Bill Russell
"The Original Celtic"
Boston Celtics- 13 seasons- 963 games
6’9” – 215 lb – 15.1 pts – 22.5 reb – 4.3 ast – .44 fg% -
42.3 minutes
“Book of Basketball”- Bill Simmons’ Ranking: 2
SLAM #130 and Top 500 Ranking: 3
ESPN's 50 Greatest Athletes of the
20th Century: 18
Defense wins championships…
because Bill Russell says so.
Russell gave the NBA another dimension: serious defense to
combat the fairly loose, offensive-based score-fest the NBA had been becoming
behind previous seven-footers who were skilled, but generally earth-bound.
The school of thought in the pre-perimeter era was that the
biggest guy was the hardest to guard and should therefore score the most, which
he could do easiest by standing the closest. This had worked for years, but
Russell changed all that. Though he never led his team in scoring, he won 11
championships in his 13 seasons.
And really who could argue with the lord of the rings? We’re
talking about the man David Stern named the Finals MVP trophy after, and
presented a custom championship ring that has each of his title years engraved
on the sides so that Russell isn’t forced to choose his favorite ten.
For the 6-9, 215 lb centre, defense was everything because
he turned it into everything. Defense became offense when the other team
couldn’t convert, and Russell fired outlet passes to a streaking Bob Cousy, KC
or Sam Jones, John Havlicek, or any of a cast of other hall-of-famers.
As Russell says, “I had never seen a blocked shot in a
basketball game before I did it! I estimate that, in college, I averaged at
least 15 blocked shots a game. Often, I started fast breaks off those blocks
which revolutionized the way offense could be played.”
“That’s quite a twist, isn’t it, having a defensive player
mean the difference?” said Lakers coach John Kundla in 1959. “We don’t fear the
Celtics without Bill Russell. Take him out and we can beat them… He’s the guy who
whipped us psychologically. Russell has our club worrying every second. Every
one of the five men is thinking Russell is covering him on every play. He
blocks a shot, and before you know it, Boston is getting a basket, and a play
by Russell has done it.”
With big #6 patrolling the paint, blocking shots like nobody
had ever seen before, the Celtic guards could play aggressive in their defense.
They could lunge at exposed dribbles, stray into passing lanes hoping for
interceptions, and generally put more pressure on the other team. They were
able to do all this knowing that if their over-zealous defense meant their man
got past them, Russell was there.
They called it the “Hey Bill!” defense.
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| Bill Russell and Red Auerbach celebrated 11 championships together |
And he was always there. A staple of the original Celtics
dynasty, Russell usually sat for only two minutes at the end of the first quarter
before playing the rest of the game.
And the other team knew he was there too. Russell’s presence
alone was enough to make offensive players think twice about taking the ball to
the basket, or putting up some kind of weak, two-handed set shot.
“I went around my man going for a lay-up and [Russell]
blocked a couple shots,” says former MVP and hall-of-famer Bob Pettit. “The
next time I got around them I missed the lay-up looking for him.”
Russell scouted opponents like a coach to learn their moves
and visualize their tendencies, something current players do with the aid of
technology, but just one thing Russell did to gain any kind of edge that could
momentarily satisfy his unquenchable thirst for victory.
This coach’s perspective allowed him to build a fruitful
relationship with Red Auerbach. The two worked together to employ Russell’s
game-changing skillset and build the team around it. When Red became GM,
Russell took over the bench and coached himself to two more titles.
We could talk about accomplishments and awards all day;
Russell’s 51-rebound game, his record 40 rebounds in a Finals game, his ten
straight seasons with 21+ rebounds per game, and his average of 24.9 in career
playoff rebounds, but individual statistics didn’t matter to Russell.
That’s in many ways what separates him from Wilt
Chamberlain, Russell’s primary rival. For example, it was in the 1961/62 season Wilt
averaged 50.4 points and scored his iconic 100 in a single game. Russell won MVP, and the Celtics
took the title.
The winning was what drove Russell each game. During
Russell’s reign, the Celtics won 71% of their regular season games, 65% of
their playoff games, and never lost a game 7, winning 10 of 10 deciding games.
Closed and surly while a Celtic, Russell eschewed most fans by
refusing to sign autographs, and disliked media saying, “The most successful
television is done in eight-second thoughts, and the things I know about
basketball, motivation and people go deeper than that.”
After he won his last championship in 1969 he didn't attend the
victory parade, nor his jersey retirement in 1972, or his Hall of Fame induction
in 1975. Only recently has Russell re-emerged as a smiling face of the NBA, his
differences reconciled by time.
Nowadays, “defense wins championships” is undeniable, an
intrinsic truth, and a self-fulfilling prophecy. Bill Russell reinterpreted
basketball in a way no player has before or since, and his record 11
championships will likely never be matched.
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| "Russell the Celtic, Lord of the Rings" illustration by Devin Gray |
