A year later you win your first NBA Championship, defeating the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games.  Perhaps the most memorable game in the series was Game 6, in which Kareem’s skyhook at the buzzer defeated the Celtics 102-101.  Please tell me about that game.
 
There were eight seconds left in the game, and we were ahead by one point.  We knew we were eight seconds from winning the championship, just one big stop away from the title.  During the timeout we talked about putting pressure on the ball.  Once play resumed, (Hank) Finkel and (Don) Chaney did a great job of pushing Kareem away from the basket.  Kareem had that awesome skyhook.  He was almost automatic, but from that distance I didn’t think the shot would go in – which, of course, it did.  To this day I can still see the ball going through the basket [laughs].

It was an intense game, very demanding, and when it was over I remember looking at Oscar Robertson, who was at the point of exhaustion.  Right then I knew that we had these guys, and that we were going to win that seventh game.

Going back to Milwaukee for Game 7, what was the mood of the team?  Were there any thoughts of the Game 7 loss to New York in the Eastern Conference Finals the year before, and how did the Celtics prepare for that huge Game 7 on the road?
 
The loss to New York really didn’t affect us, nor did it change our preparation for the Bucks.  We knew that conditioning was going to be the primary factor, and we felt that we were the better conditioned group.  Our goal was to wear them down.  We knew that their legs were gone, and that we would have the advantage in the later stages of the game.

This isn’t to say that we took the Bucks lightly.  Kareem was a player that we truly feared.  We knew what he could do because we’d seen it firsthand in this series.  We knew he could beat us, so that’s another reason we wanted to run.  We wanted to soften him up, make him work for his shots, slow him down.

We wanted to apply constant pressure and to contest every shot.  Oscar Robertson was Milwaukee’s only true ball handler, so we hounded Oscar and made it as difficult as possible for him to bring the ball up the court.  As a result, the Bucks were battling the shot clock and forcing bad shots.  We ran at every opportunity, and then pressured the ball on defense.  This approach took its toll on the Bucks and we won the championship in convincing fashion.

Two years later you were the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player, and a key participant in the NBA’s “Greatest Game Ever Played”.  During that triple-overtime game against Phoenix you scored 33 points and played more than 60 minutes in the Boston Garden heat.  Please share some of your memories from this game.
 
It was a very fast-paced game, so early on I realized that conditioning was going to be key .  This played into my strengths because I felt as if I were the best-conditioned athlete on the floor.  My mental approach was, “If I’m tired then everyone else on the court must be dead tired.”
 
After the second overtime we thought the game was over, so we immediately started towards the tunnel.  There were only two seconds left and I had already cut the tape off my foot.  My thought was, “What can happen in two seconds?"  We came back out in time to see Gar Heard hit his shot and we go to another overtime.  Thankfully there wasn’t a three-point line at the time [laughs].
 
Charlie Scott was ejected early and this really hurt us.  It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because he was fresh and full of energy for that next game in Phoenix.  He had a big game and we went back to Boston as world champions.