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By: \u00a0Michael D. McClellan\u00a0|<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>He was a high school phenom, a Paul Bunyan in basketball shorts, a player would later join John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas on a championship quest at Ohio State. That Larry Siegfried would eventually follow Havlicek to professional glory with the Boston Celtics is hardly surprising:\u00a0 Siegfried\u2019s sweet shooting touch and trip-hammer release translated well from high school to college, and then again into the pros, his presence on the Celtic roster helping keep basketball\u2019s greatest dynasty rolling through the close of the 1960s.<\/p>\n Siegfried, who grew up on the rolling farmland just outside of Shelby, Ohio, spent countless hours shooting baskets against the family barn. The ball and the hoop were relatively inexpensive toys for a blue-collar family on a budget. Siegfried often shot alone, honing his jumper, playing imaginary games against All-Americans like Ralph Beard and Alex Groza of Kentucky, or Dick Schnittker of Ohio State. At Shelby High School, Siegfried found himself playing both inside and out, rarely resting on the bench during a phenomenal senior season, the All-State guard a constant headache for opposing coaches tasked with slowing him down. Siegfried averaged a whopping 38 points-per-game during that final campaign in \u201857, leading Shelby to a state basketball championship. He was named co-recipient of Ohio\u2019s Player-of-the-Year Award in the process, a year before Jerry Lucas would claim the same honor.<\/p>\n For Siegfried, playing for his home state Buckeyes seemed a match made in heaven; the team was a national power, and head coach Fred Taylor was\u00a0promising a system built around his athleticism and versatility.\u00a0\u00a0The Buckeyes roared to the 1960 Big Ten Championship during his junior season, with five starters –\u00a0Siegfried, Lucas, Havlicek, Mel Nowell and Joe Roberts – all later playing in the NBA.\u00a0 Ohio State then dominated California 75-55 to win the 1960 national championship.<\/p>\n “I had a love affair with those kids,” Taylor would say years later. “They weren’t very sound defensively at the start of the season. As they progressed, they could play pretty thorny defense.”<\/p>\n There would be plenty of winning the next season, Siegfried\u2019s last as a member of the Buckeyes. The team would finish the regular season undefeated, capture another Big Ten Championship, and then make an encore appearance in the championship game. OSU was 27-0 when it landed in the 1961 final against intrastate rival Cincinnati, only to find itself deadlocked with the Bearcats,\u00a061-61, at the end of regulation. The Bearcats then pulled away, 70-65 in overtime, behind the play of Bob Wiesenhahn and Tom Thacker, ending OSU\u2019s dream of repeating as national champs.<\/p>\n The Cincinnati Royals nabbed Siegfried with the third overall selection in the 1961 NBA Draft, but he opted to sign with the ABL Cleveland Pipers instead. Cincinnati dealt his draft rights to St. Louis during the 1963-64 regular season, only to waive Siegfried before ever signing him to a contract.<\/p>\n Red Auerbach and the Boston Celtics were kings of the NBA when Siegfried hit the waiver wire, winners of six championships in a seven-year span, including five in a row. With Bill Sharman\u2019s retirement in 1961, followed by Bob Cousy\u2019s departure two years later, the Celtics were a team in need of depth in the backcourt. Auerbach paid the $1,000 waiver fee, and\u00a0Siegfried joined the Celtics midway through the 1963-64 regular season.\u00a0\u00a0Ironically, the Cincinnati Royals would await Boston in the Eastern Finals, providing Siegfried with an added measure of motivation. He played sparingly in that series, but he played well when called up, and the Celtics rolled to a 4-1 victory and a chance to win a record sixth consecutive NBA crown. Three weeks later the Celtics would defeat the San Francisco Warriors 105-99 in Game 5 of the 1964 NBA Finals, and Siegfried would add an NBA Championship to the collegiate title that he had won at OSU.<\/p>\n The following season a mature Larry Siegfried eased comfortably into his niche. With the benefit of a full training camp under his belt, and with a newfound trust placed in him by Auerbach, Siegfried played in 72 games and upped his scoring average to 6.3 PPG. Loathe to fill a specific roll at Ohio State, he was now the first guard off of the bench \u2013 and loving every minute of it. The Celtics stormed to a 62-18 regular season record and into the 1965 Eastern Finals. It was there, in Game 7, that John Havlicek made his incredible steal to preserve a 110-109 lead and send the Philadelphia 76ers packing. Siegfried, now an official part of the Celtic Family, found himself in a second consecutive NBA Finals. A 4-1 dispatching of the Los Angeles Lakers brought yet another championship to Boston. The Celtics, with Siegfried in tow, were now on an undeniable roll of near mythic proportions.<\/p>\n The 1965-66 season would be Auerbach\u2019s last on the bench. With it came an eighth consecutive NBA crown, and a greater roll for Siegfried. He finished the season as the team\u2019s third leading scorer (13.7 PPG), this despite not starting, and burnished his reputation as an all-around talent off of the bench. A year later his average increased yet again, to 14.1 PPG, but the Celtics\u2019 championship run was history. Wilt Chamberlain and the 76ers were the new kings of the NBA. Boston, led by player-coach Bill Russell, looked old and unable to continue its dominance of the 1960s.