Full Transcript for Celtics Countdown #3: John Havlicek, the Most Underrated Legend in Celtics History

be an All-Anniversary team, no matter how long he plays. The number's retired. And just an interesting thing, he was the captain of the Ohio State basketball team, which I'll talk about later. They won a a NCAA championship when he was in college, which we'll get into. Havlicek Growing up was an all Ohio great athlete in high school in three sports. And he made first team in three sports which is incredible. Incredible. He was a captain and quarterback of the football team. Baseball, he hit his last two years 414 and 484, and he was all Ohio [00:04:00] there. Basketball, he was just a, a great player. So he had all that. Just incredible. But in, in college, and you gotta hear the players that he played with at Ohio State, they won a national championship, but he was known as a defender, oddly enough. His teammates, Jerry Lucas, I think you might have heard of him, great rebounder, played with a couple teams, Cincinnati, the Knicks, and so on, Golden State and I believe a Hall of Famer. Larry Siegfried, who played with the C's. He played with the C's, pretty good backup p- guard, played, started a little bit, and was a nice player. Mel Knoll. Mel Knoll played in the NBA for a year and also played in the ABA with the bu-- ga-- either the New Jersey Americans or the Nets, but he play... I believe the Americans. And then there's another guy you might have heard of, the fifth starter, guy by the name of Bob Knight. Now, he was the fifth starter on our team. He, he did okay in his life. He became a pretty good basketball coach. So not bad. As a [00:05:00] freshman, Havlicek was such a great athlete that he played on the freshman football team. Woody Hayes was the coach. Think of these people here I'm naming. These are all people if you're a little bit younger, they're a lot younger than me, but if you are younger, you're sitting there saying, "My goodness, this is like a who's who." So now in 1962, he's graduated he's out of college. The Celtics drafted him, the Browns and another team, the Cleveland Pipers. There was a league called the American Basketball League. The Pipers had a team. You'll be interested to know that George Steinbrenner was the owner of the Pipers. They went out of business, so although they drafted him, they couldn't sign him obviously 'cause the league was, went under and so on. But he also was a wide-- went to the Browns camp that summer and was a wide receiver in their c- camp. He was one of their last cuts, thank God, because then he got to play with the Celtics. And so he, as a player and I'm gonna get into a [00:06:00] little bit about him in a few seconds, but the biggest thing was he just kept moving. He was always moving, finding openings, getting open, going to the basket and beating his teammates. Had incredible energy, which I'll talk about when I talk about his minutes played. He played a great deal in every game. But he was just always moving and always creating havoc, and then on the defensive end, solid, an

outstanding defender. In his early years with the Celtics, great player, but he came off the bench, believe it or not, and that was part of that sixth man tradition that Red had gotten started with. In '65, and you've all heard this one, that was the famous time, game seven against Philly. Boston's winning by one point with nine seconds left or s- whatever, and Philly-- Russell's taking the ball out after Philly scores. Russell throws it, and it hits the guide [00:07:00] wire above the basket. Back then, the baskets h- were held in place with wires going back up into the rafters, and they would tie it and keep the basket solid. He hit it. Now that's a violation. Now it's Philly ball. People are panicking. It's 110-109, and I do vaguely remember this, and if you haven't, go to YouTube and watch the tape of it Hal Greer is taking the ball out. Now Philly's got it. There's a panic in Boston. Oh my God, Philly's got it under the basket. They had this pretty good big guy named Wilt Chamberlain playing, and you're thinking, "Oh my God." If you watch it, you're gonna see a couple things. First of all, there's not much movement. I don't know what Philly was trying to do, but there wasn't much movement going on. Now, he's about to throw it in. Havlicek is looking over his shoulder and sees the throw coming in. He co- moves away from his man and goes towards the ball and tips it to Sam Jones. Sam Jones dribbles [00:08:00] and dribbles the clock out. The big thing about that made it so famous was Johnny Most. If you don't know who Johnny Most is this great announcer who did Celtic games on radio for many years. "High atop courtside," he would say, "I'm Johnny Most." Johnny Most kept yelling, "Havlicek stole the ball. Havlicek steals it. Ha..." And he went on for a while. So that steal became famous because of all that. Now, by, by-- in 1968, the Celtics were down three to one. Now they had this coach named Bill Russell, first Black player coach, Black coach and player coach. He wasn't the first player