Boston Celtics 2020 Daily Sports Calendar

Yup!!! Phoenix Suns!!!!!

RosalieTCeltics wrote:Yup!!!  Phoenix Suns!!!!!

Rosalie,

Correct.

Here's your prize:



Thanks for playing.

Texas

willjr wrote:Texas

willjr,

Correct.

Thanks for playing.

My guess, Hondo or Bird

willjr wrote:My guess, Hondo or Bird

willjr,

No, not either of them.

Guess again.

Ed McCauley?

willjr wrote:Ed McCauley?

willjr,

Not Easy Ed.

Guess again.

Hint: Much more recent

Isaiah Thomas?

bobc33 wrote:Isaiah Thomas?

bob,

Not IT.

That is too recent.

Hint: Robert Parish declared him the greatest offensive player in Celtics history. (but he never played on the same court)

Paul Pierce

bobc33 wrote:Paul Pierce

bob,

Correct.

Paul Pierce was the first Celtics player to ever lead the NBA in total points. He scored 2,144 points in 2001-2002.

Thanks for playing.

Other Celtics players have scored more points in a season than Paul Pierce, but none of them ever lead the league.

Here are the Celtics leaders:

19 years

willjr wrote:19 years

willjr,

Correct.

The Celtics longest consecutive playoff streak (so far) is 19 seasons, 1950-51 through 1968-69.

Thanks for playing.

Who is Chuck Connors aka The Rifleman

bobc33 wrote:Who is Chuck Connors aka The Rifleman

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/chuck-connors/

It is a very long and interesting article about Chuck Conners. Here is a small portion of it that is Celtics related:

Returning to professional basketball in the fall of 1946, Connors played in the Basketball Association of America, a new league that competed with the established National Basketball League (the two leagues merged after the 1948-49 season to form today’s National Basketball Association). With his former Seton Hall coach, Honey Russell, at the helm of the Boston Celtics club in the BAA, Connors signed to play with the Celtics for the inaugural 1946-47 season. Connors averaged 4.6 points per game in 49 games for the Celtics that season. He was no major offensive threat, as he sank less than one in four field-goal attempts (94-for-380) and less than half of his free throws (39-for-84). Connors later explained his primary role with the Celtics that season, which fortuitously led to the beginning of an acting career:

I’m positive my greatest value to the Celtics was as an after-dinner speaker. It seems to me I did more public speaking for the team than playing that first season. They sent me all over New England on speaking engagements. I’d pick up $25 or $50 an appearance, whatever the traffic would bear. When I wasn’t apologizing [for the few wins the team had], I was doing things like “Casey at the Bat” and “Face on the Bar Room Floor.” I did “Casey” at the Boston Baseball Writers Dinner that first winter, and Ted Williams was there too after winning the 1946 American League MVP Award. Ted was very kind to me and laughed his head off at my rendition. Afterward, he said to me, “Kid, I don’t know what kind of basketball player you are, but you ought to give it up and be an actor.” So doing those after-dinner speeches was my raison d’etre.12

Where Connors did establish his renown with the Boston Celtics on the basketball court was in a pregame warm-up on November 5, 1946, when he became the first player in NBA history to shatter a glass backboard. Contrary to the legend that developed, Connors did not shatter the backboard while attempting to dunk the basketball. “During the warm-ups, I took a set shot, a harmless set shot, and crash, the glass backboard shattered,” Connors recalled. The newfangled backboard was missing a key part, a piece of rubber between the glass and the rim, which caused the glass to shatter when the shot caromed off the rim. Because the Celtics game was being played at the Boston Arena, not at the Boston Garden, where Gene Autry‘s rodeo was playing to a large crowd, the Celtics management had to scramble to locate a replacement in order to play the game. Publicist Howie McHugh was dispatched to the Boston Garden to get a replacement backboard. “Howie tells how the Garden’s backboards were stored behind the Brahma bull pens, and nobody was fool enough to challenge the bulls for them,” Connors recalled. “Howie found two drunken cowboys and slipped them a couple of bucks to go into the pen, dodge the bulls, and get a glass backboard out. If he hadn’t, we might still be waiting at the Arena.”13

Connors is considered one of an elite group of fewer than a dozen athletes that played in both major-league baseball and the NBA, which includes Danny Ainge, Gene Conley, Dave DeBusschere, and Dick Groat. However, defining professional basketball as only teams in the NBA, or its forerunner the BAA, excludes many baseball players that played pro basketball in other leagues. According to Ted Brock’s research in Total Basketball, another dozen major-league ballplayers logged minutes with NBL teams, including Lou Boudreau, George Crowe, Irv Noren, and Del Rice.14

Connors left the Celtics in late February 1947 to go to spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.