<\/p>\n All of that changed a year later. The 1967-68 Celtics went 54-28, and then upset the heavily favored Sixers 4-3 in the Eastern Finals. A 4-2 defeat of the Los Angeles Lakers gave Russell & Co. an incredible 10 titles in twelve years. Siegfried averaged 12.2 PPG. More importantly, he now had four NBA championships in five years with the Celtics.<\/p>\n Another championship would follow in 1969. Russell and Sam Jones would bow out as champions, and the team would go into rebuilding mode. Tommy Heinsohn would take over as head coach, and the team would select All-American guard Jo Jo White from Kansas in the 1969 NBA Draft. A year later the Celtics left Siegfried unprotected in the NBA expansion draft. He would play parts of two seasons for the San Diego\/Houston Rockets, and then finish his career after 21 games with the Atlanta Hawks. Through it all he remained a Celtic at heart, thankful for his place in history and his role on greatest dynasty the NBA has ever known.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You were born on May 22nd, 1939, in Shelby, Ohio.\u00a0 Please tell me a little about your childhood.<\/strong><\/p>\n I was raised on a farm, so I spent most of my youth working on the farm.\u00a0 I came from a very modest family.\u00a0 My father worked in a factory.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have all of the toys that everyone else had, so I had to figure out something that I could do on my own.\u00a0 Basketball was a cheap play and didn\u2019t require anyone else to be there, so that\u2019s kind of how I got started.\u00a0 Dad bought me a basketball and put up a hoop.\u00a0 I remember playing alone, for hours on end, out there by the garage.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By all accounts, you were a pretty good high school basketball player.<\/strong><\/p>\n Being a farm type of kid, I had a pretty good work ethic.\u00a0 Being competitive also helped.\u00a0 My senior year was a wild experience, because we got beat in the regional finals and I averaged over 40 points per game.\u00a0 My high school coach was smart enough to recognize that I was versatile and could do a lot of things really well.\u00a0 He said that if I was going to make it in college, then I was going to have to make it as a guard.\u00a0 He structured the offense in a way that allowed me to play outside as well as inside.\u00a0 From that experience I was able to learn all of the positions of the game of basketball.\u00a0\u00a0I was 6\u20193\u201d or 6\u20194\u201d, and I played center, forward and guard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You had good size for a guard.<\/strong><\/p>\n At that time, a 6\u20194\u201d guard was unheard of at the high school level.\u00a0 Heck, back then there weren\u2019t that many guards in the Big Ten that size.\u00a0 Oscar [Robertson] played forward in college.\u00a0 He may have brought the ball up the court because he had that ability, but he wasn\u2019t what I\u2019d call a legitimate guard.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You couldn’t play multiple positions in college.<\/strong><\/p>\n Being able to do a lot of things as a high school basketball player was a very positive experience.\u00a0 But as I progressed to the next level, I ran into more specialization.\u00a0 Specialization has its place, but it becomes a liability to a player who is capable of doing a variety of things on the court.\u00a0 That\u2019s exactly what happened to me at Ohio State.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Please tell me about your relationship with the legendary Fred Taylor.<\/strong><\/p>\n First of all, I would be lying if I didn\u2019t tell you that I had problems with my college coach.\u00a0 When I signed with Ohio State, I was being recruited for my versatility.\u00a0 It was my understanding that the offense at Ohio State would resemble the system that I\u2019d played in high school, and that I would be able to utilize my talents all over the court.\u00a0 Freshman weren\u2019t allowed to play varsity ball back then, so a whole year passed before I started to see what was really happening.\u00a0 As a sophomore, I was either one or two in the Big Ten in scoring, but I was gradually being moved away from the role I’d played in high school.\u00a0 The key word is gradual.\u00a0 I got a taste of varsity ball that sophomore season, and while it wasn\u2019t exactly what I\u2019d been doing at Shelby, I was still somewhat of a focal point in the offense.\u00a0\u00a0The following year is when [Jerry] Lucas and [John] Havlicek came into the program, and my role on the team changed.\u00a0 Suddenly, I became just a guard.\u00a0 It was very frustrating.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n With the influx of talent, did others have to make sacrifices?<\/strong><\/p>\n Take Luke [Jerry Lucas] for a second.\u00a0 Luke was a great high school center.\u00a0 He went to Ohio State and he was a great college center.\u00a0 His role really didn\u2019t change much from one level to the next.\u00a0 My situation was different.\u00a0 In high school, I was doing everything, and suddenly as a junior at Ohio State I was just a guard.