coach. Dave Debusschere was before him and there were some others. But anyway Russell, first year Philly broke the dynasty by winning in '67. In '68, Philly's got Boston down three to one in the playoffs. Boston will come back and win three straight. [00:09:00] What is overlooked in that, which is really interesting, Russell became the first coach to win a title, a Black coach, obviously. But in game five, Havlicek 29, nine rebounds, 10, 10 assists. In game seven, 21, 12, and eight. Boston wins game seven 100 to 96, being I believe it was the first team to come back from being down three to one in a playoff series. In-- finally, in '69, '70, Bill Russell is retired. John Havlicek becomes a starter. The '72, '73 Celtics, which I remember that year very well, the Celtics had the best record during the season. In the playoffs, I believe they beat Atlanta in the first round. They've got the Knicks. Havlicek really hurts his shoulder bad. They tore some muscles in it and all. So he misses a game. Boston falls behind three to one in the series. He does play, but he plays left-handed. This is how the [00:10:00] greatness of John Havlicek. Plays left-handed, and Boston comes back to tie it at three, three. I remember game seven, it was a Sunday afternoon. Celtics tanked. They were terrible. The Knicks won easily, and Dean Meminger, former Marquette star, had a great game for the Knicks, probably the best game he ever played for the Knicks. Celtics lose it. But in '74, Havlicek and the Celtics will rebound. They will beat the Bucks in seven games with a guy that you, again, you've heard of, is by the name of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He was their big man before he got traded to the Lakers. Celtics beat them in seven, and John, again, was the MVP of that series '75, '76, they win a title again. But their most memorable thing about that se- year was game five against the Phoenix Suns in the finals. Triple overtime. What I remember sitting in a bar watching the [00:11:00] game, Havlicek just making some runners, some big shots. He made one with one second left in maybe overtime or second overtime that you thought the game was over 'cause one second left. Phoenix calls timeout. They have no more timeouts. Back then, the penalty was a technical foul. Phoenix is down by one. Boston makes the foul shot. It's a two-point game. Phoenix throws it, and Gar Heard, who was a pretty good big for- foreman, he hits a, a ridiculous long shot. It was only two points back then, thank God. So now we go on. Finally, Boston does win it in three overtimes. A guy by the name of Glenn McDonald, who went to Long Beach, I believe, was a first-round pick for the Celtics, had his moment of infamy by s- bailing the Celtics out in overtime, and the Celtics win the title. After winning that game, they wrap up the title. And he stuck around till '77, '78. He still at 38 years old [00:12:00] in '78, was scoring 16.1. He retired at 38. Now, what- here's what's interesting. If he stuck around for another year, and he could've, and he would've been fine, Larry Bird was coming. But at that point in '78, it looked like there was no hope for the Celtics. They were bad, and they were gonna continue to be bad Red pulled off the deal for Larry Bird, and I'll talk about that at another time. And then, the Celtics flourished in the '80s. But Havlicek, the shame was he was gone. He's one of the great guys, players of all time. Now I'm gonna read something to you that'll be very interesting. In '69, '70, think about today's players where they don't play back-to-back, or a lot of them, a lot of them, their minutes stay in the 30s, mid-30s, even the stars. In '69, '70, 41.6 minutes a game. These are the minutes per game. '71, 45.4 minutes. 45.4. [00:13:00] Wilt Chamberlain was the only one with probably more minutes per game, but 45.4, that means he's only sitting out about two and a half minutes a game. '72, 45.1. '73, 42.1. And '74, 40.7. Now, in '74, if you do the math, he was 34 years old, still playing that. In '78, the last year in the NBA, he was at 34.1 minutes a game. Think about this. Think about guys, guys in their prime are playing 34, they're stars. This guy was doing it at, at, at 70 at 38. Now, what are my memories of Havlicek? My memories were perpetual motion. My memories were his-- he wasn't a great shooter, but he could score. He was a great scorer. My memories were he was always doing something on the offensive end. My memories were until you watched him enough, you realized how-- you didn't realize how great [00:14:00] he was. John Havlicek in any other franchise would be considered the greatest player they had. Fortunately, with the Celtics, there's some others. But he is and was a great player. The problem, again, was that he played in the '70s, in the darker times for the NBA, where people were turned off by the drugs and the problems of the NBA. But when you look at the body of work, you understand this is one of the greatest Celtics of all time. That's it for this week. I'll be back next week with number two on our Celtic Chalk Talk pod.