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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2594725, member: 289"] [I]The Celtic’s Revenge[/I] The NBA responded to the new completion in the same way the NFL did: after refusing to expand to accommodate new cities and new owners, thus forcing the creation of the rival league, the older circuit opened the doors to new franchises in Seattle, (the Supersonics, now the Oklahoma City Thunder), and San Diego, (the Rockets, now in Houston) for the 1967-68 season, Milwaukee, (the Bucks), Phoenix (the Suns) for 1968-69 and Buffalo (the Braves, now the Los Angeles Clippers), Cleveland (the Cavaliers) and Portland (the Trail-Blazers) for 1970-71. On the court, the league’s teams had been sick of losing to the Celtics every year and had begun to imitate them. The Philadelphia 76ers under Alex Hannum, had gotten Wilt Chamberlain to focus on defense and getting his teammates involved and ii had paid off with a divisional title in 1966 and a dominating March to the NBA title in 1967, featuring the league’s best regular season record to date, (68-13) and a 4-1 steamrolling of the old champs in the playoffs. The Sixers were the new dynasty! But other teams had taken note of the trend. The Knickerbockers had a twin towers concept with Walt Bellamy and Willis Reed but eventually eased Bellamy, an old-fashioned “get me the ball” big man, out in favor of Reed, who could score but also defend and rebound more in the Russell mold. The Baltimore Bullets got a defense and rebounding guy of their own with Wes Unseld for the 1968-69 season. The Hawks, (who moved from St. Louis to Atlanta for the 1968-69 season), had a similar player in Zelmo Beatty. Even in the ABA, the most consistently successful team was the Indiana Pacers with the Russell-like Mel Daniels at center. The most successful NBA teams since then have tended to resemble the Russell Celtics in some respect, especially the defend-and-fast break model. There have been some high-scoring centers but they have become a dying breed. The team that reinvented the game was getting a bit old. Bill Russell was 33, Sam Jones 34. KC Jones retired. A couple of retreads from other teams, Bailey Howell and Wayne Embry, were playing key roles. John Havlicek was just coming into his own as a star at age 27 but all those years of winning had cut off the flow of young talent. Boston still had a formidable team and won 54 games vs. 28 losses. They had a 25-7 start but they could not keep ahead of the 76ers over the course of the long regular season. The Sixers won 24 of their last 29 games to finish at 62-20. They swept regular season honors with Wilt Chamberlain winning a third straight MVP award. Hal Greer was MVP of the all-star game, which the East won 144-124. The Sixers pushed aside the Knicks in six games and then took on Boston who had done the same to the Detroit Pistons but had to overcome a 1-2 deficit to do so. The Celtics shocked their rivals with a 127-118 win in Philadelphia but the best team in the NBA righted the ship with three straight wins, two of them in Boston and all was right with the world – if you were a Sixers fan or just a Celtic hater. From “The Sports Encyclopedia: Pro Basketball”: “the eastern showdown between the 76ers and the Celtics had the air of a rematch for the heavyweight championship of the world: the Celtics had beaten the 76ers two years ago; the 76ers had beaten the Celtics last year. The opening game, one day after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, (the teams voted to play after Russell and Chamberlain consulted with each other and then talked to their teammates), saw the Celtics use long-range shooting to take a 127-118 victory. But then the 76ers settled down to their power game and took three straight from the Celtics. With their backs to the Wall, the Celtics staved off elimination with a 122-104 win in Philly. Then, back in Boston, they evened the series with a 114-106 win. With the series riding now on a seventh game, it came down to the 76ers muscle vs. the Celtic savvy. Chamberlain concentrated on feeding his teammates, who had a collective off night in the shooting department the Celtics stayed right with the stronger 76ers and led 97-95 with 34 seconds left on the clock. Russell then sank a foul shot, blocked a shot by Chet Walker, grabbed a rebound of Hal Greer’s shot and got the ball out to Sam Jones, who sunk a final basket for a 100-96 victory. The Celtics dynasty was back in business.” It was the first time a 1-3 deficit had been overcome in a best of seven NBA series. From “The Illustrated History of Basketball”: “The ‘new’ Chamberlain had played his role to a tragic conclusion on the Greeks and Shakespeare seem to enjoy. Even though his teammates were very much off the mark, Chamberlain refused to shoot in the second half. As the 76ers crumbled around him, only one year after winning the championship Wilt Chamberlain took only two shots.” From ”The NBA Finals: A Fifty Year Celebration”: “Luck, always plays a major factor in sports, made it’s play early in the playoffs, when Chamberlain lost a $1,000 blackjack hand on the team bus, an omen if there ever was one. In the post-season battle, the Philly boys fell one at a time. Cunningham fractured his wrist and was out. Jackson had a badly pulled hamstring. And Wilt injured his big toe. None of which seemed to make a difference heading into the Boston series, but it would all add up afterward. The Celtics, meanwhile, were reasonably healthy and ready. They needed no extra motivation going into the conference finals. Howell recalled: “Everywhere we went, especially in Philadelphia, they had a chant ‘Boston’s Dead…Boston’s Dead… The dynasty is over!’ You’d hear it at the airport, when you got off the plane in Philadelphia. The cab drivers would be on you, riding you a little. Everywhere you went, the fans were real vocal. So it just made you more determined, really. It just helped you to play. It’s tough, playing as often as you do, to be emotionally ready every night. When you get some help like that from opposing fans, it’s really a lift.” Enough of a lift that the Celtics beat the Sixers three times in Philadelphia: the bloody nose of the first game, the big turn-around in the fifth game and the clincher in game 7. The decision to play game one without a postponement resulted in a “dead atmosphere”: game 2 was postponed for 5 days. Both teams had to play in the dead atmosphere but it did not seem like a home game for anybody. Wilt Chamberlain: “They deserved to win. They were tougher.” Sam Jones: “We believed we still had more to give. We had Russell and he was the savior. As long as he stayed healthy, I never worried about winning.” Wayne Embry, describing the Celtics reaction to being down 1-3: “Before the next game, John Havlicek and I walked into the locker room and wrote PRIDE on the blackboard in great big letters.” Satch Sanders: “The things other people laughed at, the Celtics believed in.” It was the Celtics and the Lakers for the 6th time in the anti-climactic finals. The Celtics won in 6 for their 10 title in 12 years. Meanwhile is all began to unravel in Philadelphia. Wilt wasn’t getting along with Sixer’s owner Irv Kosloff. Wilt wanted a piece of the team but Kosloff turned him down. He then felt he had gotten “had grown too big for Philadelphia, sought the presence of fellow celebrities (which were plenty in L.A.) and finally also desired the opportunity to date white women, which was possible for a black man in L.A. but hard to imagine elsewhere back then.” (Wikipedia) He threatened to jump to the ABA so Kosloff agreed to trade him to the Lakers, (For Darrell Imhoff, Archie Clark and Jerry Chambers). Alex Hannum also left for the west coast, where his family lived and where he’d been offered a piece of the Oakland Oaks, who (see above) dominated that league to win its second championship in 1968-69. The Lakers were expected to do the same thing with the three greatest players ever to play one team: Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry West. From “Basketball: The American Game”: “Here at last was the powerhouse center the Lakers had needed since Mikan retired back in the Minnesota days….”We’ve always gotten along well and that’s one reason the Lakers have always had good records in Los Angeles” said West. “Last year, if we played well, we had a chance to win. Now, if we play well, we’re going to win”…The Laker’s second-year coach Butch van Breda Kolff was happy with the deal- at first. Then he found out why Wilt – three man who once scored 100 points in a regulation NBA game, the man who once took down 55 rebounds against Boston- had been traded twice. Butch realized that if he didn’t win the championship with all that talent, he would be the goat. He saw that Wilt was a sulker and a lackadaisical practicer. Wilt arrived with a beard and kept it, even though VBK preferred a clean-shaven team. Wilt wanted a private room on the road…Butch was grumbling and gloomy, whereas the previous season he had been his usual exuberant self while managing the difficult trick of being both buddy and boss to the players. The players were optimistic about the 1968-69 season, although nobody was doing any flip-flops of pure joy.” The Lakers steam-rolled through the west, winning by 7 games with a 55-27 record. But that wasn’t the level of dominance the Sixers had had or the Celtics before them. “Wilt was a new intimidating factor on defense, enabling his teammates to gamble more. On offense, however, it was a struggle all season between Butch and Wilt. The coach wanted Wilt to play more at the high post. Wilt wanted to stay in his old, accustomed spot down low. Whichever place the big guy played, the Laker offense was not as free-wheeling and fast as it had been.” Ironically Wilt’s old team, the 76er, had the same record without him: 55-27. Billy Cunningham developed into a star and he and Hal Greer and Chet Walker carried the team. But they finished second to the Bullets, who went 57-25. Wes Unseld proved to be the best anyone had seen at launching the fast break with long outlet passes. He only scored a Russell-like 13.8ppg but pulled down a Russell-like 18.2rpg. Earl Monroe was the most spectacular one-on-one player the league