CSNNE's Documentary On The '86 Celtics Was Absolutely Incredible
If you are a younger generation Celts fan like myself, you probably got your knowledge of the ’86 team from your parents, or grandparents, or most likely the internet. Growing up through the Dino Raja and Vitaly Potapenko years, and then spending my adolescence with young Pierce, Antoine, Walter and guys like Eric fucking Williams I was always jealous my Dad got to be there for this ’86 team. If you missed it, you need to find a way to watch it ASAP. Absolutely beautifully done from start to finish. Even though we’ve all heard these stories 1000 times, it was still awesome. Great shit Torey Champagne, Jim Aberdale, and Josh Canu.
Now most likely, if you clicked on this blog (thank you) you probably not only watched this as well, but are already pretty familiar with the ’86 Celts. I just want to take some time to talk a little more about how ridiculous they were
Did You Know…
We can’t start any other place than the 40-1 at home mark. People thought GS would either break or at worst match this record this season, but then
Sorry, times are tough for us right now. But this 40-1 (and really their 67-15 record) mark is so crazy when you actually look a little deeper. Like GS this year, it was really hard to beat them back to back. In fact, they lost back to back games just twice, and one of them included a 110-108 OT loss to the Bullets that snapped an 8 game winning streak. At home, they averaged 118 points per game, held teams to an average of 42%, and turned people over an average of 15 times a game. For reference GS this year was 114/38%/13. As infectious and exhilarating the 35-6 home record was in ’08, if we thought there was a buzz at the Garden around that team, I can’t even comprehend what it must have felt like to be in the stands for this team.
The roster, my God. Do you ever think the Celtics will form a team that ends up with 5 HOF players again in any of our lifetimes? Chances are slim. You had Bird winning consecutive MVPs, Walton 6th man of the year, you have to look REAL hard to find any holes. Have you ever really looked at how balanced of a starting five this was? All five players in double digits, and as a group they shot 51% from the field. Poor HOFer Dennis Johnson was the worst, and he sat at a solid 45%. See for yourself, it makes you shake your head and laugh
You think Bird, McHale, and Parish still give Ainge shit he’s the only starter not in the HOF? That has to burn him up pretty good. Almost as much as not being able to trade for Anthony Davis with 16/35/Olynyk.
What made this team truly great, wasn’t what they achieved during the regular season, but what happened once the games mattered. The Celts cruised to the Finals with an 11-1 record, and ended it with a 15-3 postseason effort. You see that chart above? Well, this is what you call stepping up when it matters most
I don’t care if it was rich for 1986, Larry Bird being the highest paid player at $1.8M suuuuucks. You have to imagine guys like Bird and McHale are so bitter that they played in the era they did. Bird would be getting $1.8M a month if he played today.
As good as the roster was, this team lucked out even more because KC Jones was the real fucking deal on the sideline. He became the head coach of the Celtics in 1983-84..and won a title. In 1984-5 they made it to the Finals. In 1985-86 they obviously won the title. In 1986-87 they made it to the Finals. In 1987-88 they made it to the ECF. Can a coach have a better run than that? Four Finals and one ECF in 5 years? To this day KC Jones (who was a HOF player himself) is probably the most underrated coach in Celtics history. Overall his coaching record stands at 552-252, not too shabby.
Now a quick Red story. When I was younger, maybe 14-15 I went to the Red Auerbach Basketball camp at Brandeis University. Maybe you did too. The camp was awesome for a lot of reasons, but two stand out. First, Walter McCarty was a guest speaker at the camp, which ruled, and then he ended his appearance by playing people in knock out. I’ll never forget the feeling when he nailed a three from the top of the key to knock me out. It’ll go down as one of the best moments of my life. Second, and maybe the coolest part, was the moment Red made his way into the gym to watch the drills/scrimmages. He usually sat by himself, obviously smoking a cigar, but the second he entered the gym EVERYONE knew about it. When he occasionally would make his way down to shake hands after a scrimmage it was like meeting a Beatle or something. On the last day of the camp you would sit next to him in a chair, shake his hand, he would mumble something about how he liked your jump shot, and then would grin ear to ear for the photo. Red walked around with such an aura around him, it’s hard to describe. I’m grateful I got to meet him in my lifetime. He was more than a basketball genius, he was a basketball revolutionary. He created the brand of Celtics basketball we all crave, and I can’t imagine trying to out negotiate him. A true legend by any measure.
So please, if you haven’t seen this documentary, find a way. May I also recommend, once you are finished and cleaned up, head over to Youtube and dive head first into a Celts rabbit hole. You won’t be disappointed.