The deal brought the Hawks a championship in 1958, but it brought the Celtics a dynasty.In that same draft, Boston added Heinsohn, who would be NBA Rookie of the Year for 1956-57, and Jones, Russell's college teammate, who would also become a stalwart of the Boston juggernaut.Russell didn't join the Celtics until December because he was a member of the 1956 U.S. Olympic basketball team, which won a gold medal at the Melbourne Games in November.
Interestingly, Russell's style of play also rejuvenated Boston's offense. It ranks as the second-best rebounding effort in NBA history, behind Chamberlain's 55 against the Celtics during the next season.What became clear, both during the 1959-60 season and over the next several years, was that basketball was a team game. Boston Celtics Hall of Fame big man Bill Russell had a few words to say about Kendrick Perkins claiming LeBron James as the most athletic player in NBA history Tuesday.
Russell was also known for extending his effort at critical moments, both within a game and within a season. Louis owner Ben Kerner was willing to talk trade, and the key was Macauley.
They improved their regular-season record to 59-16 in 1959-60, at one point running off 17 straight victories. He sank a foul shot, blocked a shot by Walker, grabbed a rebound off a Greer miss, and fed the ball to Jones, who made the final basket in a 100-96 triumph. His ability to leave his man and slide over to cover an opponent driving to the hoop was startling. And because Auerbach wanted to use a territorial selection to nab Holy Cross star Tom Heinsohn, Boston would forfeit its first-round pick altogether.
Auerbach could afford to give up Macauley if he was getting Russell, but it was not until Boston agreed to add rookie Cliff Hagan to the mix that Kerner consented to the trade. Bill Russell added his name to a newly-implemented rule by the West Coast Conference that will help to promote more diversity in college athletic department hirings. In 1970, he was named to the NBA 25th Anniversary All-Time Team. The Celtics' center had one monstrous game, however, when he pulled down 51 rebounds against the Syracuse Nationals in the 1959-1960 season. Furthermore, other centers started to model their own defensive play after Russell's, and while they might not have been as skillful at it, it changed the way the game was played.
The Celtics then returned to the NBA Finals for a rematch with the Hawks, who had won the West with a 41-31 mark.
The Boston Celtics and Miami Heat are set to square off Tuesday night in a game that will greatly impact the race for the No. Even the defense-oriented Celtics averaged 124.5 points.
In the Eastern Division finals, the club came back from a two-game deficit to force a seventh game with Chamberlain and the 76ers.
The team was multitalented, with many great players, but the enduring image was that of Russell, his head thrust forward from the slight hunch of his shoulders, his eyes scanning the court, his long left arm snaking out to deflect a shot. Bill Russell is widely considered the greatest winner in team sports, winning 11 championships in 13 seasons. As Russell later wrote: "To me, one of the most beautiful things to see is a group of men coordinating their efforts toward a common goal, alternately subordinating and asserting themselves to achieve real teamwork in action. Many of the Celtics' points now came when Russell plucked a defensive rebound and fired an outlet pass to Cousy, who would start Boston's vaunted and deadly fast break.The dynasty was beginning to establish itself under Auerbach, and "Boston Celtics" and "NBA champions" became practically synonymous as the decade progressed. His family moved cross-country to the San Francisco Bay Area, where Bill attended McClymonds High School in Oakland. Early in the season, against the Philadelphia Warriors, he set an NBA record for rebounds in a half by grabbing 32 and wound up with 49 for the contest.
But Russell became frustrated at the players' reluctance to embrace his team concept.
The NBA players, voting for MVP, chose Russell over Chamberlain.The Celtics added another future Hall of Famer, John Havlicek, in the 1962 NBA Draft and lost Cousy to retirement at the end of the 1962-63 season. A five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 12-time All-Star, the angular center amassed 21,620 career rebounds, an average of 22.5 per game and led the league in rebounding four times.
In any event, his enthusiasm for the task waned after his fourth season in 1976-77, and he departed.Ironically, Lenny Wilkens guided Seattle to a championship two years later, preaching the same team concept that Russell had tried unsuccessfully to instill in his players. With the 1956 NBA Draft approaching, Boston Celtics coach and general manager Red Auerbach was eager to add Russell to his lineup. He had 51 boards in one game, 49 in two others and a dozen consecutive seasons of 1,000 or more rebounds.His many individual accolades were well deserved, but they were only products of Russell's philosophy of team play.
A five-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 12-time All- With Russell ineffective the rest of the way, St. Louis won that game and two of the next three to take the series.Russell was voted the NBA Most Valuable Player for 1957-58. Share.
Over to Sam Jones. I tried to do that, we all tried to do that, on the Celtics. They posted the best regular-season record in the NBA in 1956-57, waltzed through the playoffs, and were heavily favored in the Finals against Bob Pettit's St. Louis Hawks.