COMEBACKS ALL OVER
The experts were surprised last week when the annual Spring Offensive began on schedule. After all, the troops from the North had suffered their worst reverses in years last winter, and all reports indicated that the gaunt, bearded old leader was no longer capable of rallying his forces. Particularly upsetting to the stalwarts of the South was the fact that the Spring Offensive against them began as successfully as always even though they had increased their numbers in uniform by 17% this year, on top of a 20% increment last year. Moreover, while assurances had been given that infiltration had been halted, the bearded old one and his cigar-smoking chief personnel officer had once again recruited a veteran defector to lead the guerrilla action that was so vital in their early hit-and-run victories. Not only that, but as the conflict escalated into the next round of engagements, stunned observers had to admit that it was the men of the North who were deepest in reserves and best prepared for a protracted siege.
Decoding this captured document, it appears that Bill Russell and his Boston Celtics are up to their perennial playoff antics. Despite a desultory fourth-place finish, they whipped runner-up Philadelphia 4-1 in the first round, and moved into the semifinals of the NBA playoffs against New York, which pasted division champion Baltimore in four straight.
Boston is supposed to be too old. This is a recording. Boston is supposed to be too old. This is a recording. The Celtics' eight regulars average over 30 years of age and, besides, Boston is not supposed to have eight regulars. Expansion drafts in the last two years were guaranteed to deplete the Celtic roster, but Boston came into the playoffs deeper than any other team. In addition, the Celtic fast break—when there was one—was being run by Emmette Bryant, who played for the Knicks last year.
If the Celtics bear a resemblance to the Viet Cong, the Knicks are reminiscent of those few surviving Legionnaires in Beau Geste who ran around the fort firing the guns still held by their fallen comrades. The Knicks only seem to come on in waves; in fact, they have only five, a minimum number, of regulars. The sixth man is a rookie named Mike Riordan, who has the map of Ireland on his face and a shillelagh in either hand. His job is to mug the first man who crosses the midcourt line with the ball. The rest of the bench is composed of three seldom-used subs who enter the lineup periodically and hold a finger in the dike. Old Dixieland buffs will remember the Knicks as the Firehouse Five Plus Who.
The bench could give the Knicks only two points in the opening game against Boston, so the Spring Offensive rolled right on through Madison Square Garden 108-100 without so much as an Easter ceasefire. Though the tempo was often deliberate, the Knicks appeared tired at the end, for the first time in the playoffs. Bryant and John Havlicek took the Celtics on just enough bursts to keep New York off balance, and it really was not close except that the Knicks out-scored Boston 26-11 during two stretches when ex-Knick Bryant was resting. He had 13 points, eight assists and 11 rebounds, as the Celtic forwards boxed out well.
In winning the opener Boston helped expose as nonsense any talk of a home-court advantage in this kind of series. The four teams that made the Eastern playoffs all are part of megalopolis, and the squads do not so much travel as commute to each city. Counting the San Francisco-Los Angeles series, where the same shuttle geography was involved, visiting teams won 11 of 15 first-round games. Also, while pro basketball fans are more numerous and more rabid than ever, they are set far back from the court in the large new arenas, so that their noisy, partisan presence is no longer oppressive.
Another kind of travel was a more significant factor in both series: that is, running. The Knicks, muscling on the boards and contesting the outlet passes at both ends, effectively stopped Baltimore's Wes Unseld-Earl Monroe fast break. Boston, on the other hand, was able to reestablish its running game early in the Philadelphia series and win the first two games with it impressively. The Celtics staggered the rest of the way but held on.
A week before the regular season ended, the Celtics were humiliated on national television, losing by 35 points, 108-73, to Los Angeles. After this debacle, Russell roasted his charges. "It was more a harangue than a speech," he says. "You could not call anything with so many four-letter words a speech." He saved some of the choicest opprobrium for himself. Acrimony out of the way, the Celtics then set about a more technical appraisal of their deficiencies. "It wasn't a very difficult analysis," John Havlicek says. "We had stopped running. We were slowing the offense down and getting only about 80 to 90 shots a game. And we don't have a good one-on-one player on this team."
"Our first priority must be the fast break," Russell says. "Unless we call a play in the huddle or in the backcourt for a specific reason, we look for the break. If that fails, we still should get the ball up fast and see what develops. Free-lance. Only after that should we go for a set play."
The trouble was, Russell was not hitting the boards, so the others were lingering behind to help him, and there was no one out front to lead the break even if the Celtics did get the rebound. Moreover, Russell was often slow getting down on offense, so the Celtics were tardy setting up plays anyway. They had trapped themselves in the worst of both worlds.
