By: Michael D. McClellan | He was a high school phenom, a Paul Bunyan in basketball shorts, a player would later join John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas on a championship quest at Ohio State. That Larry Siegfried would eventually follow Havlicek to professional glory with the Boston Celtics is hardly surprising: Siegfried’s sweet shooting touch and trip-hammer release translated well from high school to college, and then again into the pros, his presence on the Celtic roster helping keep basketball’s greatest dynasty rolling through the close of the 1960s.
Siegfried, who grew up on the rolling farmland just outside of Shelby, Ohio, spent countless hours shooting baskets against the family barn. The ball and the hoop were relatively inexpensive toys for a blue-collar family on a budget. Siegfried often shot alone, honing his jumper, playing imaginary games against All-Americans like Ralph Beard and Alex Groza of Kentucky, or Dick Schnittker of Ohio State. At Shelby High School, Siegfried found himself playing both inside and out, rarely resting on the bench during a phenomenal senior season, the All-State guard a constant headache for opposing coaches tasked with slowing him down. Siegfried averaged a whopping 38 points-per-game during that final campaign in ‘57, leading Shelby to a state basketball championship. He was named co-recipient of Ohio’s Player-of-the-Year Award in the process, a year before Jerry Lucas would claim the same honor.
For Siegfried, playing for his home state Buckeyes seemed a match made in heaven; the team was a national power, and head coach Fred Taylor was promising a system built around his athleticism and versatility. The Buckeyes roared to the 1960 Big Ten Championship during his junior season, with five starters – Siegfried, Lucas, Havlicek, Mel Nowell and Joe Roberts – all later playing in the NBA. Ohio State then dominated California 75-55 to win the 1960 national championship.
“I had a love affair with those kids,” Taylor would say years later. “They weren’t very sound defensively at the start of the season. As they progressed, they could play pretty thorny defense.”
There would be plenty of winning the next season, Siegfried’s last as a member of the Buckeyes. The team would finish the regular season undefeated, capture another Big Ten Championship, and then make an encore appearance in the championship game. OSU was 27-0 when it landed in the 1961 final against intrastate rival Cincinnati, only to find itself deadlocked with the Bearcats, 61-61, at the end of regulation. The Bearcats then pulled away, 70-65 in overtime, behind the play of Bob Wiesenhahn and Tom Thacker, ending OSU’s dream of repeating as national champs.
The Cincinnati Royals nabbed Siegfried with the third overall selection in the 1961 NBA Draft, but he opted to sign with the ABL Cleveland Pipers instead. Cincinnati dealt his draft rights to St. Louis during the 1963-64 regular season, only to waive Siegfried before ever signing him to a contract.
Red Auerbach and the Boston Celtics were kings of the NBA when Siegfried hit the waiver wire, winners of six championships in a seven-year span, including five in a row. With Bill Sharman’s retirement in 1961, followed by Bob Cousy’s departure two years later, the Celtics were a team in need of depth in the backcourt. Auerbach paid the $1,000 waiver fee, and Siegfried joined the Celtics midway through the 1963-64 regular season. Ironically, the Cincinnati Royals would await Boston in the Eastern Finals, providing Siegfried with an added measure of motivation. He played sparingly in that series, but he played well when called up, and the Celtics rolled to a 4-1 victory and a chance to win a record sixth consecutive NBA crown. Three weeks later the Celtics would defeat the San Francisco Warriors 105-99 in Game 5 of the 1964 NBA Finals, and Siegfried would add an NBA Championship to the collegiate title that he had won at OSU.
The following season a mature Larry Siegfried eased comfortably into his niche. With the benefit of a full training camp under his belt, and with a newfound trust placed in him by Auerbach, Siegfried played in 72 games and upped his scoring average to 6.3 PPG. Loathe to fill a specific roll at Ohio State, he was now the first guard off of the bench – and loving every minute of it. The Celtics stormed to a 62-18 regular season record and into the 1965 Eastern Finals. It was there, in Game 7, that John Havlicek made his incredible steal to preserve a 110-109 lead and send the Philadelphia 76ers packing. Siegfried, now an official part of the Celtic Family, found himself in a second consecutive NBA Finals. A 4-1 dispatching of the Los Angeles Lakers brought yet another championship to Boston. The Celtics, with Siegfried in tow, were now on an undeniable roll of near mythic proportions.