had seen and scored 25.8. Kevin Loughery added 22.6, giving the Bullets the league’s highest scoring backcourt. Gus Johnson was the definition of a power forward with 17.9/11.6 and Jack Marin added 15.9ppg. In third place was the hottest team in the league. The Knicks traded for Detroit’s Dave DeBusschere midway through the season and won 36 of their last 46 games. They were now the team that would win the NBA title a year later. They wound up 54-28. In fourth place was a tired old team called the Boston Celtics. Bill Russell was 34 with a bad knee. He didn’t even practice anymore. He just played in the games. Sam Jones was 35 with a pulled groin muscle. Satch Sanders was 30 and Bailey Howell 31. Wayne Embry had retired. John Havlicek, the “kid” at age 29, got his chance to start when Bill Russell became the coach, had become the Celtic’s star but even he was only the 16th best scorer in the league at 21.6ppg. The old men limped to a 48-34 record, which included a sub .500 second half of the season. They lost 6 of 7 games to the Knicks on the season and were blown out on national TV by the Lakers 73-108 at the end of the regular season. From “The Illustrated History of Basketball”: “Still, fourth place meant a spot in the playoffs and the Celtics were thankful for that. In the short, second season their professional pride, savvy and poise would carry them to heights their aged legs might not have been able to scale over an eighty two game schedule.” Bill Russell: “About midway through that season I decided that I was playing my last year. We were hoping to win a last championship for Sam (Jones had announced his retirement for the end of the season). I dedicated myself to leaving just as happy as Sam at season’s end.” The red hot Knicks continued their roll, shockingly eliminating the Bullets in four straight. The Celtics destroyed the 76ers, winning the first three games by a total of 52 points and the series in five games. Then they shocked the Knicks in New York 108-100 and 112-97 back in Boston. The Knicks rallied to win two of the next three but the Old Men closed out the new kids 106-105 in Boston. The Lakers had rolled through the West, beating the Warriors and Hawks in only 11 total games. And so it was on. Jerry West was ready. The Lakers were 0-6 against the Celtics in the finals. “The closer you get to the magic circle, the more enticing it becomes. I imagine in some ways, it’s like a drug. It’s seductive because it’s always there and the desire is always there to win one more game. I don’t like to think I’m different but I’m obsessed with winning. And losing made it so much more difficult in the off-season.” But Elgin Baylor was fading. Bailey Howell told reporters “I don’t have to go for his fakes anymore and he’s not as quick in following his shot.” Meanwhile, Chamberlain faced another confrontation with his nemesis, Bill Russell. Havlicek scored 39 points in the opener in LA but West more than topped that with a 53 points and his team needed every basket in a 120-118 win. Russell, (16p 27r), and Chamberlain (15p 23r) cancelled each other out inside. Howell may not have gone for Baylor’s fakes but Elgin out-scored him 24-8. Old man Sam Jones scored 21. The West-Havlicek shooting contest continued in game two with John winning that battle 43 points to 41. The Laker’s old man, Baylor added 32 and little (5-11) Johnny Egan surprised with 26 points as the Lakers took a 2-0 lead with a 118-112 win. There were some nervous thoughts of a sweep but they didn’t last long. At home, the Celtics took a 57-40 halftime lead but the Lakers wiped that out with a 38-21 third quarter. From “The NBA Finals”: “But the Garden crowd helped pump up the Celtics for one final offensive surge. Havlicek, his left eye shut, hit the late free throws to keep Boston alive, 111-105….Russell had helped the battered Havlicek off the court at one point. “I was thinking that he might be hurt badly”, Russell explained later. “You see these men are my friends. Above all, we are our friends.” Havlicek scored 34 and Larry Siegfried surprised with 28. West was held to 24. Game 4 was a defensive duel, plagued by 50 turnovers ”and enough bad shots and passes to last them a month…With 15 seconds left, the Lakers had an 88-87 lead and the ball. All they had to do was get the pass in safely and run out the clock. Instead (Emmett) Bryant stole the ball, (which must have excited Johnny Most), and the Celtics raced the other way. Sam Jones missed a jumper but Boston controlled the rebound and called time at 0:07. On the in-bounds Bryant three the ball to Havlicek, then set a pick to his left. (Don) Nelson and Howell followed in line to make it a triple pick. At the last instant, Havlicek passed to Jones, cutting to his right. Jones stumbled to a halt behind Howell, who cut off West. There, at the 0:03 mark, Jones lofted an 18 footer. He slipped as he took his off-balance shot and it just cleared Chamberlain’s out-stretched hand. Jones knew it was going to miss and even tried to pull it back, he explained afterwards. The ball went up anyway, hit the rim, rose up, hit the back of the rim and fell in. Chamberlain