\u00a0 It was a terrible, terrible experience for me, because I\u2019d had all of this freedom in high school and suddenly I\u2019m playing a very specialized role in the system at Ohio State.\u00a0 Now, was I recruited wrong?\u00a0 Was I used wrong?\u00a0 There were a lot of people who questioned whether my talents were utilized to the fullest in college.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did you communicate this frustration to Coach Taylor?<\/strong><\/p>\n I spoke to Fred about it on many occasions. Luke was good on the high post, because he was such a good shooter from the perimeter.\u00a0 I said, \u2018Fred, play Luke at the high post once in a while, and let me go down low and post up.\u2019\u00a0 But he never allowed me to do that.\u00a0 To me it didn\u2019t make sense.\u00a0 As a 6\u20194\u201d guard in the Big Ten, that size was unheard back then.\u00a0 I had guys guarding me that were 5\u201910\u201d, 5\u201911\u201d, so most of the time I had a great size advantage.\u00a0 It was like having a fly nipping at my feet all game long, but I couldn\u2019t do anything about it.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t go down low and overpower my man.\u00a0 In high school I\u2019d go low and score.\u00a0 If the opposing coach adjusted by playing someone bigger, then I\u2019d go back outside and score from there.\u00a0 But Fred didn\u2019t want to run the high post, which I never understood.\u00a0 If the opposing center had sagged off of Luke to help guard me, I could have kicked the ball back out to Luke for a shot at the top of the key.\u00a0 He had great range, and as a pro he proved that he could scored from the perimeter.\u00a0 He would have hit that shot all night long.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Did you ever consider transferring?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, it was a different era back then.\u00a0 And let’s be clear, it’s not that\u00a0I wanted to shoot the ball every time.\u00a0 That was never, never how I wanted to be utilized.\u00a0 I found out later that all of the guys were frustrated, because we had all of that talent and only one ball.\u00a0 Here I am, getting six shots a game, after getting twice that as a sophomore.\u00a0 But we won,\u00a0so I guess everybody\u2019s happy.\u00a0 That was the main thing above all else, so I tried to do what I could do within the context of how I was being utilized.\u00a0 I tried to take advantage of my ability at all times, given the situation, and I tried to do my part to help the team win.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Coach Taylor is a coaching legend.<\/strong><\/p>\n He gets all of the credit for developing the defensive aspect of my game.\u00a0 Fred was friendly with Pete Newell, who coached at California, and he got a lot of information from Pete on how to build team defense.\u00a0 This was the summer prior to that 1960 championship season.\u00a0 Fred got all of us to buy into that thing.\u00a0 Bob Knight was on that team, and look what he learned from that experience, and how he applied those concepts to win three championships as the head coach at Indiana.\u00a0\u00a0I owe a lot to Fred for what he taught me, but I\u2019m not going to sit here and tell you that he and I had it peachy-peachy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was it like to win the national title as a member of your home state Buckeyes?<\/strong><\/p>\n I was ecstatic, because winning covers up a multitude of sins.\u00a0 It was great.\u00a0 The following year \u2013 my senior year \u2013 I accepted my role because it was my last season of collegiate basketball.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m off base, but I still feel that I was never utilized properly.\u00a0 One of my assistant college coaches told me one time that in the recruiting process, the thing that you don\u2019t want to do is overdo recruiting.\u00a0 Sometimes you can pull in too much talent, and you find that the pieces don\u2019t fit.\u00a0 When I say they don\u2019t fit, I mean that they\u2019re not a healthy fit.\u00a0 We had so much talent at Ohio State that I\u2019m not sure it fit, but we made it fit because we had good kids.\u00a0 You know what I mean?\u00a0 There wasn\u2019t a bad kid on the floor.\u00a0 As soon as we stepped on the court we all played together.\u00a0 But as I look back, there was a lot of frustration on that team.\u00a0 Maybe we had too much talent.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A year later you battle Ed Jucker\u2019s Cincinnati squad for the national championship.<\/strong><\/p>\n We were undefeated going into the final game.\u00a0 In my opinion, we would have beaten that team nine out of the ten times that we played them.\u00a0 We were the defending champions, so the pressure was clearly on us.\u00a0 We were 31-0 and we played the title game in Kansas City.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What happened?<\/strong><\/p>\n There were no locker rooms in the facility.\u00a0 You had to dress at the hotel, and then walk across the tunnel connecting the hotel to the stadium.\u00a0 Now remember, we were the defending champions.\u00a0 The consolation game was played first, I think it went into two or three overtimes.\u00a0 When you\u2019re the defending champions, I believe that you\u2019ve got to prime the pump and be ready to play, because the pressure is on you.