The 1965-66 season would be Auerbach’s last on the bench. With it came an eighth consecutive NBA crown, and a greater roll for Siegfried. He finished the season as the team’s third leading scorer (13.7 PPG), this despite not starting, and burnished his reputation as an all-around talent off of the bench. A year later his average increased yet again, to 14.1 PPG, but the Celtics’ championship run was history. Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers were the new kings of the NBA. Boston, led by player-coach Bill Russell, looked old and unable to continue its dominance of the 1960s.
All of that changed a year later. The 1967-68 Celtics went 54-28, and then upset the heavily favored Sixers 4-3 in the Eastern Finals. A 4-2 defeat of the Los Angeles Lakers gave Russell & Co. an incredible 10 titles in twelve years. Siegfried averaged 12.2 PPG. More importantly, he now had four NBA championships in five years with the Celtics.
Another championship would follow in 1969. Russell and Sam Jones would bow out as champions, and the team would go into rebuilding mode. Tommy Heinsohn would take over as head coach, and the team would select All-American guard Jo Jo White from Kansas in the 1969 NBA Draft. A year later the Celtics left Siegfried unprotected in the NBA expansion draft. He would play parts of two seasons for the San Diego/Houston Rockets, and then finish his career after 21 games with the Atlanta Hawks. Through it all he remained a Celtic at heart, thankful for his place in history and his role on greatest dynasty the NBA has ever known.
You were born on May 22nd, 1939, in Shelby, Ohio. Please tell me a little about your childhood.
I was raised on a farm, so I spent most of my youth working on the farm. I came from a very modest family. My father worked in a factory. I didn’t have all of the toys that everyone else had, so I had to figure out something that I could do on my own. Basketball was a cheap play and didn’t require anyone else to be there, so that’s kind of how I got started. Dad bought me a basketball and put up a hoop. I remember playing alone, for hours on end, out there by the garage.
By all accounts, you were a pretty good high school basketball player.
Being a farm type of kid, I had a pretty good work ethic. Being competitive also helped. My senior year was a wild experience, because we got beat in the regional finals and I averaged over 40 points per game. My high school coach was smart enough to recognize that I was versatile and could do a lot of things really well. He said that if I was going to make it in college, then I was going to have to make it as a guard. He structured the offense in a way that allowed me to play outside as well as inside. From that experience I was able to learn all of the positions of the game of basketball. I was 6’3” or 6’4”, and I played center, forward and guard.
You had good size for a guard.
At that time, a 6’4” guard was unheard of at the high school level. Heck, back then there weren’t that many guards in the Big Ten that size. Oscar [Robertson] played forward in college. He may have brought the ball up the court because he had that ability, but he wasn’t what I’d call a legitimate guard.
You couldn’t play multiple positions in college.
Being able to do a lot of things as a high school basketball player was a very positive experience. But as I progressed to the next level, I ran into more specialization. Specialization has its place, but it becomes a liability to a player who is capable of doing a variety of things on the court. That’s exactly what happened to me at Ohio State.
Please tell me about your relationship with the legendary Fred Taylor.
First of all, I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I had problems with my college coach. When I signed with Ohio State, I was being recruited for my versatility. It was my understanding that the offense at Ohio State would resemble the system that I’d played in high school, and that I would be able to utilize my talents all over the court. Freshman weren’t allowed to play varsity ball back then, so a whole year passed before I started to see what was really happening. As a sophomore, I was either one or two in the Big Ten in scoring, but I was gradually being moved away from the role I’d played in high school. The key word is gradual. I got a taste of varsity ball that sophomore season, and while it wasn’t exactly what I’d been doing at Shelby, I was still somewhat of a focal point in the offense. The following year is when [Jerry] Lucas and [John] Havlicek came into the program, and my role on the team changed. Suddenly, I became just a guard. It was very frustrating.
With the influx of talent, did others have to make sacrifices?
