13 Rules: NBA Random Thoughts Overtime! John Havlicek

[00:00:00] Alright, I'm Jose Solbiotti, editor at thebeachbasket.net, Eastie Priscielo, a longtime educator, vice principal, high school coach and athletic director, and this is the 13 Rules Overtime podcast.

[00:00:14] It's the off season, the Olympics are going, but there's so much more to talk about in this great game that we all love.

[00:00:20] This is a show where we're going to discuss the NBA stars from the 60s, 70s and 80s by talking to someone who actually watched them play.

[00:00:30] These are players who you've heard about. You might have seen some grainy footage on YouTube, but you really don't know a lot about them.

[00:00:37] And that's been true for me as we've gone through this journey on the Overtime podcast.

[00:00:43] We're going to talk about what made these players special.

[00:00:46] What player today most resembles that player and what is Steve's greatest memory about that player?

[00:00:52] Steve being the guy who actually grew up watching them play, which is pretty cool.

[00:00:56] Today we've discussed NBA greats like Will Chamberlain, Sam Jones, Rick Berry, Pistol Pete Marovitch, Jerry West and Bill Russell.

[00:01:05] Today we're going to discuss someone who to me has a bit of an unsung hero.

[00:01:09] This is an NBA great who generally is not talked about in the go conversations and when you rattle off the all time greats.

[00:01:17] He's on the list, but he's not one of the first names that comes to mind.

[00:01:21] Not necessarily the tallest, fastest or most gifted player, but an incredible athlete who was an absolute winner.

[00:01:28] He was an eight-time NBA champion and NBA Finals MVP, 13-time NBA All-Star and five-time Old Defensive First Team player.

[00:01:38] Today we'll discuss Hondo, John Hannellichip.

[00:01:43] So let's start.

[00:01:45] You watched him play and I know this is your team and we bring up a lot of Lakers and a lot of Celtics and that's because they dominated the 60s, 70s and 80s.

[00:01:54] We're going to try and balance that out a little bit.

[00:01:57] This was at all time.

[00:01:59] He started and ended his career in Boston all time great.

[00:02:03] And you rank him pretty high in the all-time list for the Celtics.

[00:02:07] What made John Hablicek special?

[00:02:10] He never stopped running if you watched his games.

[00:02:14] He also did it all.

[00:02:16] He was a great defender.

[00:02:17] He also was a great scorer, not shooter scorer, knew how to score and he won.

[00:02:25] He won after Russell was gone.

[00:02:27] He won two more titles after that.

[00:02:30] In college at Ohio State, he won a title also with a couple of guys you might have heard of Jerry Locusts.

[00:02:37] It was a teammate, Larry Sinkreen, who played with the Celtics for a while and then it was the decent backup guard.

[00:02:43] As well as they had this other guy on that team by the way I'll mention, some guy who made it a little bit in a different way, Bob Knight.

[00:02:51] He was on that Ohio State team as well.

[00:02:53] He was a teammate of Hella Jax?

[00:02:55] Yes, at Ohio State.

[00:02:57] That's cool.

[00:02:59] And they had another guy, Mel Noll, who played in the ABA a little bit.

[00:03:03] You might have played a little bit with the NBA but he also, the Cincinnati team was considered great.

[00:03:08] The interesting thing was they didn't, Hablicek played another year.

[00:03:12] He was a junior when I won the title.

[00:03:13] They lost to Cincinnati after that, which we know Cincinnati had.

[00:03:19] Oscar.

[00:03:21] Big O.

[00:03:21] Yeah.

[00:03:22] But then he went on to the Celtics.

[00:03:24] In the beginning, he was a sixth man.

[00:03:27] Boston Redarback established a tradition with a sixth man.

[00:03:30] His first sixth man was Jack Ramsey.

[00:03:32] His belief was you take a guy off the bench and you change the whole game around by him being a difference.

[00:03:39] Hablicek became the next sixth man after Ramsey and he was great.

[00:03:43] He was always coming off the bench until Russell retired.

