A day later, we went back to Boston facing a do-or-die situation. Either we won and forced a final game, or we watched the Celtics celebrate. That was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, especially on the parquet of Boston Garden. We scored eight straight in the opening quarter and were firmly in control, stretching our lead to 43–31 halfway through the second quarter.
Boston made a run in the third. But Kareem kept Cowens in foul trouble, and Bobby Dandridge was back on track, moving well without the ball and torching the Celtics whenever they sagged into the paint. With two minutes and thirty-five seconds left in the game, Kareem’s skyhook made it 84–78. Boston came back. Cowens drove past Kareem for a bucket. Don Chaney hit two free throws.
I was fouled on a drive and hit two free throws with a minute fifty-three left to give us a 86–82 lead. But those would be our last points in regulation. Hondo got free for an eighteen-footer, and then Cowens followed it up with a twenty-footer. With a minute left, the game was tied.
We held for the last shot. The clock was running down, and I was behind the top of the key, dribbling, about to run a pick and roll with Kareem. Suddenly, Dave Cowens hedged out and knocked the ball loose. Dave and I dove for the ball, and one ref called for a jump ball. Then backup referee Don Murphy ran into the fray.
He said the twenty-four-second clock had expired. Celtics’ ball. Our bench screamed for a foul. Boston’s fans went wild.
Jo Jo White missed a jumper. Don Chaney got the rebound and passed to Cowens, and he missed. We had a shot at the buzzer, but it was a wild rush. We were going to overtime.
After the game, John Havlicek said that the first overtime session featured some of the best defense he’d ever seen. Each team could score only four points. After a Curtis Perry tip gave us a 90–88 lead with twenty-eight seconds left, Kareem won a jump ball from Cowens, but Bobby Dandridge was pressured into a bad pass. Hondo dribbled the length of the floor, missed a foul-line jumper, but then followed up his miss. His bank shot with five seconds left tied the game.
The place shook with applause. We were going to double overtime.
I was tired, but at that point adrenaline carries you. It was without a doubt the most dramatic game I ever played in, and the stakes couldn’t have been any higher. After Havlicek started the second overtime with a jump shot from the right side, we struggled back and forth, with the lead flipping an incredible ten times in last three minutes and twenty-three seconds. Hondo all but carried their team, scoring nine of the Celtics’ eleven points in that session. With a minute and a half left, Dave Cowens fouled out. Trailing by one, the Celtics had to rely on Havlicek alone. Hondo got the ball off a pick and sped toward the lane with twelve seconds left, launching a fifteen-footer over Kareem for his thirty-fifth and thirty-sixth points, putting the Celtics up 101–100.
Eight seconds left. We called time-out. In the huddle, Larry diagrammed a play for Jon McGlocklin. Guys were confused because Jon had been hurt for most of the series, and had only five points in the game. But that was the play, and the horn sounded. I went to my position on the sideline to inbound the ball. Everyone broke for their moves, but Jon was covered. I saw that Kareem was free on the right side and threw a hard pass that couldn’t be intercepted.
Kareem turned into the lane for a moment, hoping to see McGlocklin cutting for the hoop. But Jon was still blanketed. Kareem spun toward the right baseline, took two dribbles and, on the run, some fifteen feet from the basket, from almost behind the basket really, went into the motion for his famous skyhook, shooting over the outstretched arms of Cowens’s replacement, Hank Finkel.
With three seconds left, Boston Garden went into a collective gasp, then a shocked silence, as the ball settled through the hoop and into the net.
“Man, I was happy to see that thing go in,” Kareem said.
A desperate shot at the buzzer by Boston wasn’t close, and with an epic 102–101 victory, we were heading home for a deciding game seven. We ran onto the court, celebrating while the shocked crowd revolted. Suddenly stunned by the turn of events, they started cursing us and throwing bottles as we made our way back to the locker room.
As he’d been the entire series, Kareem was truly heroic that night, with thirty-six points; Bobby Dandridge had twenty, and I had eighteen. At this point Larry was using his starters exclusively. I think each of us played the entire game, logging fifty-eight minutes apiece.
The game ended in the small hours of Saturday morning. We had less than forty-eight hours to travel and rest before game seven. Six games and three overtime periods translate into 303 minutes of active basketball. I had played in 291 of them. While I’d been a calming force and on-court general for our offense, the truth was I hadn’t shot well. Throughout the series, it seems we had been simultaneously trying to catch up to Boston and to hold them off. We were shorthanded and twice had given away the home-court advantage that we’d worked all season for. Yet somehow we’d hung in and weathered the storms and pressure. We had made it to the deciding game, and it would be played in front of our fans. After all of the shouting and excitement, here we were, forty-eight minutes away from a championship.
The final game of my career was played on Sunday, May 12, 1974. The Milwaukee arena was filled beyond its capacity of 10,746. I went out on the floor and warmed up.
The Celtics stole the opening tap, and Don Nelson scored on a layup. When I was bringing the ball inbounds, Don Chaney literally stood out-of-bounds with me and pressured me, tipping the pass. Havlicek scored on a jumper seconds later. The game was fifteen seconds old, and we were down 4–0.
