The Celtic Way

From the chapter titled 'The Celtic Way' in the book, Red Auerbach Winning The Hard Way, by Red Auerbach and Paul Sann.

"If the NBA's weekly Top Ten list meant anything, the Celtics wouldn't have any right to compete in the league. We seldom had anybody among the leading scorers. We might have had Cousy leading in assists (or K.C. later), Sharman in foul shooting (or Larry Siegfried later), or Russell in rebounding (before Mr. Chamberlain), or Sam Jones hanging in among the top scorers. Where did we get all the points then? Without cluttering up that list of the Top Ten, we always had six or seven men scoring in double figures.

Oh. it's nice to have superstars but winning basketball goes beyond the superstar.

There's nothing in the Top Ten list to tell you anything about hustle or about just plain guts. There's nothing in it to tell you about a guy risking broken bones by diving after a loose ball or giving you that last ounce in the clutch. There's nothing to tell you about the second effort - and third effort - that means so much in the pros. There's nothing to measure the good shot against the bad shot or the good defensive play against the bad defensive play.

The secret is balance. The secret is teamwork. The secret is hustle, desire, pride, sacrifice. The secret is defense; my guys knew they had to stop the other side and not just depend on their own offensive power. They knew I would never keep them in there to build up their own averages but only to help us win. They knew I didn't look at the statistics - can you measure heart with numbers? - but only at the games, one after another.

They knew they couldn't fool me with false hustle. They knew I paid them for what I saw out there, not just for what came up in the box score. They knew the agate lines never showed whether a guy was boxing out, whether he was screening for the man with the shot, whether he was scrambling on both ends of the court, whether he was switching on defense.

And they knew something else, too, something very important to any athlete. They knew I would go with my best in all the big ones and never sit a man down so long as he was putting out for me."

Red also wrote, in the same chapter:

"I learned a big secret in basketball a long, long time ago.

Somebody has to be in charge.

Somebody has to give all the orders and enforce all the rules - all by himself. He can't have a board of directors around him. He can listen to his athletes but he can't abdicate his own responsibility and expect to hold a team together. He can't coach, in a word, unless he is the law and every last man on the squad, from the superstar to the rookie, understands it."

Tyrone: If you have Doc's email address please forward this to him! Thanks, MD.