[00:03:46] That's I believe or maybe 69 is when he began to start.

[00:03:50] And from that point forward for the next nine or 10 years until he retired, he was a starter.

[00:03:56] But he was a sixth man originally and that kept his minutes down because one of the other things that Hablicek did we talked about wealth a couple weeks ago about his minutes.

[00:04:05] Hablicek played.

[00:04:06] He didn't come out of games.

[00:04:08] And I just I was looking at some and just starting in 1969, 70 he average forty one point six minutes, seventy one forty five point four seventy two forty five point one seventy three forty two point one and seventy four forty point one.

[00:04:26] So it point seven.

[00:04:28] But if you look at that only will was a guy who can do that.

[00:04:32] He did it and he would play they never took him out and he was considered perpetual motion.

[00:04:37] He was always moving and always a problem to defend because he was always somewhere in like in sixty nine.

[00:04:45] He carried Boston offensively in those playoffs against all the Lakers.

[00:04:50] Yeah, against the Lakers in that seven game series.

[00:04:53] My fondest memory and I just.

[00:04:57] Boston won the title of seventy four and seventy six.

[00:05:00] They would have won in seventy three had he not have gotten hurt now in seventy three in game three.

[00:05:06] He dislocated his right shoulder.

[00:05:08] His shooting are yeah in seventy and seventy three in game four of that series.

[00:05:14] He did not play the Nick fans when they saw him come out in street calls.

[00:05:20] They were cheering now in seven in that game.

[00:05:24] Boston lost in overtime to go down three to one in the series.

[00:05:29] Now, that's a famous double overtime loss that the two referees took a lot of abuse from Tommy Heinz and Boston.

[00:05:36] Because it seemed like they had to always complain about everything, but it seemed like down the stretch.

[00:05:43] They didn't get there for a share of calls.

[00:05:45] Have a check came back and played in game five six and seven game five.

[00:05:51] He scored 18 points playing left handed.

[00:05:54] Right.

[00:05:55] I'll tell you how great he was. Boston one game six Boston one.

[00:05:59] Have a check was not nearly as good always scoring nine points game seven back in Boston.

[00:06:06] Everybody figured Boston was going to pull this one off.

[00:06:08] Boston got blown out by the next and the next went on to win the title have have a check been healthy.

[00:06:15] They would have probably won that series in seventy four again.

[00:06:20] He played they won the title.

[00:06:22] They won.

[00:06:23] He was the MVP of the series and as well in seventy six, they won another title.

[00:06:27] He was the MVP that was with Joe Joe White and Dave Cowans and Paul Silas, who's pretty good also and Don Cheney and

[00:06:35] Don Nelson, who was a great Celtic.

[00:06:37] But they also won a couple more titles with have a check really being the captain and the star of the show.

[00:06:44] His number was retired and he just it was one of them people you watch until he's not thank but then in

[00:06:53] Yeah, what a great player and you realize that now we talked about this before.

[00:06:59] In my mind that I've seen a lot of Celtics over the years.

[00:07:03] This is arguably the third best Celtic of all time.

[00:07:08] That shot nearly shocked me as Russell and better.

[00:07:12] But then you have the have a check you can argue Cousy.

[00:07:15] You can try Sam Jones.

[00:07:17] You can throw a lot of different people.

[00:07:19] Kevin McHale.

[00:07:19] Do that.

[00:07:21] But the thing I'll say back to you on each of those names you're bringing to me.

[00:07:26] This guy was the number one guy in his two titles.

[00:07:29] Were they know they weren't.

[00:07:32] Yeah, so that all come back with Cowans and Whitehall famous.

[00:07:37] They were great.

[00:07:38] But think about this with how I will check.

[00:07:40] And I think we talked about a little bit before to show you how great an athlete he was drafted by the Cleveland Browns.

[00:07:46] Yeah, that's crazy as a receiver and got cut.

[00:07:49] But that's how good an athlete he was.