Against Chaney’s pressure, I brought the ball up court, yelled out instructions, and got everyone settled. Immediately, we looked inside for the big guy. But for the first time in the series, Tom Heinsohn had switched his defense. Instead of having Cowens simply play Kareem one-on-one, he had his power forward—first Don Nelson and then Paul Silas—heading toward Kareem as well. A basketball maxim holds that you don’t want a team’s best player to beat you. Since Cornell Warner, our starting power forward, was not a good shot, Tom Heinsohn decided he’d leave him open in order to double Kareem. As if this wasn’t enough, whenever Kareem touched the ball, a third player, either Havlicek or Don Chaney or Jo Jo, depending on the situation, might also come down.
It was the right strategy. We’d seen the same things from each other for six games. With the whole ball of wax on the line, you’ve got to try to do something different. It didn’t mean that they surprised us—teams had been doubling Kareem his entire career. It didn’t mean we didn’t know what to do.
In a perfect world, Cornell Warner would have been able to make them pay. But Cornell wasn’t strong enough offensively to be given that kind of responsibility in a deciding game.
Kareem remained our first priority. We spread out our half-court offense so that nobody could cover the distance to Kareem in time to double him. Matched up against Cowens alone, Kareem hit a bank shot, then a follow-up, then two skyhooks. We kept pounding the ball inside, and our MVP was all but unstoppable, scoring fourteen points in the first quarter. A twenty-five-footer by Cowens at the buzzer broke the tie, but at 22–20, we were well within striking distance.
Immediately, Hondo stole the second-quarter tap and nailed a jumper off it, increasing their lead to four. Kareem answered by recognizing a double-team and hitting an open Curtis Perry for a dunk.
Coach Costello tried a few things to take the pressure off. He wanted guys to pass the ball up whenever possible and then attack the Celtics’ back line. It was a good idea in some ways. I was busting my ass on defense, following Jo Jo White through thickets of screens. Any break from the pressure would only help carry me into the second half and allow me to preserve some energy for crunch time. There was only one problem. When we went after the Celtics’ pressure this way, the ball went into the hands of guys who weren’t equipped to make ball-handling decisions. Things got ragged, and we got out of our half-court offense, and this only made the C
eltics apply more pressure. Instead of Kareem getting the ball in the post, we started settling for long jump shots, which triggered the Celtics own running game. Even the few jumpers we made were akin to fool’s gold, because they kept us away from working the ball inside, where our money really was. Cowens popped outside and nailed another jumper. Paul Silas hit a jumper. And John Havlicek was abusing poor Mickey Davis. Mickey was holding his own offensively, but he simply had no experience guarding guys out there. Boston got the ball in so low against him that they were almost in position to shoot layups before they started their offense.
On one occasion, we beat their pressure, and I pushed the ball up and had a wide-open eight-foot pull-up jumper—I probably didn’t miss that shot ten times in my career; I probably could make that shot right now.
It bounced off the back of the rim.
The next time I had the chance, I penetrated again, and at the last moment hit Kareem for a dunk. It marked the last points he’d have for almost eighteen minutes. Boston began to pull away. Bobby Dandridge, along with Mickey Davis and his substitute Jon McGlocklin, were scoring for us, but we’d gotten too far away from our game plan. The Celtics defense was relentless. We went into the locker room down 53–40. I wouldn’t say we were panicked. But something had to happen. Either we were going to get back on track, or we were going to lose.
In the locker room, Larry Costello didn’t have any changes or special defenses for us. At this point, there wasn’t anything else we could do. Kareem and Bobby and I had played the entire first two quarters, and we were going to have to go the whole distance. We didn’t have the energy or personnel for any tricks or changes at that point. Two days earlier might have been the time. Or at some point during the year, when I’d told management we needed another guard, might have been the time. Or if we’d have drafted anyone decent in the four years I’d been there. But it was too late to worry about any of this stuff. It was too late to complain about being exhausted. There are all kinds of reasons why things happen, but at this point there were no excuses.
In basketball, if you are going to lose, you want to go out with your guns blazing. You want your best players to have the ball.
We had to get back to our game. We had to stop taking bad shots and run our offense and try to pound them inside. It was as simple as that.
Midway through the third quarter, with the score 65–50, we started a run. Kareem ended up with a breakaway dunk off a loose ball. Following a strong defensive series, we slowed down, spread the court, and Mickey Davis fed Kareem for a skyhook across the lane. Another outside miss from Boston, and we grabbed the defensive board and walked it up. I caught Mickey coming off a screen. He pumped Hondo out of position and drained the shot, and it was a game again, 65–58; Boston had to call time-out.
A loose ball, a scrum on the floor. Havlicek stole the tip again, and once more our defense tightened and forced another Celtics’ miss from outside. We fed the big fella again. Despite a protest from Havlicek that was played on highlight shows for years to come, Hondo was called for a foul, and Kareem returned to the line. The action went back and forth. Kareem missed a skyhook, but Bobby Dandridge was fouled and went to the line.
Finally, Boston broke the slump when Havlicek made a marvelous driving reverse layup. After Kareem was fouled and hit one of two free throws, Dave Cowens answered with a tough fifteen-footer over Kareem.
