April 13, 1957: The greatest dynasty in the history of basketball begins.
The Boston Celtics were a charter franchise in the Basketball Association of America. But their 1st decade of play gave little indication of what was to come. In the 1946-47 season, the Celtics missed the Playoffs. The lost in the 1st Round in 1948. They missed the Playoffs again in 1949 and 1950.
In 1949, the Washington Capitols reached the Finals, losing to the Minneapolis Lakers. Then the BAA merged with the National Basketball League, and the Caps' coach knew he needed reinforcements. Team owner Mike Uline refused his requests, and the coach resigned.
The Capitols folded in 1951. The NBA would not return to Washington until 1973. Titles won since 1951: Boston 17, Washington 1. Mike Uline's punishment has been to be forgotten. It should have been to be ridiculed, as the dumbest sports team owner in D.C. area history, even more than Daniel Snyder.
The coach that Uline fired was a native of Brooklyn, who had played in D.C. at George Washington University. In spite of this resignation, and all the success he had later elsewhere, he lived in D.C. for the rest of his life. His name was Arnold Jacob Auerbach. For what little hair he had left, he was called Red.
He coached the 1949-50 season with the Tri-Cities Blackhawks, and missed the Playoffs. And team owner Ben Kerner not only refused to add to his talent, but traded away John Mahnken, Auerbach's favorite player. Auerbach resigned again.
Walter Brown owned the Boston Garden, and thus was the owner of the Celtics, and the NHL's Boston Bruins. He also owned the Ice Capades. As the President of the Boston Athletic Association, he was in charge of the Boston Marathon. He knew sports in general.
But in preparation for the 1950-51 season, he admitted to a gathering of Boston sportswriters, "Boys, I don't know anything about basketball. Who would you recommend I hire as coach?" Auerbach was available, and was immediately recommended. Auerbach demanded total control over player movement -- in other words, he wanted to be the general manager as well as the head coach. Brown gave it to him.
Auerbach drafted Chuck Cooper of Duquesne University, making him the 1st black player drafted by an NBA team. The way things worked out, Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton became the 1st black player signed to an NBA contract, by the New York Knicks; and Earl Lloyd of the Capitols became the 1st black player to actually get into a game, a night before Cooper and Clifton did so.
Cooper's influence was much more off the court than on: He played just 4 seasons with the Celtics, and 6 in the NBA; but his presence on the Celtics meant that Auerbach and Brown were willing to sign anyone that they thought could help them win, regardless of race.
In 1951, the Celtics made the Playoffs, but lost in the Division Finals to a stronger Knicks team. The same thing happened in 1952. In 1953, they beat the Syracuse Nationals in the 1st round, but lost the Division Finals to the Knicks. In 1954, they lost the Division Finals to the Nationals. In 1955, for the 1st time, they beat the Knicks in the Playoffs, but lost the Division Finals to the Nationals. And in 1956, they lost the Division Semifinals to the Nationals. In other words, the Celtics were a good team, but not quite good enough.
On April 30, 1956, the NBA Draft was held in New York. With the 1st pick, the Celtics selected Tommy Heinsohn, forward from the nearby College of the Holy Cross. The team's biggest star, guard Bob Cousy, was also a Holy Cross graduate, having helped them win the 1947 NCAA Tournament.
With the 2nd pick, the Rochester Royals selected Sihugo Green, a guard from Duquesne. Green was a decent player, but hardly the kind of star you would expect to go as the 2nd pick overall.
With the 3rd pick, the St. Louis Hawks -- formerly the Tri-Cities Blackhawks -- drafted Bill Russell, a center who had led the University of San Francisco to back-to-back National Championships. It looked like the Hawks had gotten the better player.
But later that day, the Hawks traded the rights to Russell to the Celtics, for 2 All-Stars, center Ed Macauley and forward Cliff Hagan. Ben Kerner was still their owner, and was still cheap, and didn't want to pay the money he was sure that Russell would demand. (He may have had a point: After Wilt Chamberlain became the 1st NBA player to receive a contract for $100,000 a year, Russell asked Auerbach for $100,001 -- and got it.)
That explains why the Hawks traded the rights to Russell. But why didn't the Royals draft him? Walter Brown pulled a dirty trick: Knowing that Royals owner Lester Harrison needed money for the new arena he'd just opened (it's still there, under the name of the Blue Cross Arena, though the Royals moved away in 1957), Brown told Harrison that if you pass on Russell, I'll send the Ice Capades to Rochester. Thinking of the revenue that this would generate, Harrison took one of the oddest trades in NBA history.
Due to being set in the Southern Hemisphere, in Melbourne, Australia, the 1956 "Summer" Olympics were held from November 22 to December 8. Bill Russell and his USF teammate K.C. Jones led the U.S. team to the Gold Medal.