[00:07:52] Yeah, I'm blown away by the minutes.

[00:07:55] Right.

[00:07:55] And I want to spend a little bit of time on that because you know that I know baseball and you follow baseball.

[00:08:01] No, Ryan would regularly throw 200 not regularly, but he had to know to throw 200 pitches in a game and other players from that era.

[00:08:08] And obviously today you get to 80 and the coaches are calling the bullpen.

[00:08:13] Obviously you can throw 200 pitches and you're OK.

[00:08:17] You obviously could play 40 minutes and you're OK.

[00:08:20] What happened?

[00:08:22] What is it about longevity is or is it about these guys?

[00:08:26] Nolan Ryan, obviously, is just a unique animal.

[00:08:30] Have the check will these are just unique players.

[00:08:32] Not everybody can do it.

[00:08:34] What's your take on that?

[00:08:36] A couple of things.

[00:08:38] First of all agents got involved and by that, you don't want them to play a lot.

[00:08:41] You don't want to get hurt because each year they get another year of pay.

[00:08:45] There wasn't a lot of money being made in the 60s and 70s.

[00:08:49] So these guys weren't getting paid a great deal.

[00:08:51] So they gave it all.

[00:08:53] Here's a guy with a dislocated shoulder playing in a playoffs here.

[00:08:56] That's crazy.

[00:08:57] But that's what they did.

[00:08:59] Have a check.

[00:09:00] Interestingly enough, scored a lot of his points off his motion.

[00:09:04] He just kept moving and he would layups on cuts and all kinds of things that would just like.

[00:09:10] Were incredible.

[00:09:12] And he just was much better than what he showed and he was just a great player with them.

[00:09:18] The motion thing is the other thing that kind of stuck out to me because when I think of players like that,

[00:09:23] I think of Reggie Miller, right?

[00:09:25] Who's always running around somewhere.

[00:09:27] I think of J.G.

[00:09:28] Reddit, right?

[00:09:29] Who was always running around.

[00:09:31] But neither one of those two players was five time defensive first team.

[00:09:37] So that obviously the point I'm making is it's one thing to run around on one end of the court.

[00:09:44] But it sounds to me like having check was running around on both ends, right?

[00:09:49] That's crazy.

[00:09:50] And do it for 40 minutes that boggles them on.

[00:09:53] He did it all.

[00:09:55] It's interesting how you had to get a leaker into this when you said J.G.

[00:09:59] Reddit, which is just not surprising.

[00:10:02] Let's put it that way.

[00:10:02] But J.G.

[00:10:04] Reddit and Miller did a different thing.

[00:10:07] Havlicek sport, a lot of easy layups and things like that outcuts those two guys were guys who came off screens looking for the open shot.

[00:10:16] They were both good shooters.

[00:10:18] Miller, great shooter.

[00:10:19] Reddit was a great.

[00:10:20] So it was a little different type game.

[00:10:23] And neither one of them were known as defensive stoppers.

[00:10:26] Exactly.

[00:10:27] And then you play and Havlicek was if you go back to 69, I don't remember the exact numbers.

[00:10:32] Not play all series against the Lakers in game one and two.

[00:10:36] Havlicek had a score.

[00:10:37] West went crazy.

[00:10:38] He was 50 and 40 in the first two games, but how much I had to be like 40 and 30 in the first two games.

[00:10:45] He was doing what he did.

[00:10:47] Lakers won those two games, but he was Boston's offense in that series.

[00:10:51] And they won.

[00:10:52] How much I got when Boston came back in the series.

[00:10:56] Against Philly that we talked about in was that 68.

[00:11:00] Havlicek was the guy who's scoring ridiculous numbers in the end game.

[00:11:06] Game six and seven.

[00:11:08] I think he was almost had a triple double in game seven in that series when Boston beat Philly 100 to 96.

[00:11:15] So the things he did didn't get noticed, but they were incredible.

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:20] Yeah.

[00:11:21] He sounds like the kind of player who did what you needed done at the time.