\u00a0 Do you agree?\u00a0 We were supposed to start the championship game at 7:30 PM \u2013 that\u2019s when we were supposed to take to the floor \u2013 but by the time we walked onto the floor we were already out of sync.\u00a0 I remember walking onto the court and being unable to find the basketballs.\u00a0 From there the whole game was just an uphill battle.\u00a0 When we were teammates in Boston, Tom Thacker once told me that, to a man, Cincinnati never expected to beat us in that championship game. But I give Cincinnati all of the credit.\u00a0 They beat us fair and square.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You were honored as an AP, UPI, and Helms Foundation All-American.\u00a0 What did these honors mean to you then, and what do they mean to you now?<\/strong><\/p>\n At that time you\u2019re a kid, and you really can\u2019t comprehend it.\u00a0 As I look back, the awards and accolades don\u2019t mean much to me anymore.\u00a0 It\u2019s what I\u2019ve learned from those experiences \u2013 the things that I carried into my life, the things that have become a part of my existence and my being \u2013 that mean the most.\u00a0 Being named All-American doesn\u2019t define who I am as a person.\u00a0 The man that I am today is a result of the experiences that I\u2019ve had, good and bad.\u00a0 I am who I am today because of those things.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Two of your teammates were also honored as All-Americans.\u00a0 Please tell me a little about Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek.<\/strong><\/p>\n Luke’s\u00a0high school and college careers are second to none.\u00a0\u00a0He had great hands, good jumping ability, could run the floor, could pass the ball.\u00a0 He was a good shooter, a good rebounder.\u00a0 He took Ohio State to the national championship game three years running.\u00a0 That speaks for itself.\u00a0\u00a0In my opinion, John was a better athlete than he was a basketball player.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean that in a negative way.\u00a0 I’m saying that Luke was a basketball player.\u00a0 I would consider myself a basketball player.\u00a0 John was a great athlete who happened to play basketball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Havlicek was also a pretty good football player.<\/strong><\/p>\n John was drafted to play football and had a decent shot at making the Cleveland Browns.\u00a0 He could play baseball.\u00a0 He was an outstanding athlete.\u00a0 At Ohio State, could John dribble and do all of the things that a pure basketball player might be able to do?\u00a0 No, but he had a good work ethic, played unselfishly, and had a great career in the NBA.\u00a0 In fact, I think he had a better pro career than he did in college.\u00a0 That\u2019s my opinion.\u00a0 He blossomed with the Celtics \u2013 he ran wild and shot the ball\u00a0\u2013 but I don’t think he reached his full potential at Ohio State.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That team was also known for its academics.<\/strong><\/p>\n The year we won the national championship, I think our starting five averaged a 3.6 GPA out of 4.0.\u00a0 I\u2019m not saying that we were high IQ, but we were kids who worked hard, studied hard, and did well in the classroom.\u00a0 The thing I\u2019m saying is that the team was a very intelligent club.\u00a0 So, when Fred got the information to teach us, the kids that we had were able to learn it, absorb it, and play it.\u00a0 I would say that there are very few clubs that could carry out and execute a game plan like that group of kids.\u00a0 Not only because of the athleticism of the team, but also because of our intelligence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n You were the third overall selection 1961 NBA Draft, chosen by the Cincinnati Royals, but you jumped leagues and signed with the Pipers instead.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s a simple matter.\u00a0 In \u201961, the University of Cincinnati had beaten us in the finals for the national championship.\u00a0 There was so much turmoil between the two cities and universities because of the basketball rivalry \u2013 it was back and forth, back and forth.\u00a0 There was so much hatred going on between the schools at the time \u2013 defacing statues on school grounds, vandalizing classrooms, things like that \u2013 so to be perfectly honest with you, that\u2019s the main reason that I didn\u2019t play professional ball in Cincinnati.\u00a0 There was no way that I was going to play ball in Cincinnati.\u00a0 No way.\u00a0 If it had been any other place than Cincinnati, I would have gone.\u00a0\u00a0So I signed to play for the Cleveland Pipers in the American Basketball League.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How did that go?<\/strong><\/p>\n The team was owned by George Steinbrenner.\u00a0 John McClendon of Tennessee State was the head coach, and he practically brought the entire Tennessee State team with him, so I really didn\u2019t get an opportunity to play.\u00a0 Then the league folded, and that was that.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Red Auerbach nabbed you for the $1,000 waiver fee.<\/strong><\/p>\n It wasn’t that cut and dry.\u00a0 I started teaching school in Columbus and played with an independent basketball team in my spare time.\u00a0 By then, Havlicek was in Boston playing for the Celtics.