Take Luke [Jerry Lucas] for a second. Luke was a great high school center. He went to Ohio State and he was a great college center. His role really didn’t change much from one level to the next. My situation was different. In high school, I was doing everything, and suddenly as a junior at Ohio State I was just a guard. It was a terrible, terrible experience for me, because I’d had all of this freedom in high school and suddenly I’m playing a very specialized role in the system at Ohio State. Now, was I recruited wrong? Was I used wrong? There were a lot of people who questioned whether my talents were utilized to the fullest in college.
Did you communicate this frustration to Coach Taylor?
I spoke to Fred about it on many occasions. Luke was good on the high post, because he was such a good shooter from the perimeter. I said, ‘Fred, play Luke at the high post once in a while, and let me go down low and post up.’ But he never allowed me to do that. To me it didn’t make sense. As a 6’4” guard in the Big Ten, that size was unheard back then. I had guys guarding me that were 5’10”, 5’11”, so most of the time I had a great size advantage. It was like having a fly nipping at my feet all game long, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t go down low and overpower my man. In high school I’d go low and score. If the opposing coach adjusted by playing someone bigger, then I’d go back outside and score from there. But Fred didn’t want to run the high post, which I never understood. If the opposing center had sagged off of Luke to help guard me, I could have kicked the ball back out to Luke for a shot at the top of the key. He had great range, and as a pro he proved that he could scored from the perimeter. He would have hit that shot all night long.
Did you ever consider transferring?
No, it was a different era back then. And let’s be clear, it’s not that I wanted to shoot the ball every time. That was never, never how I wanted to be utilized. I found out later that all of the guys were frustrated, because we had all of that talent and only one ball. Here I am, getting six shots a game, after getting twice that as a sophomore. But we won, so I guess everybody’s happy. That was the main thing above all else, so I tried to do what I could do within the context of how I was being utilized. I tried to take advantage of my ability at all times, given the situation, and I tried to do my part to help the team win.
Coach Taylor is a coaching legend.
He gets all of the credit for developing the defensive aspect of my game. Fred was friendly with Pete Newell, who coached at California, and he got a lot of information from Pete on how to build team defense. This was the summer prior to that 1960 championship season. Fred got all of us to buy into that thing. Bob Knight was on that team, and look what he learned from that experience, and how he applied those concepts to win three championships as the head coach at Indiana. I owe a lot to Fred for what he taught me, but I’m not going to sit here and tell you that he and I had it peachy-peachy.
What was it like to win the national title as a member of your home state Buckeyes?
I was ecstatic, because winning covers up a multitude of sins. It was great. The following year – my senior year – I accepted my role because it was my last season of collegiate basketball. Maybe I’m off base, but I still feel that I was never utilized properly. One of my assistant college coaches told me one time that in the recruiting process, the thing that you don’t want to do is overdo recruiting. Sometimes you can pull in too much talent, and you find that the pieces don’t fit. When I say they don’t fit, I mean that they’re not a healthy fit. We had so much talent at Ohio State that I’m not sure it fit, but we made it fit because we had good kids. You know what I mean? There wasn’t a bad kid on the floor. As soon as we stepped on the court we all played together. But as I look back, there was a lot of frustration on that team. Maybe we had too much talent.
A year later you battle Ed Jucker’s Cincinnati squad for the national championship.
We were undefeated going into the final game. In my opinion, we would have beaten that team nine out of the ten times that we played them. We were the defending champions, so the pressure was clearly on us. We were 31-0 and we played the title game in Kansas City.
What happened?
There were no locker rooms in the facility. You had to dress at the hotel, and then walk across the tunnel connecting the hotel to the stadium. Now remember, we were the defending champions. The consolation game was played first, I think it went into two or three overtimes. When you’re the defending champions, I believe that you’ve got to prime the pump and be ready to play, because the pressure is on you. Do you agree? We were supposed to start the championship game at 7:30 PM – that’s when we were supposed to take to the floor – but by the time we walked onto the floor we were already out of sync. I remember walking onto the court and being unable to find the basketballs. From there the whole game was just an uphill battle. When we were teammates in Boston, Tom Thacker once told me that, to a man, Cincinnati never expected to beat us in that championship game. But I give Cincinnati all of the credit. They beat us fair and square.
