The Henry Finkel Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Monday, March 20th,
2006
Two
holdovers from the glory years were Satch Sanders and John Havlicek. Please
tell me a little about Satch and Hondo.
Satch
was a great influence because he knew the game, he knew what it took to win, and
he tried to teach all of the young players – including myself – what to do and
how to do it. Satch was almost a coach-like figure, even though he was still a
player.
Havlicek was Havlicek. To me, it seemed like Havlicek used to run 125 miles-per-hour up and down the court and never break a sweat. What a great player – great shooter, great rebounder, great team player. And what a great influence to have on the team.
And by the way, don’t forget about Larry Sigfried. Larry was a very hard-nosed player – a typical Red Auerbach guy. Like Cowens, not afraid to get his hands dirty or his knees scratched. Not the most talented player in the world, but he always played very hard. You knew that he would give you 110% every night. I loved Larry Sigfried – boy, he was a tough kid.
Your
coach in Boston was Tommy Heinsohn. Mr. Heinsohn was one of your most
vehement supporters, and the one who kept reminding the fans that you
shouldn’t be punished for not being the next Bill Russell. Please tell me a
little about your relationship with Mr. Heinsohn.
I
had a great relationship with Heinie. Heinie knew exactly what I could do,
and what I could not do. The same can be said for Red as well. Red
Auerbach’s philosophy on building a team – and this comes into play with me,
too – was that a basketball team was like a puzzle that has twelve parts.
He always said that you don’t trade two of them to pick up one, because that
still leaves a piece of the puzzle empty. Tommy subscribed to that. He
realized that I was big and strong, that I could shoot, but, more
importantly, he also knew that I could block out and set picks. Back in
those days, the NBA had great centers like Kareem, Wilt, Willis Reed, Nate
Thurmond, and Wes Unseld. And if Cowens was playing forward, or if he was
in foul trouble, the only thing I had to do was block those guys out. We
already had the rebounders in Cowens, Paul Silas, Don Nelson, and John
Havlicek. As long as I kept the big guy off the boards, then those guys had
a chance to get the rebound. And the other aspect of it was on offense;
besides being a shooter, I could set a pretty good pick. If you set a pick
for guys like Havlicek, Jo Jo, Westphal, Nelson, and Cowens when he was
playing forward…if you get those guys free for one second, then they’ll hit
75% of those shots. And that’s what I did – I kept going around setting
picks for those guys, a little bang-boom…you get a great shooter free for
just a split second, and he’s going to put the ball in the basket. And
that’s all I did. I defined my NBA career by doing those two things –
blocking out and setting picks.
The late
Johnny Most nicknamed you ‘High Henry’, something that has stuck with you
through the years. Please tell me a little about the legendary Johnny Most.
Wonderful
guy. By the way, he made icons out of all of us. I’ve been retired for
thirty years now, and to this day people call me ‘High Henry’, and that’s
only because of Johnny Most. Johnny was the kind of guy that, if you were
playing for anybody, you wanted to play for the Celtics because he made you
out to be a superstar [laughs]. He was a homer, and everybody knew it. He
had his own style. He found the opposition to be the evil, bad guys. As
far as off the court, you could sit down and talk basketball with Johnny in
the hotel lobby. This guy had a background that pre-dated the arrival of
Russell. So, what you wanted to do was sit down with Johnny and talk to him
about all of the old-timers whose numbers are in the rafters and whose names
are in the Hall of Fame.
But having said that, Johnny Most made icons out of all of us guys. That goes for superstars like Havlicek and Russell, as well as the fringe players like Hank Finkel. He was just a great guy to have on your side. And he was a good friend on top of that. One last thing about Johnny; if you were in the hotel lobby or the restaurant, you knew whether he was in there or not. His voice was that loud and that piercing.
By
1972-73, the Celtics were once again among the NBA’s elite. That team won a
club record 68 games, but fell to the New York Knicks in the 1973 Eastern
Conference Finals. Had that Celtics team won the NBA championship, where do
you think it would rank among the all-time greats?
I
think that the Russell Era had all of the great teams, because they used to
go nine, ten deep. And then you have Russell in the pivot. He was the
difference maker. So, I can’t tell you whereabouts we’d rank – certainly it
would have been behind those great Russell teams, but I do think that we had
a great team in our own right. We had the likes of Cowens at center,
Havlicek and Nelson Satch underneath. We had Jo Jo running the offense. I
don’t know where it ranks, or where it would have ranked had we won it all,
but I think that we were one series away from winning the title that year.
If we would have gotten past the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals, we
would have won our first championship a year earlier.