leaped up and lorded over the basket, his face a picture of anguish as the ball came through the net.” West had 40 points in a game where no one else had more than 21 but the series was even. [MEDIA=youtube]4fT4s9WaN84[/MEDIA] The Lakers re-took the lead in the series in Los Angeles, 117-104. Chamberlain dominated Russell inside, 13 points and 31 rebounds to 2 and 13 for Bill. West had 39 but injured his hamstring. He was hobbled for game 6 in Boston scored ‘only’ 26 points. Baylor matched that but Mel Counts, Chamberlain’s back-up was the only other Laker in double figures as the Celtics evened the series again with a 99-90 win. Now it all came down to game 7. Laker owner Jack Kent Cooke was confident his team would hold serve and finally win a championship for Los Angeles. “He visualized the perfect finale for a championship season. He ordered thousands of balloons suspended in the Forum rafters. According to Cooke’s plan, they would be released as the Lakers claimed their championship. As the balloons rained down on the jubilant Lakers and their fans, the band would strike up “Happy Days Are Here Again”. Cooke could see it clearly….and so could Red Auerbach. The Celtics General Manager walked into the Forum that May 5 and gazed up into the cloud of balloons in the rafters. “Those things are going to stay up there a hell of a long time.” From “The Illustrated History of Basketball”: “The Celtics broke fast from the gate that night in Los Angeles, as if they feared time would suddenly turn their aging legs to rubber. They hit eight of their first twelve shots and led by 24-12.” The Lakers fought back to 56-59 at halftime and eventually tied the score at 60 all, only to see the Celtics go on an 11-0 run that erased all that good work. Eventually the lead got to 17 at 91-74. “With six minutes to play and the Celtics still up by 9, Wilt Chamberlain, the indomitable super-human Dipper, came down hard with a rebound, grimacing with pain. He had injured his leg but play continued even though he was unable to make his way upcourt. When the Lakers did manage to call time out, Wilt hobbled to the bench. Butch Van Breda Kolff, the excitable, strong-willed Laker coach, who had sparred with Chamberlain throughout a troubled season, sent in his speed boys and probably mumbled a little player. Surprisingly the Lakers started to do better with Chamberlain on the bench, scoring 8 straight points to trail by only one with less than three minutes to go. Now, if he could make it at all, was the time for Chamberlain to return and crush the fading and weary Celtics.” “The next moments are muddied with controversy. Chamberlain later insisted he had motioned to Van Breda Kolff that he was ready to go in. Van Bread Kolff insisted just as vehemently that eh received no such message. In any event, Wilt Chamberlain remained on the bench. The Celtics were there for the taking but without Wilt the Lakers didn’t have the reach.” Ex-Laker Don Nelson made a basket that hit the back rim, bounced straight up and fell through and Larry Siegfried a couple of free throws to clinch the game and the title, 108-106. [URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnu5vMfPtbw"]1969 NBA Finals Gm. 7 Celtics vs. Lakers (4th Quarter)[/URL] After the game, Russell said that Wilt should not have left the game with anything short of a broken leg. Per “The Picture History of the Boston Celtics”: “The criticism ruptured a longtime friendship, creating bad feeling between the men. It also was a clue that Russell was retiring because he never would have publically antagonized his archrival had he intended to oppose him on a basketball court.” Jerry West, despite his hobbled leg, scored a triple double with 42 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists, (this from a 6-2 175 guy). He was named MVP of the series- the only player ever to win that award for the losing team. For the series, Jerry averaged 38 points, 5 rebounds and 7 assists per game. Note the comments by Red Auerbach and Sam Jones at the 30:00 mark of the above video. John Havlicek told him as the game ended, “Jerry, I love you.” Larry Siegfried called him “The master. They can talk about the others, build them up, but he is the one. He is the only guard.” But the numbers were of no consolation #44.”I didn’t think it was fair that you could give so much and maybe play until there was nothing left in your body to give and you couldn’t win. I don’t think people really understand the trauma associated with losing. I don’t think people realize how miserable you can be, and me in particular. I wanted to quit basketball. It was like a slap in the face, like “We’re not gonna let you win. We don’t care how well you play.” I always thought it was personal.” Elgin Baylor was more philosophical: “It was a challenge to play against Russell and the Celtics. It was fun. It was disappointing to lose. But it was the ultimate challenge. They were a proud team and they had reason to be. Some people thought they were proud and arrogant. But I enjoyed playing against them. They were the best.” [/QUOTE]

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