1974 Overview
From Hoopedia
1973-74 NBA Season
The Boston Celtics wrote a new chapter in their championship saga in 1974.
To do so, the Celtics had to shake off profound disappointment. The franchise had won 11 championships between 1957 and 1969. Then Bill Russell retired, and the team fell on hard times—but only until Red Auerbach’s new wave of players found time to mature.
Leading the charge was undersized center Dave Cowens, whom Auerbach had drafted out of Florida State in 1970. Combined with John Havlicek, the main holdover from the Russell days, and the acquisitions of Jo Jo White, Don Chaney and a round of new faces, Boston soon moved back into contention.
By 1972-73, Cowens had pushed Boston to a franchise-best 68 wins, but the campaign ended in supreme disappointment when the Celtics lost a seventh game playoff showdown with New York in their beloved Boston Garden.
That embarrassment drove Cowens and his teammates as they opened play in the fall of 1973. It wouldn’t be an easy run through the regular season, but come playoff time the Celtics would be ready. The NBA was changing following the retirement of Wilt Chamberlain after more than 31,000 points and 23,000 rebounds. The old guard was gone or on its way out. Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere and Jerry Lucas were playing their last seasons for New York, while Jerry West in L.A. and Oscar Robertson in Milwaukee were also moving through their final campaigns.
The beneficiary proved to be Boston, which had come of age with a mix of veterans and young stars. Havlicek was still good for a team-high 22.6 ppg, and Cowens hauled in 15.7 rebounds per game and baffled opposing centers with his quickness and fiery determination. Tom Heinsohn had nurtured the group as head coach for five years, and Auerbach was still making the key acquisitions to build another contender.
The Celtics won 56 games, 12 fewer than the previous year but still the most in the East. Boston romped past Buffalo and the aging Knicks to reach the Finals for the first time since 1969. In the West, Abdul-Jabbar won his third MVP Award after averaging 27 points and 14.5 rebounds in leading Milwaukee to a league-high 59 victories. The Bucks toppled the aging Lakers in five games and swept overmatched Chicago to reach the Finals.
The matchup of Cowens and Abdul-Jabbar headlined the series, and each man helped his team to wins as the teams split six games, including a pair of overtime Milwaukee victories.
But playing a huge role for Boston was the 34-year-old Havlicek, still a player in constant motion, able to outrun the opposition every game just as he had when he helped Russell’s Celtics win NBA titles during the 1960s. A link to the Cousy/Russell Celtics, “Hondo” was still the critical player for the Celtics a decade later.
He proved that by hitting key shots throughout the series, especially in the critical Game 5 “When things are swinging easy, we all get in the flow of it,” explained teammate Paul Silas, another valuable piece to the Boston machine. “And sometimes then it almost looks like we ignore John. But when things don’t go well, we look to him all the time to make the tough play. We do this instinctively because he has usually been the guy who’s turned bad moments into good ones for us.”
In Game 7, the Celtics altered their strategy of having Cowens try to play Abdul-Jabbar by himself, and instead double- and triple-teamed the Milwaukee center. Cowens, freed for the first time in the series from having to focus on defense, scored 28 points and helped Boston to a 102-87 win.
Once again, the league faced a dreaded scene: Red Auerbach toasting another championship with a cigar.