When Curtis Perry rattled home a foul-line jumper, we’d cut the lead to 71–68. There were eleven minutes to play.
We would get no closer.
There were about ten minutes left when Dave Cowens hit another running hook shot. Coming back down the court, no answer. My jumper bounced long off the front rim. Boston got the rebound and headed the other way. I was caught in a gray area and couldn’t get back in time. Jo Jo White scored on the transition layup, and the lead was back to seven. Boston would score eight straight points on us, pushing the cushion back to double figures.
Though we managed another run to bring the deficit to 87–79 with four minutes, thirty-five seconds to play, it was cosmetic. Hondo scored six straight. Cowens had four. Paul Westphal added a free throw. I remember watching and not being able to stop or do anything about any of it. I remember the fans in the same sort of daze. With two minutes to go and the score 98–79, Red Auerbach was on the other sideline, lighting up his cigar. Larry called time-out.
In the huddle he told us to be proud of ourselves, and pulled the starting lineup.
I played forty-six minutes that night, scored six points on two of thirteen shooting, and did not have a field goal in the second half, though I did add six assists and three rebounds. It wasn’t the way I would have chosen to end the series, let alone my career, but I have no regrets. There wasn’t a second when I wasn’t doing everything I could out there.
The final buzzer sounded, and the Celtics celebrated the 102–87 victory and their twelfth title in eighteen seasons.
I went into the Celtics locker room afterwards. Amid all the champagne and bedlam, I sought out John Havlicek. He was telling reporters that of the six titles he’d been involved in, this one meant the most to him. I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Congratulations,” I said. “You deserved it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Endings
1974–1976
AND SO I WAS RETIRED—or was I? The Bucks kept me on their active roster through the summer and asked me not to announce my retirement. It was curious. Since I hadn’t had a contract through the playoffs, I wasn’t sure that, if I decided that I wanted to play again, the Bucks still even owned my rights. Rather than answer them, or even think about this stuff, I spent time with Yvonne and the kids and worked on a pair of real estate projects that would bring housing to low-income people in Cincinnati. My physical condition was fine, I stayed in shape, but I didn’t have plans to play or coach.
Eventually, Wayne Embry and Bucks president Bill Alverson called me in for a meeting. Wayne wanted me to come back and let it ride for a final run. His only caveat was about my contract. The NBA rules declared that for them to re-sign me, my new contract would have to contain the same clauses and the same monetary value as my old one. This not only meant paying me a minimum salary of $250,000, it also meant no-cut and no-trade clauses.
The NBA already had plans to add two more teams at the end of the 1976 season. This meant that at the end of the season, established clubs would lose two players each to an expansion draft. If a player had a no-cut clause, he had to be listed on his team’s roster for purposes of the expansion draft. Moreover, if he had a no-trade clause, he had to be protected from such a draft. I fell into both of these categories.
The Bucks wanted me back, Wayne said. But they also wanted to get me signed without the no-cut and no-trade provisions, so as to protect their younger players. The only way they could do this was to not send me a contract by August 1. This would make me a free agent. Then we could renegotiate from scratch.
Bill Alverson mentioned the possibility of getting involved with building some housing in and around Milwaukee. They hadn’t done that for anybody, but they said they’d help me.
I said, “Are you telling me that’s it?”
Alverson said, “Well, we thought this was the best thing for you.”
I told them that if I was going to come back, I had to have the no-trade and no-cut clauses. The Bucks president said he couldn’t approve it. Considering my age and my injuries . . .
I answered that John Havlicek had those clauses, and he was my age.
It was a matter of economics, Wayne responded.
When you’ve played and worked a long time in sports, you get accustomed to people and their dealings. The meeting ended. August first came and went. I officially became a free agent. From my end, that was pretty much the end of things between the Milwaukee Bucks and me. While I wished them nothing but success, the moment they relinquished their rights to me, I stopped being interested in what they did.
The
only problem with this was that as of August 15, 1974, Milwaukee still had me listed on their official roster. So while they may not have wanted me back, they sure didn’t want anyone else to know I was available. Maybe they figured I might come back at a cut rate. Or that I could be an insurance policy if someone else got hurt. I don’t really know.
By now training camp was less than a month away. Word was starting to get out. The ABA’s the Spirits of St. Louis had gotten into the act and obtained their own version of negotiating rights for me. They had just moved from North Carolina, renamed the franchise, and almost disbanded their whole team. I wasn’t heading there. I was not going to the ABA under any circumstances.
Around this time, a representative from CBS called. They’d fired Elgin Baylor from the analyst’s position halfway through the season. Rick Barry—who had to sit out a year between jumping leagues—had been hired as his replacement and finished the season and the playoffs. Now Rick was heading back onto the court. Did I have any interest in being a television analyst?
It was an odd possibility. Most of my career had been spent deflecting the media or giving them whatever information our union needed to get out. I’d never really thought about working on the other side of the microphone. I gave it a little thought and immediately saw advantages. I’d still be around basketball. I’d be able to travel on the weekends to broadcast games, while during the week, I’d be at home with my family.
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