People ask me who will replace John Havlicek this year. I tell them there will be another name on the roster, but that nobody will replace him—ever.
Tag Archives: Boston Celtics
Sam Jones: Cha-Ching, 1966
Sam is 32 years old now, but there was no indication last year that his speed was diminishing, while his skills and confidence rose to new heights.
Bob Cousy: One Magical Night in Boston Garden, 1953
Cooz, the reason for the mass delirium, just sat on the bench, hunched over, trying to hide the tears. “Thanks for everything. Thanks fellas,” he said to well-wishers and his teammates. “There was a prayer going with every shot. I certainly needed them. But I don’t want to have to play a game like that again. Boy, it’s too much. I was lucky.”
Bill Walton: Appreciating Perfection, 1986
Fans mostly see results, which is why the Moses Malones and Artis Gilmores of the world appeal far more to the uneducated than to the aficionados. Coaches look at Bill Walton the way young actors look at Laurence Olivier. They don’t know whether to be more impressed by what he knows or what he intuits.
Robert Parish: Hail to the Chief, 1994
He’s all over the NBA record book, of course, even if he doesn’t either know or care about such things. Going into the season, he was second in games played, fifth in blocks, seventh in minutes played, and ninth in field goals made and rebounds.
Nate Archibald: The Tiny Touch, 1982
“If you let it happen, this game will pass you by,” Archibald declares in looking at his different roles with the Celtics. “They gave me a challenge, and I had to meet it.”
Wilt Chamberlain vs. Bill Russell: A Decade of Battle, 1969
Russell or Chamberlain? How do you like your steak—rare, medium, or well done?
A Tribute to Bob Cousy, 1962
Basketball is an endless search for the “open” man today. An orthodox pass will never find him. Cousy has practiced the no-look feed so expertly, there have been movements to frisk him for mirrors.
Henry Finkel: Bill Russell’s Unfortunate Replacement, 1971
But it isn’t only Russell’s ghost. The problem is really Finkel himself. He is a quiet, gentle man, who never could hide in a crowd, not even when he was a youngster back in Union City, NJ.
How the Boston Celtics Established a Dynasty, 1976
The guiding hand behind those brilliant personnel decisions was, of course, Auerbach, the feisty, little, self-proclaimed “dictator” of the Celtics, who is still the club’s general manager and still producing winners. There is no longer a dynasty in Boston simply because no new Bill Russell has come along—and probably never will.
From Way Downtown 