\u00a0 He called, and he said that he wanted me to travel to Cincinnati because Red wanted to talk.\u00a0 So I went into the locker room prior to the game between the Celtics and Royals, and Red asked me if I\u2019d be interested in playing for the Celtics.\u00a0 I said sure.\u00a0 In the meantime, Cincinnati had traded my rights to St. Louis.\u00a0 So even though\u00a0I wanted to go to Boston I couldn\u2019t, because my rights belonged to St. Louis.\u00a0 Lucky for me, the Hawks’ first round draft choice that year was a guard, and there was no way the team was going to keep me over him.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what happened.\u00a0 Even though I had a great training camp they still cut me.\u00a0 That\u2019s how I ended up in Boston.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Was the Celtics experience everything that you thought it would be?<\/strong><\/p>\n In Boston, I knew that I was going into a situation that had been established over a period of time.\u00a0 I was excited about the way they did things.\u00a0 I was in awe of how they played together as a team.\u00a0 To this day I hold those Celtics teams up as the prime example of the team concept.\u00a0 That was what defined them.\u00a0 I tell people that it was the easiest place in the world to play if you were a team player.\u00a0 If you were selfish you wouldn\u2019t last five minutes there.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was it like for you to win that first NBA championship?<\/strong><\/p>\n That first championship extended what the Celtics were all about.\u00a0 It was a great thrill to win the title and to experience what that was all about, but the big thing for me was to be a part of that team and play with a group of guys who always \u2013 and I mean always \u2013 thought about the team ahead of themselves.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been watching sports for a long time, and there has never been another situation like that.\u00a0 It was truly a special place to play basketball.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Red Auerbach\u2019s training camps were legendary.\u00a0 What was it like to meet Red for the first time, and what was that first training camp like for you?<\/strong><\/p>\n You know what we did the first day of camp?\u00a0 We pressed, man-to-man, from one end of the court to the other.\u00a0 That was the whole scrimmage.\u00a0 First day of practice.\u00a0 What Red wanted to do was find out who was in shape, and who really wanted to be there.\u00a0 And if someone got sick, that person would come out and you\u2019d play five-on-four.\u00a0 That was Red\u2019s philosophy.\u00a0 He wanted a team that was in superior shape.\u00a0 See, he didn\u2019t have to worry about the team concept stuff, because most of the players that he had up there had come from championship college teams.\u00a0 They had the talent and knew how to win.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have to deal with all of the other stuff that everybody else in the league had to deal with.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sam and KC Jones learned the Celtic Way while playing behind two hall-of-fame guards, Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman.\u00a0 When you arrived, it was the Jones Boys who helped keep the Celtic Dynasty running.\u00a0 Please tell me a little about Sam and KC.<\/strong><\/p>\n KC was an outstanding guard who wasn\u2019t the shooter that Sam was, but he was the better defensive player.\u00a0 Sam could shoot the lights out.\u00a0 For me, playing behind those two guys was a thrill because I learned a lot from watching them.\u00a0 Back then, nobody came in off the street and jumped into the Boston Celtics\u2019 starting lineup.\u00a0 You sat behind veterans.\u00a0 You sat, you listened, you learned, and you gradually worked yourself into the rotation.\u00a0 That was the Celtic Way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walter Brown passed away on September 7th, 1964.\u00a0 Please tell me a little about the late, great Mr. Brown.<\/strong><\/p>\n Walter Brown was an owner who really cared about his team.\u00a0 They were winning and that didn\u2019t hurt, either.\u00a0 He wanted to go first class in everything, and it was a first class operation.\u00a0 He was low-key.\u00a0 He was not around that often, and not one to be seen all of the time.\u00a0 You knew who he was, and you respected him because he was the owner.\u00a0 But he wasn\u2019t like some of these guys that you see today, like the owner of the Dallas Mavericks [Mark Cuban], who is on TV every time you turn around.\u00a0 His ego didn\u2019t work that way.\u00a0 In many ways Red was the face man for the Boston Celtics, and not Walter Brown.\u00a0\u00a0Walter entrusted Red with all of the details of running the club.\u00a0 It was Red\u2019s baby in terms of the finances, contracts, and the day-to-day operation of the Boston Celtics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How unselfish were those teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n One year Sam Jones led the team in scoring with 19 points-per-game, and then there were another five guys bunched together beneath him.\u00a0 Red believed in ball movement.\u00a0 The ball moves, you move, and if you get the ball in an open spot, you take the shot.\u00a0 If not, then you move it to someone else.\u00a0 And it worked.