Sam Jones EXPOSED: The Secret Bank Shot King Who Won More Titles Than Anyone Not Named Russell

Steve Purciello: Hello, everybody. Welcome to "Celtic Chalk Talk," another week, and we'll hear to talk about the Celtics. My name's Steve Purciello, lifelong Celtic fan. Lifelong goes back to the Bill Russell days. This week we're gonna work on number nine in our top 10 for me all-time Celtics. But before we do, I wanna remind you that the Peach Basket Network is a network of fans really, and it's an interesting network that you should take a look at because not only is the "Celtic Talk" on, there's a number of other podcasts that are very good from fans. We're independent. Nobody's telling us what to write. We're allowed to write what we please, and, and some of the stuff is quite interesting and pretty good. So my suggestion would be take a shot, listen to us, listen to a few of the pods. If you like it, of course, subscribe to the site, to the Peach Basket, and go from there. But anyway, a quick thought on the Celtics, and I thought a little bit about this. I believe this is happening right now. I don't know if this team is done dealing for the season. I'm not saying I know something. I don't know if they are and if they're satisfied with what they have. I think, if certain things open themselves up, they would do it. They have those two draft picks from Philadelphia, and they can go in a trade to even off money, meaning if you trade somebody, let's use Paul George for just argument's sake, and he's making near 60 grand, 60 million rather. If you traded him for somebody else making 60 that was a better player, those two draft picks could even things off. So I, I don't know if they're done. I, I, I just-- it's a feeling I have. I think most people would say they are done, and what they have is what they will go with. I think the team they have is pretty good. I think it's better than last year's team. Mitchell Robinson, of course, coming in, Tatum playing instead of Brown, that's a wash I guess. But, but, but I think the younger players with another year of experience. The problem is the league is a l-- the division's better. Less teams are being, playing for the future and, and tanking, so it might not-- they might not equal 56 wins, but I think they can play and it's not as bad a team as we all think. And I think ultimately we do, as I've said before, have to give Brad Stevens time to let this play out, what trades follow it and what happens. So that's my quick thought on the Celtics. But now today I'm gonna talk about my number nine Celtic of all time. It's Sam Jones. Now, when I was a kid, I watched the Celtics and I was amazed at Bill Russell. He just rebounded and rebounded and played the middle and nobody went to the basket. I'll tell stories about that down the road. But he, he was just incredible. But I, I did notice this guy on the team, a guard who can go up and down the court and he can shoot the ball, but he shot it funny. He shot it off the backboard. Everything was off the backboard from 10, 15 feet in. Don't forget, no three at the time. So without the three-point shot, that 15, 20, 18 footer was welcome. And anytime it was on an angle, not on straight on from the basket, Jones would use the backboard often. And I just thought that was odd. I tried playing in my backyard and playing, I tried to use the backboard. I never had the success Sam Jones had. But there's more to Sam Jones. Don't forget, don't forget, Sam Jones had 10, 10 titles. He is one of three people who won eight in a row. Besides Bill Russell and him, they won eight in a row. Pretty hard thing to do, but he did it. I think Heinsohn was the third if I'm, if I remember correctly. But Sam Jones, what a great player. He averaged 22.8 points a game. He was the scorer on the Boston Celtics and Boston was very much a role playing team at the time. But he scored 22.8. He played for 12 seasons with Boston, again, had those titles. Three times he was All-League. He was a clutch player and I'm gonna tell you a story about that in a few minutes. The bank shot was great. And here's an interesting thing. When the NBA picked years ago the top 25, he was one-- a member of the top 25 all time. When they went to the 50 year players, top 50 all time, he was one of them. And then just recently the top 75, he's also one of them. So that tells you the respect for him. And I think the fact that he won 10 titles and if you want to think about a trivia thing, you could say who's second, won the second most titles of all time? And it would be, it would be Sam Jones. Sam Jones was a great player, often overshadowed on the Celtics because if we talk about that team that I saw in the '60s, you had a great defender in Satch Sanders. You had Heinsohn, who I mentioned last week, Cousy early in his career. These were great players, but also you had some great role players. At the end, you had Bailey Howell when I started watching him, and who's a Hall of Famer, but he-- when he played for the Celtics, he was older, a rebounder, and a great four, great garbage player. By garbage, I mean putting stuff back up, getting rebounds, doing all the dirty work on the court. Satch Sanders, as I said, a great defensive player, Hall of Fame defensive player really. K.C. Jones, another great defensive player. What you see in here when I start talking about these people, Bill Sharman, a pretty good offensive player. What you're seeing though is Auerbach's brilliance where he had people play roles and they excelled in the roles. He didn't ask more out of them. And Sam Jones was the guy that Boston looked to score, as well as later the John Havlicek. Havlicek is one of the all-time, you know, he, he-- we'll talk about him down the road, but he's just a great player. But that, that's a different, a different subject at a different time. Sam Jones was great right to the end. Now my recollections was him using the backboard. My recollections was him getting out on the break and, and getting open shots. And my recollections was he, he would go through hot stretches at times and just, and just, you know, put the Celtics out there. Great o-, and, and defensively he was good, but don't forget he was decent. But don't forget you have K.C. Jones as his partner. That's not bad. And when you have K.C. Jones, you're not guarding the best scorer on the other team. So Jones, Sam Jones was able to hold his own defensively and that was, that was the incredible