Therefore, they couldn't make their NBA debut until December 22, 1956. As things turned out, it was against the Hawks, at the Boston Garden. Russell scored only 6 points, but Heinsohn scored 19, and Cousy and Jack Nichols (not to be confused with Jack Nicholson) each scored 16, and the Celtics won, 95-93.
The Celtics finished the regular season 44-28, winning the Eastern Division, and a bye to the Eastern Division Finals, where they swept the Nationals in 3 straight. With Mikan retired, the Lakers were no match for the Hawks, who swept them. Each franchise was now in a league final for the 1st time.
Game 1 was played on March 30, at the Boston Garden. Bob Pettit, the best forward in the game at the time, scored 37 points for the Hawks. Bill Sharman, the best shooter in the game at the time, scored 36 for the Celtics. Heinsohn hit a shot to force overtime, and Cousy one to force double overtime, but the luck for which the Celtics would later become known ran out, and the Hawks won, 125-123. A classic NBA Finals was underway.
The Celtics ran away with Game 2, 119-99. The series moved west, and the Hawks held firm at the Kiel Auditorium, winning 100-98. Pettit hit the game-winning shot with 44 seconds left. But the Celtics overcame 33 from Pettit, including with 31 from Cousy, and took back the home-court advantage by winning Game 4, 123-118.
The series went back to Boston, and the Celtics won Game 5, 124-109. It went back to St. Louis, and the Hawks won Game 6, 96-94, on a buzzer-beater by Hagan. It would be decided on a Saturday afternoon at the Boston Garden, April 13, 1957, in front of a crowd officially listed as 13,909, due to Boston fire laws, but there might have been as many as 20,000 in the building.
The Hawks led 28-26 after 1 quarter, and 53-51 at the half. The Celtics jumped ahead in the 3rd quarter, taking an 83-79 lead. But Pettit hit a pair of free throws with 7 seconds left, and at the end of regulation, it was Hawks 103, Celtics 103. With 9 seconds left in overtime, the Hawks' Jack Coleman sank a shot to send the game to a 2nd overtime.
In the end, the Hawks had 39 points from Pettit, 24 from Hagan, and 23 from Slater Martin (a key figure in the early 1950s Minneapolis Laker dynasty). Only 1 Celtic scored more than Russell's 19, but that was Heinsohn with 37. After 58 minutes of play, including 2 overtimes, it was Celtics 125, Hawks 123. It remains the only NBA Finals Game 7 to go to a 2nd overtime.
The teams would play each other in 4 Finals in 5 seasons. In Game 3 of the 1958 Finals, Russell injured his ankle, and the Hawks won the franchise's only title. In 1960 and 1961, the Celtics beat the Hawks. The Hawks have not been back to the Finals since, and moved to Atlanta in 1968. The Kiel Auditorium was demolished, and the Kiel Center, the new home of the NHL's St. Louis Blues, opened on the site in 1994. It is now named the Enterprise Center.
Russell would play 13 seasons for the Celtics, make the Finals 12 times, and win 11 NBA Championships. He and Henri Richard of the Montreal Canadiens are the only people in North American major league sports with more championship rings than they have fingers to put them on.
Auerbach retired as head coach after the 1966 season, and named Russell the 1st black coach in modern major league sports. He led them to the title in 1968 and 1969, then retired as a player. Auerbach remained in charge of personnel decisions with the Celtics until 1997, winning a total of 16 NBA Championships. The Celtics (and the Bruins) moved from the Boston Garden to the next-door arena now known as the TD Garden in 1995.
Auerbach died in 2006. Russell and Cousy are the last 2 surviving players from the 1957 NBA Champions.
*
April 13, 1957 was a Saturday. Comedian Gary Kroeger, best known for being a castmember of Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, was born.
The Major League Baseball season was about to begin, and the NFL was out of season. The Stanley Cup Finals were underway. The Montreal Canadiens led the Boston Bruins, 3 games to none. On April 14, the Bruins won Game 4, 2-0 at the Boston Garden. But on April 16, at the Montreal Forum, the Canadiens won, 5-1, and finished the Bruins off.
This was the 1st time that the same arena had hosted the NBA Finals and the Stanley Cup Finals in the same year. The Boston Garden would host both again in 1958 and 1974. It would be done by Madison Square Garden in New York in 1972 and 1994 (the latter being the closest any building has ever come to winning both), The Spectrum in Philadelphia in 1976 and 1980, the Chicago Stadium in 1992, and the Meadowlands Arena in 2003.
Also on April 13, 1957, Arsenal travel to the North-East of England, and lose 1-0 to Sunderland at Roker Park.
No comments:
Post a Comment