You were honored as an AP, UPI, and Helms Foundation All-American. What did these honors mean to you then, and what do they mean to you now?
At that time you’re a kid, and you really can’t comprehend it. As I look back, the awards and accolades don’t mean much to me anymore. It’s what I’ve learned from those experiences – the things that I carried into my life, the things that have become a part of my existence and my being – that mean the most. Being named All-American doesn’t define who I am as a person. The man that I am today is a result of the experiences that I’ve had, good and bad. I am who I am today because of those things.
Two of your teammates were also honored as All-Americans. Please tell me a little about Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek.
Luke’s high school and college careers are second to none. He had great hands, good jumping ability, could run the floor, could pass the ball. He was a good shooter, a good rebounder. He took Ohio State to the national championship game three years running. That speaks for itself. In my opinion, John was a better athlete than he was a basketball player. I don’t mean that in a negative way. I’m saying that Luke was a basketball player. I would consider myself a basketball player. John was a great athlete who happened to play basketball.
Havlicek was also a pretty good football player.
John was drafted to play football and had a decent shot at making the Cleveland Browns. He could play baseball. He was an outstanding athlete. At Ohio State, could John dribble and do all of the things that a pure basketball player might be able to do? No, but he had a good work ethic, played unselfishly, and had a great career in the NBA. In fact, I think he had a better pro career than he did in college. That’s my opinion. He blossomed with the Celtics – he ran wild and shot the ball – but I don’t think he reached his full potential at Ohio State.
That team was also known for its academics.
The year we won the national championship, I think our starting five averaged a 3.6 GPA out of 4.0. I’m not saying that we were high IQ, but we were kids who worked hard, studied hard, and did well in the classroom. The thing I’m saying is that the team was a very intelligent club. So, when Fred got the information to teach us, the kids that we had were able to learn it, absorb it, and play it. I would say that there are very few clubs that could carry out and execute a game plan like that group of kids. Not only because of the athleticism of the team, but also because of our intelligence.
You were the third overall selection 1961 NBA Draft, chosen by the Cincinnati Royals, but you jumped leagues and signed with the Pipers instead.
That’s a simple matter. In ’61, the University of Cincinnati had beaten us in the finals for the national championship. There was so much turmoil between the two cities and universities because of the basketball rivalry – it was back and forth, back and forth. There was so much hatred going on between the schools at the time – defacing statues on school grounds, vandalizing classrooms, things like that – so to be perfectly honest with you, that’s the main reason that I didn’t play professional ball in Cincinnati. There was no way that I was going to play ball in Cincinnati. No way. If it had been any other place than Cincinnati, I would have gone. So I signed to play for the Cleveland Pipers in the American Basketball League.
How did that go?
The team was owned by George Steinbrenner. John McClendon of Tennessee State was the head coach, and he practically brought the entire Tennessee State team with him, so I really didn’t get an opportunity to play. Then the league folded, and that was that.
Red Auerbach nabbed you for the $1,000 waiver fee.
It wasn’t that cut and dry. I started teaching school in Columbus and played with an independent basketball team in my spare time. By then, Havlicek was in Boston playing for the Celtics. He called, and he said that he wanted me to travel to Cincinnati because Red wanted to talk. So I went into the locker room prior to the game between the Celtics and Royals, and Red asked me if I’d be interested in playing for the Celtics. I said sure. In the meantime, Cincinnati had traded my rights to St. Louis. So even though I wanted to go to Boston I couldn’t, because my rights belonged to St. Louis. Lucky for me, the Hawks’ first round draft choice that year was a guard, and there was no way the team was going to keep me over him. And that’s what happened. Even though I had a great training camp they still cut me. That’s how I ended up in Boston.
Was the Celtics experience everything that you thought it would be?
In Boston, I knew that I was going into a situation that had been established over a period of time. I was excited about the way they did things. I was in awe of how they played together as a team. To this day I hold those Celtics teams up as the prime example of the team concept. That was what defined them. I tell people that it was the easiest place in the world to play if you were a team player. If you were selfish you wouldn’t last five minutes there.
What was it like for you to win that first NBA championship?