The Celtics started fast-breaking again after the L.A. loss, won their final four games and started off well against Philly. Bryant had already replaced Larry Siegfried in the starting lineup, and he picked up the break with Havlicek, who was his usual whirling dervish self, leading both teams with a 27-point average.
Bryant was an even greater factor on defense against Hal Greer, who had averaged 23.1 on the season. Fighting over the picks Greer needs for his shots, Bryant held him to 15 points a game and a frightful 32% shooting mark. "He had one good game," Bryant said afterward, proudly. "The fourth one, the only one they won. Why? Because that was the game I got into foul trouble and was on the bench. That's why. Print that. I'm tired of reading about Greer."
Bryant, whose facial foliage and glasses evoke images of José Ferrer playing Toulouse-Lautrec, was a key man in the New York zone press last year when the Knicks were the deepest team in the league. Then he went to Phoenix in the expansion draft, and was there until one sweltering day last August when there was a sudden roar in the Celtic headquarters. Red Auerbach had just gotten around to a detailed study of expansion rosters. "Hey," he bellowed, "that Phoenix has some good ballplayers, and I want some." (Offstage: thunder and lightning.) Shortly thereafter Bryant was obtained for a second-round draft pick.
Expansion, injuries and the two-for-Dave DeBusschere trade have cut the Knicks' squad to the bone and made Damoclean swords out of the signs the official waves that announce "P4" and "P5." Still, when the Knicks were in foul trouble against Baltimore, Coach Red Holzman—renowned mostly as a master technician of the game—showed his skill as a strategist as well with some precise substituting. Don May would come in to spell a forward, DeBusschere or Bill Bradley. Then Bradley would shift back to direct the team while Walt Frazier rested briefly. Nate Bowman would enter to rebound long enough to let Willis Reed—the dominant figure in all of the playoffs so far—catch his breath. And Riordan, the nonpareil at the bizarre but crucial art of fouling strategically, would replace Frazier or Dick Barnett, sometimes for only seconds at a time, to "take one." So preoccupied did Baltimore become with keeping the ball away from Riordan's man so that Riordan could not foul that on three occasions the Bullets lost the ball in the process and Riordan did not even have to employ his special talent. Boston did the same thing once against New York.
At the same time Baltimore was never able to run down the New York starting five with its superior bench. In the second quarter, when regulars are usually given rest periods, and also in the fourth, when stamina is the issue, the Knicks were at their best, outscoring the Bullets by large margins.
Under Gene Shue, the Bullets have, in two seasons, gone from last place, 41 games under .500, to 32 above and first place in the East. They made no excuses, though they labored down the stretch, racked by injury and fever, and then, finishing first, were penalized by the NBA's playoff system, which forces the first-place team to meet the third-place finisher instead of the weaker fourth-place team.
Injuries in the backcourt made Baltimore vulnerable to anybody. "Four guards and not two good legs among us," Monroe sighed at practice the day before the series started. With bursitis on top of arthritis in his knees, Monroe was released from a hospital only long enough for practices and still wore his hospital ID wristband. His starting partner, Kevin Loughery, completed the most overlooked outstanding season in the league with a performance that was no less than gallant. With gout and an injured adductor muscle, he depended on 10-minute cortisone shots with a wicked two-inch needle just on the chance that the pain could be deadened enough for him to play.
After the first game, when the dope had not worked and he had struggled in agony, Loughery took himself out of the series. Somehow he came back to average 23 points the rest of the way, and in the last game Shue even turned to him to cover Frazier. Off the court Loughery limped painfully, and observers, wincing at the sight, took to rapping their hearts when he walked by, as if the flag were passing.
Before Loughery got the valedictory assignment on Frazier, Jack Marin and Monroe had taken Walt with mixed success. None could keep him from penetrating for any sustained period. It was useless to double-team Frazier, for he and Bradley are uncanny at spotting the open man, and if the Knicks have one distinguishing mark it is that they are all good open shooters. There have been, in fact, many fine five-man teams—though mostly in college—but never has there been a five-man team with five shooters. There was always a little dribbler or a brawny guy with iron hands whose shooting the rival defense could ignore. Despite their opening win, even the eight cagey old Celtics will have trouble handling the five lonely Knicks. Especially, as all schoolchildren know, because the Celtics are too old. Too old. Too old. This is a recording.
PHOTO
NEIL LEIFER
Shooting here over Clark, Havlicek was Boston's top scorer with 136 in the five games.
THREE PHOTOS
NEIL LEIFER
Describing a mad ballet (above), the powerful New York frontcourt—DeBusschere, Reed, Bradley—pursues a defensive rebound. Watching Monroe's eyes (left), Frazier seeks a clue to help him steal the ball and notes the shift of Loughery's feet as a guide to passing him.