\u00a0 The focus was right, and everything else followed.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The incomparable Bill Russell was the heart-and-soul of the Celtic Dynasty.<\/strong><\/p>\n We could go on for days about Bill Russell.\u00a0 Bill Russell was, in my opinion, the greatest team player who ever lived.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because Bill Russell has the most championships.\u00a0 Some people will point to Wilt Chamberlain as the best center ever.\u00a0 But who has the most championships?\u00a0 Russell.\u00a0 Eleven championships in thirteen years, and nobody in the NBA will ever surpass that.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got free agency, you\u2019ve got salary caps, you\u2019ve got all of these things to contend with today.\u00a0 People talk about Michael Jordan as the best basketball player ever, but again, the bottom line is championships.\u00a0 Bill Russell has the most championships of any team player.\u00a0 And he was the focal point of everything the Boston Celtics did as a team \u2013 he was the defensive stopper, he was the trigger man for the fast break, he was the one who made the Celtics so tough underneath the basket.\u00a0 When he was right and when he was healthy, you could not beat him.\u00a0 You could book that.\u00a0 The only time the Celtics lost an NBA Finals during Russell\u2019s career was in \u201958,\u00a0 his second season in the league.\u00a0 The Celtics were up on the Hawks early in that series, but then Russell sprained his ankle and St. Louis went on to win the championship.\u00a0 That was the only time.\u00a0 Otherwise, you simply couldn\u2019t beat him.\u00a0 You\u2019re not going to beat his team.\u00a0 It ain\u2019t going to happen.\u00a0 The rest of the league found that out pretty quick, and it was something that you could count on for the better part of thirteen years.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I take it Russell wasn’t concerned about touches.<\/strong><\/p>\n The beautiful thing about Bill Russell was that he was a defensive player.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t need a ton of shots to be happy, like some of these guys you see today.\u00a0 He was a team player.\u00a0 That\u2019s what made it exciting.\u00a0 The whole thing about the Boston situation was the philosophy of team.\u00a0 Bill Russell epitomized that.\u00a0 I\u2019m a firm believer that, in order to win, two things need to happen \u2013 you have to play defense and you have to move the ball.\u00a0 In Boston, the ball always moved because the focal point was defense.\u00a0 It was never offense.\u00a0 And the offense a derivative of the defense.\u00a0 If you wanted to watch the game from the bench, you didn\u2019t play defense.\u00a0 And if you played defense, you were going to score because defense generated ball movement.\u00a0 It was a very unselfish situation.\u00a0 Today, the situation is often reversed.\u00a0 If a guy is shooting well, then he\u2019ll play defense.\u00a0 And if he\u2019s not shooting well, he won\u2019t play any defense at all.\u00a0 It was just the opposite in Boston.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Russell was the ultimate bottom line winner.<\/strong><\/p>\n I remember one time when we were playing Philadelphia, and the Sixers had the ball with a few seconds left.\u00a0 Russ called timeout \u2013 he was the player\/coach at that time \u2013 and he said, \u2018If everybody boxes out their man, I\u2019ll get the ball.\u2019\u00a0 And that was it.\u00a0 End of conversation.\u00a0 We did our jobs, Russ got the ball, and we went down the court and scored and won the game.\u00a0 Now, if you want to get raked over the coals in that situation, you don\u2019t do your job.\u00a0 You let your man get by you and score.\u00a0 Russ expected you to take care of your assignment, and if you did that, then he was going to take care of the rest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Everybody talks about Wilt being this force of nature.\u00a0 Do you think Russell gets enough credit for his athleticism?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, not even close.\u00a0 One time we were playing Los Angeles in the NBA Finals, and somebody stole the ball at half court and went the other way to lay it in.\u00a0 Russell was at the foul line, and he took off, and he raced down the floor.\u00a0 And when that kid \u2013 I can\u2019t remember who it was \u2013 laid the ball up on the board, Russell came from nowhere to block the shot.\u00a0 The next day, the picture in the paper showed Russ parallel to the floor, arms extended, as he flicked the ball off the board before it ever touched the glass.\u00a0 It was the single most amazing play I\u2019ve ever seen in my life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What was it like see the greatness of Bill Russell firsthand?<\/strong><\/p>\n There were nights in the Boston Garden, when Red would press with a small lineup\u00a0 For example, he might put me, KC, Havlicek, Sanders and Russell out there, and order us to press on every possession.\u00a0 There were nights when teams literally couldn\u2019t get the ball past half court.\u00a0 I was a part of that \u2013 you can\u2019t imagine the pressure.\u00a0 Put yourself on the opposing team; we steal the ball, make the shot, and you have to bring the ball up the court.\u00a0 And we\u2019re right there in your face.