The John Havlicek Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Thursday, October 18th,
2007
During your Celtics career you played for Red Auerbach, Bill Russell and Tom
Heinsohn. What did these men have in common, and how were they
different?
Red
Auerbach was a person who was able to motivate people, and I think that this
was probably his strongest asset. Red
had a situation where he could
yell at people a little bit and get away with it. He was intense.
What made him so smart was that he knew which players he could yell at and
which ones he shouldn't. He yelled at Tommy quite a bit, but you
didn't see him doing those types of things to Bob Cousy.
With Russ, I knew that we were going to have basically the same system, and also pretty much have the same core group of players. I think Russ's biggest adjustment as coach came with cutting players in training camp, because cutting players was something that he really didn't like to do.
Tommy was totally different that Red and Russ - he was far more relational with his players. When I was a player, Tommy and I were roommates, and we used to call him the social director because he knew where all of the good restaurants and movie houses were at the time. Didn't matter what city, Tommy always had those types of things figured out. Suddenly I find him as my coach, and all of a sudden all of these things have restrictions and limits to them [laughs].
But Tommy was the right man for the job of rebuilding the Celtics after Russ and Sam Jones retired. I think he was more patient than Russ or Red would have been, which was crucial since he inherited such a young club.
You won six championships playing alongside Bill Russell, and following his
retirement the Celtics were in a rebuilding mode. How difficult a
period was this for you?
Well,
it was really quite difficult for me, and I was short-tempered a lot of the
time. During my first seven seasons we had veteran teams, and I was
really the kid on those teams. Suddenly everything was flip-flopped; I
was the old man on a team loaded with young players. When all of the
rookies came in, I can recall the first exhibition game we played in 1970.
You had Dave Cowens, Jo Jo White, Don Chaney and Garfield Smith on the court
with me. The referee turns and looks at me, and asks if this is really
the Boston Celtics on the floor [laughs].
Rookies and younger players are going to go out there and make mistakes, and that's exactly what happened. I tried my best to help them get over these rough spots, but I really had a hard time with it. That's why I don't think I could have ever been a coach.
The 1972-73 Boston Celtics posted the best regular season record in team
history, going 68-14 and looking like a slam dunk to win the NBA
Championship. All of that changed during the Eastern Conference Finals
against the New York Knicks. What happened?
I
thought all year long that we would win the championship. We won 68
games during the regular season, had the best record in the NBA, and heading
into the playoffs I thought we were playing with tremendous confidence and
momentum. We won our first round series against the Atlanta Hawks, and
really didn't have much trouble in that series against them. Three of
our wins were blowouts. Unfortunately, I separated my shoulder
during the series with the Knicks, and it became an issue. The injury
kept me out of a key game that we lost in double overtime. I thought that
'72-'73 was going to be our year, but the shoulder injury just devastated
the whole thing. Injuries are an important factor in any championship
run. You have to be fortunate not to lose players or have people laid
up, because if you do then it is going to take something away from the team.
Suddenly you're not as deep, the rotation is different, the combinations
aren't the same, the chemistry might not be what is was before the injury.
That's what happened to us. We didn't have the same confidence, and
everything was suddenly a lot more difficult. Credit goes to the
Knicks for beating us. They capitalized on the injury and beat us in
seven games.
By
1974 the rebuilding was complete - the Boston Celtics were world champions once
again, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks in a thrilling seven game series.
What did that feel like?
That
particular championship was probably the one I enjoyed the most, because it was
probably the one that I played the best in. I can recall that
double-overtime game when Don Chaney deflected the ball and I ran down the court
- there were fifteen seconds left on the clock, and Heinsohn was calling
timeout. Well, I shot the ball, followed the miss and put it back up and
in the basket as time expired. That sent the game into double-overtime.
I hit three shots in the period, we were up 99-98, but then Mickey Davis hits a
big shot to take the lead. We ran a play with time winding down, and I
make a shot on the baseline to put us back up by one. The Bucks responded
by running a play for Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and he hit that famous hook shoot
along the baseline as time expired to beat us on our home floor.
Many people came up to my after the game and said that I didn't look like the same person who started the game. I can understand that, because I played 58 minutes, and it was a grueling experience. But I was prepared to continue, and to play as long as it took to win that game. Unfortunately we lost it, which meant that we had to travel to Milwaukee for Game 7. We were determined to win that game, and that's exactly what we did. It was an unbelievable feeling.