Havlicek stole the ball

Their opponents would be the

The final game was held at the Boston Garden on April 15. Boston had trailed by one point at half time, but had turned it around in the third quarter and held a healthy 11-point lead in the waning minutes, with Havilicek and teammate Sam Jones accounting for over half of the Celtics 110 points. In a flurry of late scoring, Chamberlain took control of the game and scored 10 consecutive points to bring the game to 110–109 with five seconds to go. Following Chamberlain's last basket, the Celtics center Bill Russell inbounded the ball from under his own basket, attempting a long pass down the court, however the high pass hit a guide wire holding up the basket. As a result, Philadelphia got the ball under its own basket, putting them into position to take the lead.^[3] Auerbach would later claim that the reason Russell's inbound hit the guide wire was because the wire hadn't been there until that series, so Russell was not entirely aware of it being there in the way of his inbound pass.^{[citation needed]}

The play

Philadelphia put the ball in the hands of guard Hal Greer. Greer first looked to Wilt Chamberlain, however the long-armed Bill Russell was guarding Chamberlain closely, frustrating Greer's attempt to get him the ball. That left Greer's best target as forward Chet Walker, who was being covered by Havlicek. Havlicek was playing a bit off from Walker, giving Greer an opening to inbound the ball. By rule, a player has only five seconds to inbound the ball, and with Greer looking first to Chamberlain and waiting as long as possible before changing his mind, Havlicek counted silently down to four and, anticipating Greer's pass, broke toward Walker. Greer's high lob to Walker was cut short when Havlicek leaped and with his right hand deflected the ball to teammate Sam Jones, who dribbled out the rest of regulation. As the buzzer sounded, Jones passed the ball back to Havlicek, who launched a half-hearted shot towards the basket, it inconsequentially fell to the floor as time expired, preserving the win for the Celtics, and giving them the Eastern Division championship en route to their seventh straight NBA championship.

In what has since been named the greatest call in the history of basketball, radio announcer Johnny Most became increasingly animated as he called down the final five seconds of play:^[4]

Greer is putting the ball into play. He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones! Havlicek stole the ball! It's all over! It's all over! Johnny Havlicek is being mobbed by the fans! It's all over! Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!

At the conclusion of the game, an elated Boston crowd rushed the floor, lifting Havlicek on their shoulders and marching him around the court, ripping Havlicek's jersey off of him in the process. Havlicek would later mention how he'd always encounter random Celtic fans over the years who would show him a piece of the torn jersey that they acquired.

Legacy

The steal is marked as one of the greatest moments in NBA history. Sports Illustrated ranked it as the No. 61 moment in all of sports.^[5][6] The New England Historical Society dubbed it the greatest broadcast moment in basketball history.^[7]

Havlicek went on to become the Celtics' all-time leading scorer with 26,395 points in a Celtics record 1,270 games played. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1984.

Most was a fixture as the radio announcer for Celtics games for decades, finally retiring in 1990. Amongst the retired numbers in the rafters at the Celtics home court is a microphone in Most's honor. After his death, he was awarded the Curt Gowdy Media Award by the Basketball Hall of Fame for his on-air contributions to basketball, including the Havlicek call.^[8]

References