That first championship extended what the Celtics were all about. It was a great thrill to win the title and to experience what that was all about, but the big thing for me was to be a part of that team and play with a group of guys who always – and I mean always – thought about the team ahead of themselves. I’ve been watching sports for a long time, and there has never been another situation like that. It was truly a special place to play basketball.
Red Auerbach’s training camps were legendary. What was it like to meet Red for the first time, and what was that first training camp like for you?
You know what we did the first day of camp? We pressed, man-to-man, from one end of the court to the other. That was the whole scrimmage. First day of practice. What Red wanted to do was find out who was in shape, and who really wanted to be there. And if someone got sick, that person would come out and you’d play five-on-four. That was Red’s philosophy. He wanted a team that was in superior shape. See, he didn’t have to worry about the team concept stuff, because most of the players that he had up there had come from championship college teams. They had the talent and knew how to win. He didn’t have to deal with all of the other stuff that everybody else in the league had to deal with.
Sam and KC Jones learned the Celtic Way while playing behind two hall-of-fame guards, Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. When you arrived, it was the Jones Boys who helped keep the Celtic Dynasty running. Please tell me a little about Sam and KC.
KC was an outstanding guard who wasn’t the shooter that Sam was, but he was the better defensive player. Sam could shoot the lights out. For me, playing behind those two guys was a thrill because I learned a lot from watching them. Back then, nobody came in off the street and jumped into the Boston Celtics’ starting lineup. You sat behind veterans. You sat, you listened, you learned, and you gradually worked yourself into the rotation. That was the Celtic Way.
Walter Brown passed away on September 7th, 1964. Please tell me a little about the late, great Mr. Brown.
Walter Brown was an owner who really cared about his team. They were winning and that didn’t hurt, either. He wanted to go first class in everything, and it was a first class operation. He was low-key. He was not around that often, and not one to be seen all of the time. You knew who he was, and you respected him because he was the owner. But he wasn’t like some of these guys that you see today, like the owner of the Dallas Mavericks [Mark Cuban], who is on TV every time you turn around. His ego didn’t work that way. In many ways Red was the face man for the Boston Celtics, and not Walter Brown. Walter entrusted Red with all of the details of running the club. It was Red’s baby in terms of the finances, contracts, and the day-to-day operation of the Boston Celtics.
How unselfish were those teams?
One year Sam Jones led the team in scoring with 19 points-per-game, and then there were another five guys bunched together beneath him. Red believed in ball movement. The ball moves, you move, and if you get the ball in an open spot, you take the shot. If not, then you move it to someone else. And it worked. The focus was right, and everything else followed.
The incomparable Bill Russell was the heart-and-soul of the Celtic Dynasty.
We could go on for days about Bill Russell. Bill Russell was, in my opinion, the greatest team player who ever lived. Why? Because Bill Russell has the most championships. Some people will point to Wilt Chamberlain as the best center ever. But who has the most championships? Russell. Eleven championships in thirteen years, and nobody in the NBA will ever surpass that. You’ve got free agency, you’ve got salary caps, you’ve got all of these things to contend with today. People talk about Michael Jordan as the best basketball player ever, but again, the bottom line is championships. Bill Russell has the most championships of any team player. And he was the focal point of everything the Boston Celtics did as a team – he was the defensive stopper, he was the trigger man for the fast break, he was the one who made the Celtics so tough underneath the basket. When he was right and when he was healthy, you could not beat him. You could book that. The only time the Celtics lost an NBA Finals during Russell’s career was in ’58, his second season in the league. The Celtics were up on the Hawks early in that series, but then Russell sprained his ankle and St. Louis went on to win the championship. That was the only time. Otherwise, you simply couldn’t beat him. You’re not going to beat his team. It ain’t going to happen. The rest of the league found that out pretty quick, and it was something that you could count on for the better part of thirteen years.
I take it Russell wasn’t concerned about touches.
The beautiful thing about Bill Russell was that he was a defensive player. He didn’t need a ton of shots to be happy, like some of these guys you see today. He was a team player. That’s what made it exciting. The whole thing about the Boston situation was the philosophy of team. Bill Russell epitomized that. I’m a firm believer that, in order to win, two things need to happen – you have to play defense and you have to move the ball. In Boston, the ball always moved because the focal point was defense. It was never offense. And the offense a derivative of the defense. If you wanted to watch the game from the bench, you didn’t play defense. And if you played defense, you were going to score because defense generated ball movement. It was a very unselfish situation. Today, the situation is often reversed. If a guy is shooting well, then he’ll play defense. And if he’s not shooting well, he won’t play any defense at all. It was just the opposite in Boston.
