The Rick Robey Interview
By:
Michael D. McClellan
|
Sunday, February 26th, 2012
Those early '80s battles with the Philadelphia 76ers were incredibly intense. Please take me back to that unbelievable '81 Eastern Conference Finals, and the comeback from a 3-1 hole to advance to the NBA Finals.
I don't recall how many teams had come back
from a 3-1 deficit to win a series at that
time, but
I know that there hadn't been many. I
remember every game coming down to the wire,
and I remember Bird having a great series.
But the whole team played well together. And
I think that was the stepping stone we
needed to not only win the title that year,
but to prove that we could break through and
compete for the championship every year.
The Celtics won their 14th NBA Championship with a 4-2 series win over Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets. Take me back to that series – what stands out now, and what did it feel like to win the title?
After we got past the Sixers we felt pretty good about our chances against Houston in the Finals. The Rockets had Moses Malone and had gotten past the Lakers the series before that, and everyone had the Lakers picked to reach the Finals and probably win it all. They had Malone, Robert Reid, Calvin Murphy, Rudy Tomjanovich, Mike Dunleavy. So they had a very good team. But we were able to get up on them early in the series, and I felt like we had better depth and had a better overall team than the Rockets.
To win a title was a dream come true. I was a pretty lucky athlete. I won a title in high school, In college I was part of a team that won the NIT and the NCAA tournaments. And then I end up with the Celtics and win an NBA Championship. I think that I'm the only person that's ever done that. It was kind of like putting the icing on the cake.
And the city – to be able to play in Boston was an unbelievable experience. The fans there are a lot like the Kentucky fans. It was like playing in a college town. I can remember the parade after we won, there were hundreds of thousands of fans out there. I'd never seen anything like it. It was a neat place to play.