\u00a0 Then, if you\u2019re somehow able to beat us, you know the chances are pretty good that you\u2019re going to get your shot blocked.\u00a0 The next time you don\u2019t take it inside because you\u2019re afraid you\u2019ll get your shot blocked by Russell.\u00a0 So you sag back to get a little breathing room, and then we apply even more pressure.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the way we won.\u00a0 And all of that pressure was possible because of Russell.<\/p>\n Red always used to say that whenever we had offensive lapses we had a defensive problem.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t focusing on defense.\u00a0 We were too preoccupied with offense.\u00a0 So how did he rectify that problem?\u00a0 He\u2019d call timeout and go to full court pressure, which would eliminate the offensive focus entirely.\u00a0 Trust me, you can\u2019t press like that and focus on your offensive game.\u00a0 It was come as a result of the defensive pressure \u2013 points off of turnovers, quick baskets, whatever.\u00a0 And if you weren\u2019t out there pressing, then you were coming out of the game.\u00a0 It was that simple.\u00a0 It was a great weapon for us.\u00a0 And all of that pressure was magnified tenfold with Russell on the floor.\u00a0 He was that good.\u00a0 There will never be another Bill Russell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The ’65 playoffs produced one of the most dramatic moments in NBA history, made famous by Johnny Most’s legendary radio call.\u00a0 Tell me about Havlicek’s iconic steal.<\/strong><\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t in the game at that time \u2013 I was watching it from the bench.\u00a0 We were playing the 76ers, and at that time they had Wilt Chamberlain, Luke Jackson, Chet Walker and Billy Cunningham.\u00a0 That series was an absolute war.\u00a0 Philly scored and we had the lead by one point.\u00a0 Time was running out.\u00a0 All we have to do is inbound the basketball, go up the court and the game\u2019s over.\u00a0 What happened was this \u2013 in the old Boston Garden the baskets were supported by guide wires that held the baskets up.\u00a0 Russ threw the ball down court on the inbounds play, and it hit one of those guide wires and dropped straight down.\u00a0\u00a0Philadelphia got the ball back under their own basket with maybe five or six seconds left on the clock.\u00a0 Red calls timeout.\u00a0 Hal Greer inbounded the ball, and then Havlicek got his hand on it.\u00a0 He deflected it to Sam Jones, who took off, and that was the ball game.\u00a0 You just can\u2019t imagine the response from the crowd, but the place really went crazy when Havlicek stole that pass from Greer.\u00a0 It kept the dynasty alive, and we were able to win another championship.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Red Auerbach would bow out the following season with yet another championship, the team’s eighth in a row.\u00a0 What made his teams so special?<\/strong><\/p>\n All of the kids that played in Boston were kids that came from successful basketball programs.\u00a0 Were they the most talented?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 You had KC and Russell out of San Francisco.\u00a0 You\u2019ve got Bailey Howell out of Mississippi State.\u00a0 You had John and I out of Ohio State.\u00a0 Clyde Lovellette out of Kansas.\u00a0 All of those kids came from great programs.\u00a0\u00a0When it comes to the modern athlete, it’s\u00a0all me, me, me.\u00a0 Look at me.\u00a0 Look at who I am and what I\u2019ve accomplished.\u00a0 The team concept just goes straight out the window.\u00a0 Today, all of the talk is about who’s the best\u00a0player on a particular team.\u00a0 When that subject comes up about the Boston Celtics I just cut them short, because you can\u2019t divide our team like that.\u00a0 You can\u2019t carve it up into those types of slices.\u00a0 We were a true team in every sense of the word.\u00a0 When I was in Boston, we had the best basketball team in the world.\u00a0 Did we have the most talent?\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Did we have the best team?\u00a0 I repeat:\u00a0 We had the best basketball team in the world.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How was Russell able to manage the dual roles of player and coach?<\/strong><\/p>\n Very simple:\u00a0 A good team will run itself and coach itself.\u00a0 The only thing you have to do is worry about the substitution patterns and things like that.\u00a0 Russ had no assistants \u2013 he was the player\/coach.\u00a0 Today, teams have ten assistant coaches and all of this other stuff.\u00a0 For what?\u00a0 Today you\u2019ve got to have a manager and an assistant coach for every position.\u00a0 We made our own adjustments on the floor and in practice.\u00a0 I tell everyone the same thing \u2013 if you\u2019ve got a good team, all you have to do is manage it.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want some coach running down my ear trying to call the plays.\u00a0 I know what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 And that\u2019s the way we handled it as a team.\u00a0 We made our own adjustments.<\/p>\n Red always felt that Russell could control himself, and that Russell was the only person really suited to coach Russell.\u00a0 And that was part of Red\u2019s genius.\u00a0 Red was smart enough to know that he didn\u2019t want someone coming in there and disrupting the team.