Russell was the ultimate bottom line winner.
I remember one time when we were playing Philadelphia, and the Sixers had the ball with a few seconds left. Russ called timeout – he was the player/coach at that time – and he said, ‘If everybody boxes out their man, I’ll get the ball.’ And that was it. End of conversation. We did our jobs, Russ got the ball, and we went down the court and scored and won the game. Now, if you want to get raked over the coals in that situation, you don’t do your job. You let your man get by you and score. Russ expected you to take care of your assignment, and if you did that, then he was going to take care of the rest.
Everybody talks about Wilt being this force of nature. Do you think Russell gets enough credit for his athleticism?
No, not even close. One time we were playing Los Angeles in the NBA Finals, and somebody stole the ball at half court and went the other way to lay it in. Russell was at the foul line, and he took off, and he raced down the floor. And when that kid – I can’t remember who it was – laid the ball up on the board, Russell came from nowhere to block the shot. The next day, the picture in the paper showed Russ parallel to the floor, arms extended, as he flicked the ball off the board before it ever touched the glass. It was the single most amazing play I’ve ever seen in my life.
What was it like see the greatness of Bill Russell firsthand?
There were nights in the Boston Garden, when Red would press with a small lineup For example, he might put me, KC, Havlicek, Sanders and Russell out there, and order us to press on every possession. There were nights when teams literally couldn’t get the ball past half court. I was a part of that – you can’t imagine the pressure. Put yourself on the opposing team; we steal the ball, make the shot, and you have to bring the ball up the court. And we’re right there in your face. Then, if you’re somehow able to beat us, you know the chances are pretty good that you’re going to get your shot blocked. The next time you don’t take it inside because you’re afraid you’ll get your shot blocked by Russell. So you sag back to get a little breathing room, and then we apply even more pressure. And that’s the way we won. And all of that pressure was possible because of Russell.
Red always used to say that whenever we had offensive lapses we had a defensive problem. We weren’t focusing on defense. We were too preoccupied with offense. So how did he rectify that problem? He’d call timeout and go to full court pressure, which would eliminate the offensive focus entirely. Trust me, you can’t press like that and focus on your offensive game. It was come as a result of the defensive pressure – points off of turnovers, quick baskets, whatever. And if you weren’t out there pressing, then you were coming out of the game. It was that simple. It was a great weapon for us. And all of that pressure was magnified tenfold with Russell on the floor. He was that good. There will never be another Bill Russell.
The ’65 playoffs produced one of the most dramatic moments in NBA history, made famous by Johnny Most’s legendary radio call. Tell me about Havlicek’s iconic steal.
I wasn’t in the game at that time – I was watching it from the bench. We were playing the 76ers, and at that time they had Wilt Chamberlain, Luke Jackson, Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham. That series was an absolute war. Philly scored and we had the lead by one point. Time was running out. All we have to do is inbound the basketball, go up the court and the game’s over. What happened was this – in the old Boston Garden the baskets were supported by guide wires that held the baskets up. Russ threw the ball down court on the inbounds play, and it hit one of those guide wires and dropped straight down. Philadelphia got the ball back under their own basket with maybe five or six seconds left on the clock. Red calls timeout. Hal Greer inbounded the ball, and then Havlicek got his hand on it. He deflected it to Sam Jones, who took off, and that was the ball game. You just can’t imagine the response from the crowd, but the place really went crazy when Havlicek stole that pass from Greer. It kept the dynasty alive, and we were able to win another championship.
Red Auerbach would bow out the following season with yet another championship, the team’s eighth in a row. What made his teams so special?
