A Landmark Game Spawns a Legendary Player

A Landmark Game Spawns a Legendary Player

In March of 1953, the Boston Celtics won their first-ever NBA playoff series by dispatching the Syracuse National 2-0. The Celtics had opened the best-of-three Eastern Division Semi-Final series by winning in Syracuse, and the second game was to be played in Boston Garden. The Celtics didn’t want to return to Syracuse for a deciding game 3 because Syracuse was the definitive snake pit. The crowds were fanatical, and the Celtics frequently had to dodge flying objects when leaving the floor.

So, on March 21, 1953, the Celtics went up against the Nationals at Boston Garden. It would prove to be a memorable, numbing game that I happen to believe was greatest combination of excitement, old-time roughness, and player attrition in NBA history. For one thing, it was Johnny Most’s first season as the Celtics’ radio play-by-play man; and it was in this game that I first became convinced that this guy was capable of psychotic behavior in his support of the Celtics.

The tone of the game was set not long into the first quarter, as Bob Brannum (the precursor of Jim Loscutoff) goaded Nats’ star, Dolph Schayes, into a fight and they both got thrown out. While Brannum was a good “policeman” type for the Celtics, the home team definitely got the better of that exchange.

After the fight, the remainder of the game was a bona fide physical slugfest. Nats’ Playing Coach, Al Cervi, immediately inserted himself in the game and began jabbing and pushing Bob Cousy on every Celtics trip upcourt, trying to get The Cooz to disqualify himself. Johnny Most screamed something like: “And now Cervi’s whacking at Cousy. He’s trying to egg Cousy onto a fight. Look at that, there he goes again. What a dirty, rotten player Cervi is. He’s the lowest of the low. And now Red wants to do battle with Cervi. They’re restraining Red Auerbach.” (Of course, Johnny had been rather low-key when the Brannum-Schayes encounter had benefited the Celtics.)

I’m including the box score, immediately below. This is the point at which you should look at one stat in particular: the personal fouls.

March 21, 1953 at Boston

Syracuse Nationals: Coach, Al Cervi

….......………….…….fg……ft / fta….…pf......points
Schayes, f…...…….2…..4 / 4… .….…2………..8 (Thrown out in first quarter)
Gabor, f……….....…3…..3 / 5…….…..6………..9
Lochmueler, f…....1…...1 / 3….……..6……….3
Osterkorn, f……....1..…0 / 0………...6……..…2
Lloyd, c……..….....4…...5 / 7……...…5……..13
Rocha, c…………....5.…..9 /12………..6……..19
Jurgenson, g……..2…...4 / 5……….…6…..…..8
King, g………….....4…...8 / 9………….6…….…16
Cervi, g…………....0..….9 /11………..7…..…...9
Seymour, g……....5…...8 / 9…………5…….….18

Totals…………......27….51/65……….55……..105

Boston Celtics: Coach, Red Auerbach

…………………........fg……ft / fta….…pf......points
Donham, f………...1…...0 / 3… .….6………..2
Harris, f…….……...4…...6 / 6……...6………14
Cooper, f……….....2…...5 /6…..…..7………..9
Brannum, f……....3..….0 / 0……...1……..….6 (Thrown out in first quarter)
Mahnken, c……....0…...1 / 1…...…5………..1
MacAuley, c……....4…..10 /10.....6…….…18
Mahoney, c..……..0…....0 / 1....…5………...0
Cousy, g………....10…..30 /32….…5……….50
Sharman, g………. 3…...3/ 3.…....6....…...9
Rollins, g…………...0…...2 / 3………5….…... 2

Totals……………....27.…57/65…….52…..…111

Each team played ten players—nine if one forgets about the brief stints of Schayes and Brannum. So that’s 18 players in total. Among those 18:

• Four Celtics and two Nationals committed five personal fouls.
• Four Celtics and six Nationals committed six personal fouls.
• One Celtic and one National committed 7 personal fouls.

It was such a rock-em sock-em game that, on three Celtics personal fouls and five Nats personal fouls, a player who committed his sixth or seventh foul was permitted to stay in the game (Because his team was left with five players, including him); and in return, their other team shot a technical foul. The game took well over three hours to play.

Although this was Cousy’s third season with the Celts, I believe it was in this game that Cousy’s reputation became transcendent. He finished with 50 points, including 30 free throws in 32 attempts. (Ed. note: No other NBA player has scored more than 28 freebies (Wilt) in either regulation or playoff history.) But his heroics involved much more stats.

The game would involve four overtimes—still a record for an NBA playoff game. Cooa tied the game with free throws at the end of regulation and again at the end of the first extra overtime. He scored all of their (four) points in the second overtime stanza. But it’s the third overtime that was other-worldly, partly because there’s a great story behind the story. I know I’ve told it before, either at BDC or on our own board; but maybe you’ll bear with me if you’ve read it before.

Bob Cousy made it a point to add something to his arsenal every off-season. It might have been an improvement to his dribble or to his running hook shot (with either hand) from 15 feet; or it might involve his behind-the-back moves; or it might be his “air dribble,” in which, instead of catching a pass, he’d tip it over the head of an onrushing defender pick it up on the other side, and continue his dribble.

