Celtics took care of unfinished business in ’74
The NBA playoffs are under way, and I can’t help but think about a memorable series that took place 50 years ago. For the 197374 Celtics, it was all about unfinished business.
Winning a franchise-record 68 games the season before had them thinking the end result would be a 12th banner, especially since they had swept four regular-season games against the West champion Lakers. But John Havlicek seriously injured his right shoulder in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Knicks, which forced him, whenever he could get on the floor, to become more of a lefthanded player. He did score an amazing 18 points in a Game 5 victory, but it was unsustainable and the Knicks blasted the Celtics in Game 7 at Boston Garden.
The Celtics were less dominant (56-26) a season later, but they got past a spunky Buffalo Braves squad and had no trouble with an aging and injury-ridden Knicks team, advancing to face the West champion Bucks, who had the homecourt advantage with their 59-23 record.
Make no mistake, it was personal for me. I had begun covering the Celtics in 1969 at age 23 and these were indeed My Guys. My orientation had been college basketball. I needed to learn the nuances of NBA basketball, and what good fortune to have such mentors as Havlicek, Don Nelson, and
Satch Sanders. There were countless cups of airport coffee with coach Tom Heinsohn. And there were plenty of bars to close on the road with Hank Finkel and Steve Kuberski, and, of course, Nelson.
Socializing was easy. I was approximately the same age as Kuberski, Jo Jo White, and Don Chaney. I was two years older than the always intriguing Dave Cowens. I hit it off immediately with Paul Westphal, who became a lifelong friend. I wasn’t that much younger than the veterans, and I really hit the jackpot when a powerful personality named Paul Silas came aboard. I had plenty of conversations about, well, life, with that man.
The Bucks had misfortune before the Finals began. Starting guard Lucius Allen went down near the end of the regular season and was lost for good. Things got worse when sharpshooting Jon McGlocklin pulled a calf muscle in the second quarter of Game 1. As a result, Bucks coach Larry Costello had to switch journeyman forward Mickey Davis to guard. I’m sure the great Oscar Robertson wasn’t thrilled.
Speaking of Game 1, the Celtics set the tone for the series with a 35-19 first quarter en route to a stunning 98-83 triumph. Thus began the first and, to this day only, NBA Finals in which the road team won five games. After the Celtics won Game 3 at home to take a 2-1 lead, the home team never won again.
For those of us who covered it, this will always be the “Major Goolsby’s series.” Goolsby’s was, and is, a pub located almost equidistant between the Hyatt Regency Hotel and the Milwaukee Arena, or Mecca. It had the requisite Milwaukee gemütlichkeit. It was the unquestioned social center, so much so that the final off-day news conference before Game 7 was held there, rather the arena. (A particular highlight was the evening NBA PR guy Nick Curran left us his company credit card and told us to go drink up, which we did to the tune of $1,000, quite a sum in 1974 America.)
There was only one reason the Bucks hung in with their depleted backcourt, and that was the relentless brilliance of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who averaged 32 points, 17 rebounds, and 5 assists a game. And then there was The Hook, the dazzling 17-18-19-whatever-foot game-winner from the right corner in the Game 6 double-OT thriller described by the Globe envoy as “a game which had to be conceived by a diabolically unemployed heart specialist seeking 15,320 patients.” OK, that was yours truly.
The Celtics had seen enough. A postgame brainstorming conducted by Heinsohn, assistant coach John Killilea, and even Bob Cousy arrived at the conclusion that someone other than Kareem was going to have to beat them in Game 7. Kareem would be double- or triple-teamed, period. And so he was, actually being held scoreless for the span of 17:58 from the end of the first quarter into the third as the Celtics built a 17-point lead.
Cowens, upset with himself after a 5-for-19 Game 6, came out smoking with an 8-for-12 first half. Westphal provided a spark after the Bucks had cut into the lead. But it was Havlicek with the coffin closer, a driving 3-point play.
The final: Boston 102, Milwaukee 87. Order had been restored. The Celtics were back where they belonged. Champs again.
There were no charter flights in those days. We were flying back after that Sunday afternoon game and we were changing planes in Chicago. I caught up to Cowens and said, “Well, Dave, you’ve finally done it. How does it feel?”
“For me, the fun is in the doing,” he replied. “This is just something for my portfolio of basketball experiences,”
Where it ranks in his portfolio, I don’t know. What I do know is that it ranks pret-ty high in mine.