All of the kids that played in Boston were kids that came from successful basketball programs. Were they the most talented? No. You had KC and Russell out of San Francisco. You’ve got Bailey Howell out of Mississippi State. You had John and I out of Ohio State. Clyde Lovellette out of Kansas. All of those kids came from great programs. When it comes to the modern athlete, it’s all me, me, me. Look at me. Look at who I am and what I’ve accomplished. The team concept just goes straight out the window. Today, all of the talk is about who’s the best player on a particular team. When that subject comes up about the Boston Celtics I just cut them short, because you can’t divide our team like that. You can’t carve it up into those types of slices. We were a true team in every sense of the word. When I was in Boston, we had the best basketball team in the world. Did we have the most talent? No. Did we have the best team? I repeat: We had the best basketball team in the world.
How was Russell able to manage the dual roles of player and coach?
Very simple: A good team will run itself and coach itself. The only thing you have to do is worry about the substitution patterns and things like that. Russ had no assistants – he was the player/coach. Today, teams have ten assistant coaches and all of this other stuff. For what? Today you’ve got to have a manager and an assistant coach for every position. We made our own adjustments on the floor and in practice. I tell everyone the same thing – if you’ve got a good team, all you have to do is manage it. I don’t want some coach running down my ear trying to call the plays. I know what’s going on. And that’s the way we handled it as a team. We made our own adjustments.
Red always felt that Russell could control himself, and that Russell was the only person really suited to coach Russell. And that was part of Red’s genius. Red was smart enough to know that he didn’t want someone coming in there and disrupting the team. Russell knew himself, and he knew his players. He knew that we were going to take care of our responsibilities, and that we were going to go out there and do our jobs. So all Russell had to do was worry about guys getting tired, rotations, fouls, things like that. He didn’t have to tell Havlicek to be in a certain spot at a certain time. He didn’t have to tell Sam Jones where to be on the fast break. He didn’t have to tell Satch Sanders how to play defense. These things were going to take care of themselves. Why? Because we were a good team. We were mature and we were responsible. We looked out for each other, and we did our jobs.
When the championship streak was snapped in 1967, many experts thought the Celtics were too old to win again. How satisfying was it for you to prove them wrong and win two more rings?
We didn’t have to prove nothing. All we had to do was regroup and do what we needed to do. Winning was so simple and so easy because we played defense, we moved the ball, and we had a good team. All we had to do was regroup. It wasn’t that complex.
How did those aging teams overcome the young talent in Philadelphia and Los Angeles?
What we had with those Celtics teams was a togetherness, a family, a community. The thing that amazes me today is that everyone talks about talent. You can assemble a ton of talent, and sometimes it backfires because that talent isn’t playing together with the same goal in mind. It’s not a team, it’s a collection of talent playing with five different agendas on the same court. Just look at what happened recently in Los Angeles. You had the pieces in place for a dynasty, but the feud between Shaq and Kobe broke that apart. That would never have happened in Boston. You would have never seen Russell and Sam Jones ending up like that. No way.
The Celtics defeated the Lakers in that 1969 NBA Finals, winning that memorable Game 7 in Los Angeles. What stands out?
I remember after Game 2 in L.A., Russell had a locker room meeting. He admitted that he hadn’t played up to his standards, and that he wasn’t ready to compete in that game. He asked us to forgive him, and he told us that we were going to prevail in this series. That we’d somehow find a way to get it done. This was when we were down 0-2. I remember sitting in the locker room prior to Game 7, and he looked at everyone and said, ‘Well, what did I tell you? We’re back, and they’re not going to beat us. We’re going to win this game.’ And the game itself was a nail biter. Russell played all forty-eight minutes. Sam Jones fouled out late, and I had hit two free throws to close the gap to one point. Then Nelson hit that shot on the next possession and we ended up winning the championship.
Just like that, Russell’s great career was over.
I’ll never forget when Russ told me that the spark wasn’t there anymore – I was sitting in a whirlpool in LA prior to Game 7. He said that this was it, that he just didn’t think he could get up for the big games anymore. He knew that he had one more game in him, and he did – we won Game 7 and won the championship. And then he walked away. I’ve always admired that. He had the courage to say, ‘It’s time to get out.’ He could have probably hung around and did his thing, maybe played a few more years, but that wasn’t what Bill Russell was all about.
Final Question: If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?
It’s not about winning championships, it’s not about winning, it’s about getting there. And without a faith in God, everything else is empty.
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