\u00a0 Russell knew himself, and he knew his players.\u00a0 He knew that we were going to take care of our responsibilities, and that we were going to go out there and do our jobs.\u00a0 So all Russell had to do was worry about guys getting tired, rotations, fouls, things like that.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have to tell Havlicek to be in a certain spot at a certain time.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t have to tell Sam Jones where to be on the fast break. He didn\u2019t have to tell Satch Sanders how to play defense.\u00a0 These things were going to take care of themselves.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Because we were a good team.\u00a0 We were mature and we were responsible.\u00a0 We looked out for each other, and we did our jobs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When the championship streak was snapped in 1967, many experts thought the Celtics were too old to win again.\u00a0 How satisfying was it for you to prove them wrong and win two more rings?<\/strong><\/p>\n We didn\u2019t have to prove nothing.\u00a0 All we had to do was regroup and do what we needed to do.\u00a0 Winning was so simple and so easy because we played defense, we moved the ball, and we had a good team.\u00a0 All we had to do was regroup.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that complex.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How did those aging teams overcome the young talent in Philadelphia and Los Angeles?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n What we had with those Celtics teams was a togetherness, a family, a community.\u00a0 The thing that amazes me today is that everyone talks about talent.\u00a0 You can assemble a ton of talent, and sometimes it backfires because that talent isn\u2019t playing together with the same goal in mind.\u00a0 It’s not a team, it’s a collection of talent playing with five different agendas on the same court.\u00a0\u00a0Just look at what happened recently in Los Angeles.\u00a0 You had the pieces in place for a dynasty, but the feud between Shaq and Kobe broke that apart.\u00a0 That would never have happened in Boston.\u00a0 You would have never seen Russell and Sam Jones ending up like that.\u00a0 No way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Celtics defeated the Lakers in that 1969 NBA Finals, winning that memorable Game 7 in Los Angeles.\u00a0 What stands out?<\/strong><\/p>\n I remember after Game 2 in L.A., Russell had a locker room meeting.\u00a0 He admitted that he hadn\u2019t played up to his standards, and that he wasn\u2019t ready to compete in that game.\u00a0 He asked us to forgive him, and he told us that we were going to prevail in this series.\u00a0 That we\u2019d somehow find a way to get it done.\u00a0 This was when we were down 0-2.\u00a0 I remember sitting in the locker room prior to Game 7, and he looked at everyone and said, \u2018Well, what did I tell you?\u00a0 We\u2019re back, and they\u2019re not going to beat us.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to win this game.\u2019\u00a0 And the game itself was a nail biter.\u00a0 Russell played all forty-eight minutes.\u00a0 Sam Jones fouled out late, and I had hit two free throws to close the gap to one point.\u00a0 Then Nelson hit that shot on the next possession and we ended up winning the championship.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Just like that, Russell’s great career was over.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ll never forget when Russ told me that the spark wasn\u2019t there anymore \u2013 I was sitting in a whirlpool in LA prior to Game 7.\u00a0 He said that this was it, that he just didn\u2019t think he could get up for the big games anymore.\u00a0 He knew that he had one more game in him, and he did \u2013 we won Game 7 and won the championship.\u00a0 And then he walked away.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always admired that.\u00a0 He had the courage to say, \u2018It\u2019s time to get out.\u2019\u00a0 He could have probably hung around and did his thing, maybe played a few more years, but that wasn\u2019t what Bill Russell was all about.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Final Question:\u00a0 If you could offer one piece of advice on life to others, what would that be?<\/strong> By: \u00a0Michael D. McClellan\u00a0|\u00a0He was a high school phenom, a Paul Bunyan in basketball shorts, a player would later join John Havlicek and Jerry Lucas on a championship quest at Ohio State. That Larry Siegfried would eventually follow Havlicek to professional glory with the Boston Celtics is hardly surprising:\u00a0 Siegfried\u2019s sweet shooting touch and trip-hammer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[774,773],"tags":[373],"class_list":["post-8019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celtics-dynasty","category-featured-interview","tag-larry-siegfried"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.celtic-nation.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/basketball-300x50.png\")
<\/p>\n
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\n<\/u>It\u2019s not about winning championships, it\u2019s not about winning, it\u2019s about getting there.\u00a0 And without a faith in God, everything else is empty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"