[00:11:25] Right.

[00:11:25] Swiss Army knife.

[00:11:27] Yeah.

[00:11:27] He needs somebody to lock down the fed.

[00:11:29] You could do they need someone here to be shot.

[00:11:31] He could do that.

[00:11:32] I think what people just they just don't realize, like we said, the champion, he was an all star at 13 times.

[00:11:41] These numbers are just crazy.

[00:11:43] So people don't understand or realize how great he was throughout that time.

[00:11:49] By the way, his name, Hondo.

[00:11:52] You know where that came from, though?

[00:11:54] No idea.

[00:11:54] Red on back name than that.

[00:11:56] If the John Wayne.

[00:11:58] Oh, OK.

[00:12:00] OK.

[00:12:00] Yeah, which is a very interesting little tidbit to look at about Havlicek.

[00:12:05] I did not know that this is.

[00:12:07] Yeah, I love having this conversation about these players because again for me, I learned a lot.

[00:12:11] These guys I've heard about and I got to watch just a little bit of Havlicek's career.

[00:12:16] I started being a fan as he was finishing up his career.

[00:12:19] But this is by far the best part for me in that he is.

[00:12:23] And we're going to show some highlights.

[00:12:25] We do that. The one thing he didn't mention was and I know you do a show to highlight.

[00:12:30] Hmm.

[00:12:31] The biggest thing he's probably most known for is stealing the ball.

[00:12:35] Let me just set that up before you show it.

[00:12:37] OK.

[00:12:39] Boston, no Philly, it just scored to cut it to one.

[00:12:43] It was five seconds, I believe, left.

[00:12:45] Russell took the ball out and back then the baskets had guide wires going back.

[00:12:51] Russell takes the ball out.

[00:12:54] He throws it off one of the wires that's out of bounds.

[00:12:59] So now Philly's got the ball under their own basket with five seconds left with Will.

[00:13:05] Oh, my God.

[00:13:06] Get the ball in and it's over in seven with the whole thing on the line.

[00:13:11] And now Hal Greer is about to take it out.

[00:13:13] Got it.

[00:13:14] You want to play it?

[00:13:15] And apologies to those that are listening, but you'll be able to hear a little bit about this.

[00:13:20] But we're actually watching the video.

[00:13:22] And he still had the wherewithal to take the shot.

[00:13:24] We're going to need surrounded by fans.

[00:13:28] I think that's a timepiece because look at the people on the court.

[00:13:32] In today's game, the players would never they'd be running through their lives and just a whole thing that was fascinating.

[00:13:41] The timepiece, I guess, would be the best way to put it.

[00:13:43] But that play there and Johnny Most kept saying how much extoll the ball Johnny Most, if you don't know, was the announcer for the Celtics for many years.

[00:13:53] And he he was a character in his own right.

[00:13:57] We could do a show on him.

[00:13:58] I think he used to call Kevin rule under Rick Mahour and Bill Thea McNasty.

[00:14:02] He had names of team other teams players.

[00:14:05] He was just but anyway, he coined that how much extoll the ball, which made him famous as well at the fun.

[00:14:13] And most was the announcer into the 80s, I believe.

[00:14:16] But that steal is what people remember him for.

[00:14:21] But boy, he was just he did it all.

[00:14:23] There he is there hitting the jumper and just doing things that just were incredible.

[00:14:30] And he could shoot, but he just did other things.

[00:14:32] And if you watch, he's always moving.

[00:14:35] Yeah.

[00:14:36] So who today is most like this guy?

[00:14:40] I don't know.

[00:14:40] Is there any players?

[00:14:41] I don't think you'll see anybody that they can do the things he does.

[00:14:47] You brought up those two players.

[00:14:49] One was a Laker of some sort and one was Reggie Miller, but he did it on both ends.

[00:14:55] So it's very difficult to even think of somebody that could do it like he did and play the minutes he played.

[00:15:03] All right.

[00:15:04] Just incredible.