During the offseason of 1952, Cooz was concerned about the absence of a jump shot in his game. He had a really good one-handed “push shot” that he could shoot on a dime, and I’ve got video proving he had five different methods of release on that shot just to throw off the time of defenders. But he didn’t have a jump shot on which he could go straight up and surprise a defender.

So he spent much of that off-season in the Holy Cross gym, racing downcourt on the dribble, pulling up around the key, and shooting what was, in reality, a hybrid of an “okay” jumper and a stop-and-pop. He may have gotten four to six inches off the ground, but it was the element of surprise, rather than the height of the shot, that was important to him.

Fast forward to the third overtime of that 1953 playoff game. The Celtics were down by five points with 15 seconds to go. Remember that there was no 24-second shot clock or three-point field goal with which to play catch-up; and fouling the other team wouldn’t make up the necessary ground in 15 seconds.

With 15 seconds left, the Celtics (I can’t recall whether it was Cooz or another player) stole the ball. and Cousy raced in for an old-fashioned basket-and-one. Down by two.

The nationals brought the ball upcourt and, at the five-second mark, the Celtics (again I don’t recall which player) stole the ball once more. In those days, a timeout wouldn’t help advance the ball, and so everyone in the joint knew it was totally up to The Cooz, who raced upcourt as the clock ticked: 5…4…3. At the three-second mark, Cousy and an entire summer of preparation rose six inches off the floor as he launched his jumper. Various estimates have placed the distance anywhere between 25 and 35 feel, but I believe it might have been closer to 20. As the ball settled in the net, absolute pandemonium occurred at the game, I punched a hole in my desk at home, and Bob Cousy and the Celtics were rewarded for all the boring time he invested in a summer jump shots.

The fourth overtime was almost anti-climactic, as Cooz scored nine of the team’s 12 points for the win. It was the Celtics’ first playoff series win ever; and it’s probable that this game, more than any other, jump-started the process of propelling Bob Cousy from a flashy local star to an other-wordly NBA legend.

Other facts from this game:

• Both the first Black signed by the NBA (Chuck Cooper) and the first Black to play in the NBA (Earl Lloyd) played in the game.

• Both teams made 27 field goals, and both team attempted 55 free throws. It was the six more free throws made by the Celtics that won the game.

• The Nats shot 78% from the free throw line, and the Celtics shot 88%.

Sam

Ahh-Sam, the good old days, they sure were great weren't they? I was still a kid in the 1950's, but, the ground was being laid for me to become a big basketball fan in the late '50's. My Dad was such a sports fan, and being the only girl for almost ten years, watching and listening to him talk aboutmy sports was the easiest way to get all his attention. I am forever grateful for this.

Ten years later three more girls came along, but by then I had become one of "the guys", going everywhere with my brother and my Dad and anyone else who was part of the group to go to all of the original Patriot games. We had season tickets right from the start. I followed the Celtics by radio, going to games when he could manage tickets on a Saturday afternoon.

When I read this breakdown of that game, it reminded me of just how much the game has changed. Those were crazy times, but alot of pure basketball got played. Thanks for this post, it was so interesting.


Rosalie

The coach's name was Al Cervi and their guard's name was Cervi?


bob


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bobheckler wrote:The coach's name was Al Cervi and their guard's name was Cervi?

He was the player-coach. It happened occasionally in those early days, sometimes because the owner didn't want to pay extra for a coach.

Russell was a player coach.

To anyone,

Al Cervi was a short, rather stout guy who was then near the end of his playing career. He didn't really run as much as trot along. He and Red shared the trait of doing anything they had to in order to win a game. The relatively few number of teams fermented some torrid feelings between teams. In particular, the Celtics had great mutual animosity with the Syracuse Nationals, the Philadelphia Warriors, and the New York Knickerbockers.

I'd love to see a list of minutes played in that game. I have my own scorecard of the game, but I had no way to record minutes. I know Cooz played 45.0 per game in the two playoff games that season. In those days, Red would spell him for three or four minutes in the second quarter, so my guess would be that he played 65 minutes in that game. (Actually, Ed MacAuley averaged 46.3 minutes per game in those two games.)

Rosalie, those were definitely what I call the "primitive days." The trappings of the game (from the raising of the backboards with the guy wires stretching to the balcony to the presence of the spectators inches from the playing floor) were so primal that spectators used to feel they were let in on secrets. We actually felt participatory, rather than entertained, at each game. We identified so closely with the team at a visceral level that any reasonably
important game was an emotionally draining roller coaster ride.

One sign that someone was a real student of the game was that, despite all the emotional attachments to the team, (s)he didn't freak out whenever the opposing team went on a run. Instead, (s)he'd immediately start anticipating an answering run by the Celtics, and (s)he'd begin yelling suggestions to Red. In a very high percentage of those instances, we were so familiar with Red's approach that those suggestions squared with exactly what he'd wind up doing. The longer we continued that practice, the more emotionally close to the team we'd feel.

Sam