Lex Nihil Novi - Russell vs Chamberlain, Game 87

Russell v. Chamberlain: Game 87
1965 ECFs GAME #7

Philadelphia 76ers - 109
Boston Celtics - 110



April 15, 1965








bob



.

Game 7 was all you need to know. Celtics win!

This was just one of several times between 1956 and 1969 that there could have been an incredible reversal of fortune for the Celtics based on a single play.  The Selvy shot; the Havlicek steal; and Sam Jones slip sliding banana peel shot; Russ' impossible overtake and block of Jack Coleman's breakaway and Bob Petit's missed point blank miss at the buzzer of regulation during the two-overtime finale of their first championship series.

Luck?  Leprechaun?  Karma?  Excellence?

Sam

Excellence and luck are connected. The Russell dynasty had 11 occasions in which they played a deciding all or nothing game. Many of these games came down to one play. They won all eleven.

Bobby Knight once said that you don't compete against an opponent so much as your own potential. I've never heard Russell put it that way but he has expressed the same idea.

Russell said that in the Melbourne Olympics his attention was drawn to a particular sprinter not because he was the fastest but because he ALWAYS ran his own best time. His opponents could never count on him being unprepared; they could never count on him to choke. If you were going to beat him you had to beat his time. This sprinter took the gold.

Russ said he decided that he would play every game the way that guy sprinted.

If you always try to reach your own potential not even you can know what will come out. Russ said that he would like to think that when Bob Beamon broke the long jump record by over three feet in Mexico City he had been jumping to his own potential for so long that he transcended it and shocked even himself.

I'm sure that the teams of the Russell dynasty had many moments when they shocked even themselves.

Nicely put, Sloop.  I'm sure you must have read "Russell Rules."  If not, I did a summary of each chapter, which appears in the sub-forum titled Links, Books, Media and Sam's Writings.

Sam

Thanks Sam. But I think I have "The Russell Rules" some where. What I wrote is almost all a paraphrase of Russell himself from his book "Second Wind," which along with "Breaks of the Game," is the best basketball book I've ever read.

Luck plays a role in any unlikely sustained period of excellence but as Branch Rickey said, "Luck is the residue of design."

I think of luck as one of the ingredients that is a part of destiny.

swish

Sloop,

The single best basketball book I have ever read is "The Last Loud Roar" by Cousy with a ghost writer (Ed Linn?  I can't recall for sure.)  I believe the "roar" refers to the last crowd ovation of his career.  It's full of little insights into basketball, including his mentality, his methods of motivating teammates, etc.

Sam

My junior high library had a copy of "The Last Loud Roar." I wore out the pages. It was a long time ago but I recall Cousy talking about the importance of sometimes going for a lower percentage play with the goal of rewarding players whose primary roles are doing the unglamorous and thankless but necessary work in the trenches.

Even if it results in a turnover or a missed shot when getting the ball to someone else would result in a score, Cousy thought it was important to show the sugar to role players so that they would continue working hard in their assigned roles.

Cousy understood that the game is played by human beings.

Sloop,

His biggie was to throw long passes to tom Sanders to reward him for running the floor, when he knew that Satch probably wouldn't be able to pick out the ball from that distance.

Sam

I do remember Cousy writing about he didn't know if Satch had bad hands or his vision was limited by contact lenses.

I recall hearing some where that Havlicek as a rookie would get upset at his teammates because he felt that they missed opportunities by not picking up early where the ball was. He would tell them that all they had to do was look over their shoulder while running their lanes.

Finally someone told Hondo that not everyone can sprint full speed in a straight line while looking over their shoulder.

Hondo found this fact astounding.

Some are just gifted.

Sloop,

Gifted?  Yeah, I've always been cursed with that myself.  It can be a curse!  LOL.

Sam