[00:15:05] Today's players see there as a cut.

[00:15:08] Today's players don't score off cuts.

[00:15:10] Today's players usually take the ball, the great ones and take somebody one on one and beat them.

[00:15:16] Avacek, like I said, he didn't do anything great, but he did everything.

[00:15:21] He defended great, but he was different in that way.

[00:15:23] So it's very difficult to even compare him to somebody today.

[00:15:30] Not a modern day player, but let me give you one that comes to mind from the 80s.

[00:15:35] This is also a multi-world champion, a phenomenal defender and a guy who put up 30 on the Celtics once.

[00:15:43] And that's Michael Cooper.

[00:15:44] Come close?

[00:15:45] Somehow I knew it was going to be a Laker, but the Michael Cooper was not nearly the offensive player that John Havichek was.

[00:15:52] True.

[00:15:53] That would be the big difference.

[00:15:55] By the way, if you watch him shooting there and look at the rims, they won't even break away back then.

[00:15:59] That didn't come until after Dawkins and Shaq broke the rims.

[00:16:05] Yeah, they weren't even breakable.

[00:16:07] So that tells you about how much stronger and better jumpers and all that stuff that the players are today.

[00:16:15] It was interesting also.

[00:16:17] But I guess Cooper defensively, but again to expand the energy that Havichek didn't gain.

[00:16:25] I don't think there's anybody that's ever done that.

[00:16:27] Yeah.

[00:16:28] If I remember right, they used somebody put something on him this figure out how many miles he ran during a game.

[00:16:35] It was over nine miles that he did.

[00:16:38] And I'm not positive on that, but I remember they were trying to study like how much motion he utilized.

[00:16:46] Yeah, that's wild.

[00:16:48] That's wild.

[00:16:49] Like I said earlier, right?

[00:16:51] The best part of this show for me is learning about these players and trying to feed them into today.

[00:16:59] And this is the first guy that we really didn't have an apples to apples comparison.

[00:17:05] We never have apples to apples, but we always come close.

[00:17:08] You always can name somebody.

[00:17:10] This is the first guy where you're saying there's nobody like him.

[00:17:13] That's crazy.

[00:17:14] That's very cool.

[00:17:15] I think the game of basketball back then.

[00:17:19] Offensively, there was more pattern and less option for a player.

[00:17:24] Now there's more options, less patterns.

[00:17:27] So the one on one skills were there.

[00:17:30] Some of the film you showed Boston set screens getting him shots where in today's game, yeah, they do that for good shooters.

[00:17:39] But the truly the LeBron's they give them the ball and say, cream, make a play.

[00:17:44] Yeah.

[00:17:44] And so does the difference in the game today and then got it.

[00:17:49] And then it's the be stated for the record that you brought up a Los Angeles like a lot.

[00:17:53] That's a yummy.

[00:17:54] It was you.

[00:17:56] I'm just calling it out.

[00:17:57] I made a mistake.

[00:17:59] All right, let's end it on that.

[00:18:01] No, always fun to talk basketball.

[00:18:04] It doesn't matter whether it's on season off season playoff.

[00:18:06] So Olympics and it's great to look back and find out a little bit more about these honestly phenomenal players.

[00:18:11] They were not just plumbers and construction workers.

[00:18:15] Yes, talented basketball players.

[00:18:18] Hope you enjoyed learning a little bit more about John Hamlet.

[00:18:20] Check I certainly did.

[00:18:22] Join us next week when we talk about some other NBA great if you've got somebody you'd like to talk about.

[00:18:30] You'd like to learn a little bit more about me.

[00:18:32] Shoot us a comment to subscribe.

[00:18:34] All that stuff just means the world and it helps a ton.

[00:18:37] We'd love to hear from you.

[00:18:39] But if we don't, we'll find somebody there still.

[00:18:41] We'll tell some great players to talk about out there.

[00:18:43] Make sure to join us next week on 13 rules over time.

[00:18:47] We'll talk then.

[00:18:48] Thank you.