could have easily put up big numbers on lesser teams elsewhere. But we were interested in team goals. Winning championships never got old to any of us.
Your career in Boston spanned two distinct eras – the Bill Russell Dynasty of the 1960s, and the Dave Cowens Era of the 1970s. What was it like to be part of both periods in Boston Celtics history?
When you have the greatest defensive player in the history of basketball anchoring your team, everything is going to be predicated on defense. Defensively, Russell revolutionized the game. He could dominate without scoring a point. You also had KC Jones on those teams, you had Satch Sanders. Great defensive players. But as we moved into the 70s, we shifted the emphasis from defense to offense. Again, Russell was the greatest defensive center the game has ever known. Dave Cowens couldn’t come in and take the place of Russell, at least not by trying to imitate him. Cowens had to play the game to his strengths. He was a better shooter than Russell. KC was a great defensive player. Jo Jo White was a better shooter. I was counted on more to carry the scoring burden on those later teams. So we were much more offensively oriented during the 70s. But make no mistake, those Russell teams could also score – as obvious as it sounds, you have to be able to outscore your opponent to win a game, and we won more than our share during the 60s.
Your conditioning and fitness levels were the stuff of legend. Over the course of your career you ran countless defenders ragged trying to keep up with you.
Running was a very important part of my game, no question about it. And I knew from the first time I played a basketball game that the toughest guy to score on was the guy who kept after me all the time, nose-to-nose, basket-to-basket, on every single possession. So I stayed in motion, and I used the constant movement to my advantage. I also knew that the opposite was also true. The toughest guy to defend against was the guy who kept running. The guy who never let up, never stopped moving, never let you relax. I knew that I could be successful doing those types of things, and that over the course of a game it would wear down the guy guarding me and open up valuable scoring opportunities late in the fourth quarter. Those were the types of advantages that I wanted to have, especially in the close games. If you were in better shape than the man guarding you, you could take advantage of the fatigue factor. That’s the edge I wanted to have.
Final Question: If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Never give up. I had hundreds of shots blocked during my career, but I always focused on making the next shot. You’ve got to take chances, and you can’t dwell on the negatives.
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