thing. Now the thing I remember is in 1969, this was Russell's last year. Now the Celtics struggled. They were 48 and 34 in the regular season, came in fourth place. You kind of thought Russell was hurt a lot. You kind of thought it was over. It was over for Boston and, they'll play the playoffs and, you know, it'll be done. Now I'm a, I'm a f- what? 15-year-old young man at the time and I watched the games. Now they weren't all on TV and some you can get on radio, but it, it was more difficult in that time. We didn't have cable. We didn't have any of the things we have today. So you have to understand that. Now we got to the playoffs in '69, and Boston went out and they played Philly in the first round. Now back then, oddly, the first place team played the third place team, second played the fourth, which is a little unusual. Now, Philadelphia had traded Wilt in the off-season to the Lakers. So you had Philly with Chet Walker and, and who was a great player, I believe Billy Cunningham, Luke Jackson, a tremendous rebounder, Hal Greer, a Hall of Famer. They had a real good team still, Wally Jones, and so on. But Boston went out in the, in the playoffs, they beat Philly four to one or four-two, if I recall correctly. Then they went against a, an upstart New York Knick team. New York was a year away from the title. They had Walt Frazier and Willis Reed and all these people. DeBusschere. They made the trade for DeBusschere, I believe in that year with getting him from Detroit. Bill Bradley, Cazzie Russell, Dick Barnett. They, they were, they were good, and you could see they were becoming, ascending to become the best team in the league. Boston beat them in six. Walt Frazier was great in the series, but Boston was just better and, and they beat them in six. So now they play the Lakers in the finals. Now, you have to understand, the Lakers had gone out and gotten Wilt. They had Wilt, Baylor, and West, three stars. Boston had Havlicek, a star. Russell, a fading star, but a great player still. Still able to get a bunch of rebounds and not quite hold his own against Wilt, but do well against Wilt. W- the, the-- and Sam Jones, who was going to retire after the series. In fact, I believe who-- I think it was game four where they did a little, 'cause it could be his last game and all that stuff at home, they did a little ceremony before the game for Sam Jones, and the crowd, of course, in Boston Garden went crazy. But anyway, we go back now in that series. Philly wins the first two, Boston wins the third. Now check out, if you ever get a chance, take a look. West went crazy. In fact, he will be the MVP, the only time an MVP came from the losing team in the finals. But he went crazy. The first two games he, he, I, I think over 40 both games, if I remember correctly. I could be wrong. But besides over 40, Havlicek was great for Boston. He had in, in the low 30s. Now we come, Boston wins game three. It's game four now. That's all important. If Boston loses, they're going back to LA down three to one and in big trouble, especially with this old team. So, and, and by the way, Boston had a point guard on that team named Emmette Bryant who played with the Knicks, and he was at best a journeyman, but played some great basketball in this series. The game four came down. Boston is down by a point. There's 10 seconds or so, whatever, left in the game. What do they do? Well, they call timeout. They set up a play. Russell, who was the coach, he won the title the year before as the coach. This was his third season. The year-- two years before, Philadelphia beat them. But now they're in against, against the Lakers, game four, down two to one, down a point. Boston calls timeout. Russell's the-- he runs like this old gate play where Sam Jones would come around the foul line, screens and probably from about 18 feet, catch the ball and take the shot. I'll never forget this, he, he caught, took the shot, the ball hit the front rim, back rim, hit the backboard, and then rolled back into the basket. Boston wins the game. They will go on to win the series, which I'll talk about. But the interesting thing was Jones said, "I didn't have a good grip on the ball and I struggled, but I knew if I can get it up on the rim, Russell's got a chance of getting it." Here's the piece that p- he, nobody knew. Sam Jones was playing, but Bill Russell took himself out. He put a better shooter in for himself, figuring that more offense will hopefully get Jones the shot. So Jones took that shot and made it. It was a clutch, great shot. Boston wins the game, go back to LA. LA smokes Boston in LA. Now it's game six. And by the way, those games were on late at night, some very late, because, you know, in LA and, and I believe there was a tape delay when they were in Boston. But tells you how far the NBA came. Game six, Boston wins. They go to game seven. What happens? In game seven, Boston goes out to LA, the famous game where Don Nelson hit the back rim straight up, straight down, went in with about three minutes left in a tight game where the Lakers were coming back. Jerry West was great, but Boston held on to win. That's the game Wilt Chamberlain sat out, sat out or got taken out. He said he was hurt with about five minutes left. He then told Bill, Butch Van Breda Kolff, the coach, "I'm okay, put me back in." Van Breda Kolff did not put him back in, and he would be fired for that because the Lakers ended up losing that game. But Sam Jones was a winner, a great Celtic. When you think about all the Celtic championships, he was involved in eight. So you do, when I pick a team, you do have a few players that have to, have to be in the top 10, more players than any other group, because eight titles and, and in Russell's case, 11. I mean, 10 titles for Sam, Russell's case, 11. Wow. I mean, think about it. I know the NBA was smaller then, but winning that many titles, incredible. Well, that's it for this week. I'm g- hopefully, I, I hope you enjoy what I've talked about. If you get a chance, I don't even know if the game is on YouTube, but I would look it up. It's, it, the games or whatever of Sam Jones, because it would be fun to watch him and how he played. Enjoy it. That's all for this week. Next week, we will do number eight all time in my mind for the Celtics, and I hope to hear from you, or if you have comments, make them. But I hope to hear from you or see, hear you listening or know you listening next week. Thank you. Take care.