'HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL!' AND JOHNNY MOST STOLE THE SHOW ON THAT MEMORABLE NIGHT, 20 YEARS AGO TOMORROW
All right, Greer's putting the ball into play . . . He gets it out deep and HAVLICEK STEALS IT! OVER TO SAM JONES! HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL! IT'S ALL OVER! JOHNNY HAVLICEK IS BEING MOBBED BY THE FANS. IT'S ALL OVER! JOHNNY HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL! OH, BOY, WHAT A PLAY BY HAVLICEK AT THE END OF THIS BALLGAME! JOHNNY HAVLICEK STOLE THE BALL ON THE PASS-IN. OH, MY, WHAT A PLAY BY HAVLICEK! A SPECTACULAR SERIES COMES TO AN END IN SPECTACULAR FASHION! JOHN HAVLICEK BEING HOISTED ALOFT . . . HE YELLS AND WAVES HIS HANDS. BILL RUSSELL WANTS TO GRAB HAVLICEK . . . HE HUGS HIM. HE SQUEEZES JOHN HAVLICEK. HAVLICEK SAVED THIS BALLGAME. BELIEVE THAT! JOHNNY HAVLICEK SAVED THIS BALLGAME. THE CELTICS WIN IT, 110 TO 109. WE'LL BE BACK WITH OUR WRAPUP IN JUST ONE MINUTE!"
- Johnny Most, describing the end of a basketball game played at Boston Garden on April 15, 1965.
The single most memorable incident in the rich history of the Boston Celtics took place 20 years ago tomorrow when John Havlicek, then a third-year man with a growing reputation as an accomplished all-around basketball player, saved the seventh game of the Eastern Conference final.
The Celtics were leading the Philadelphia 76ers and the despised Wilt Chamberlain by one point with four seconds remaining. Philadelphia had the ball out of bounds underneath its own basket. But the Sixers never got a chance to attempt the winning basket because John Havlicek, known in 1965 to all Celtics' fans (thanks to Johnny Most) as "Jarrin' John, the Bouncing Buckeye from Ohio State," deflected Greer's inbounds pass into the hands of teammate Sam Jones.
In so doing, Havlicek irrevocably altered his status, becoming Instant History. "Before that," contends Most, "John was just a great ballplayer. Suddenly, he became Robin Hood, or whatever, in New England. He became Paul Revere."
If so, the major reason was Johnny Most. His frenzied, but coherent, description of the vital theft was replayed incessantly the following day by WHDH radio, then the Celtics' broadcast outlet. Most's storied exuberance, his pure passion and his journalistic sense ("A spectacular series comes to an end in spectacular fashion!") meshed perfectly in the 1 minute, 7 seconds (all but the first 14 words of it emitted in that peculiar pitch that Most freaks refer to as Voice Three) he used up before going to his commercial break.
The fervor was renewed a year later when Fleetwood Records of Revere put out an album commemorating the first decade of Celtics' championships. The obvious title of the album: "Havlicek Stole The Ball!"
The Boston Celtics of 1965 were going for their seventh consecutive NBA championship. Bill Russell was very much in his prime. Fans were used to winning, and the idea of losing - especially to Philadelphia - was anathema.
The battle with Philly had been a tough one, a hold-your-serve type series highlighted by a spectacular happening at the end of regulation in Game 4. Boston was leading by two with one second showing on the Convention Hall clock. Philly had the ball out of bounds at midcourt. The ball came into Greer, who bounced it once and let it fly from approximately 35 feet away. The ball went in to send the game into overtime. Red Auerbach accused the timer of having a slow trigger
finger, but the basket stood and the 76ers pulled out a 134-131 triumph in the overtime to send the teams back to Boston tied at two games apiece.
Each team won at home in Games 5 and 6, creating a climactic seventh game in Boston. With a little over a minute to play in Game 7, the Celtics led, 110-103. But two quick Philly baskets and a Celtic 24-second violation returned the ball to the 76ers, down three (110-107), with five seconds left. Chamberlain promptly stuffed one for another easy basket, and he used up only one second while doing so.
Russell was harassed by Chet Walker on the inbounds (films would reveal Walker clearly of bounds), and Russell's pass hit the wire that at that time ran from the first balcony to the backboard. It was a turnover, and suddenly the 76ers had a chance to win the game and the series.
The Celtics had four basic worries: (1) a pass to Chamberlain, the most prolific low-post scoring machine that ever lived; (2) a quick return pass to Greer following the inbounds, as Greer was one of the great jump shooters of all time; (3) a pass to Walker, another great middle-distance shooter (and a master of drawing fouls with a superb up-fake, as well); and (4) any shot at all that would produce an assault on the offensive boards by the 7-1 Chamberlain, 6-10 Johnny Kerr or 6-9 Luke Jackson.
Johnny Most: "Dolph Schayes, who was coaching Philly, made a really smart move. He took out Larry Costello during the timeout and put in Kerr. That left K.C. (Jones) on Kerr, (Satch) Sanders on Jackson, Russell on Chamberlain, Sam on Greer and Havlicek on Walker. Now, I think John cheated to the inside toward Kerr and Chamberlain, forcing Greer to pass to Walker, who would be the only one open. John set it up, and Greer made a very, very big mistake. He threw kind of a soft lob toward Walker, and you couldn't throw a pass like that near John Havlicek."
John Havlicek: "Johnny's wrong. I never tried to influence anybody to do anything. In that situation, you want to be on your man pretty tight. As the ball was handed to Greer, I started to count, 'One thousand one, one thousand two, etc.' By three, nothing was happening. Now I'm thinking it's coming to Walker, who was a pretty good shooter. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this lob pass, and I just deflected it, tipping it over to Sam Jones. I went up, but I couldn't get control of it, I saw Sam going the other way, and, fortunately, nobody was in position to foul him."
That was the easy part. Thousands of fans had rushed onto the court, and dealing with them was even harder than contending with Chamberlain (30 points, 32 rebounds). "What an ordeal," recalls Havlicek. "My jersey was ripped completely off, and I wound up with these tremendous gashes in my shoulders, from the straps being pulled off me. They even had my pants down around my knees. Then it was a matter of throwing elbows - or whatever it took - to get to the locker room."
Havlicek thought he had seen the last of his uniform. "But," he says, "something happened four years later. When Sam retired, there was a party and a lady came up to me. She had on a dress and an extra piece of cloth attached by a pin. She said to me, 'Do you know what this cloth is?' I said, 'I don't know; it looks like a piece of cloth to me.' And she said, 'This is a piece of the jersey they tore off your back in 1965.' I told her it just looked like a rag to me."
The careers of both Havlicek and Most were affected by the incident. "I was starting to make inroads," Havlicek says, "but, after that play, people realized I might be around a while. And the record album definitely influenced the way people thought of me."
"It gave me some of the healthiest publicity I ever got in my life," says Most. "It was something to be remembered for, something to hang my hat on. It gave John and me a sense of 'foreverness' I couldn't have had otherwise . . . And it sold about 50,000 records."
Much has happened since that night two decades ago when Havlicek Stole The Ball. The NBA has gone from nine teams to 23. Celtics' ticket prices have gone from a $3 top to $20. The price of a great player has soared from $30,000 to $2 million a year.
John Havlicek, a Hall of Famer and one of the Celtics' all-time Big Four (with Russell, Cousy and Bird), is seven years retired. Johnny Most, however, is still perched "high above courtside," a living link to historic deeds of the past.
And of all those deeds, none shine brighter in the memory of Celtics' fans than the one that happened 20 years ago tomorrow, when John Havlicek ceased being a player and instead became, forevermore, a Hero.
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