Rockets have that `Killer’ instinct

John Killilea can guess what basketball fans in Maine think about this year’s NBA finals.

The New York Knicks, being from the East and embodying a style of ball they seem to have learned in the back alleys of their city, will kick Houston’s wimpy Western Conference butts from Madison Square Garden to The Summit and back.

Better adjust your thinking, warns Killilea.

“That’s passe,” said Houston’s assistant coach and director of player personnel. “I think we’re just as tough as they are. I think the West now has just as many tough teams as the East. The Knicks play hard basketball, so it brings out the physical side of whoever they’re playing. We’re pretty tough ourselves. We won’t back down.”

Tough? Physical? Won’t back down?

Small wonder Houston has absorbed these concepts in the six years Killilea has been there. Killilea understood and appreciated them 42 years ago when he was beginning his basketball career as hoop coach at Pemetic High in Southwest Harbor and, later, at Old Town.

His 1953 Pemetic squad won an Eastern Maine Class M title. His ’57 Old Town team won the Class LL state championship, advancing to the New Englands.

“I remember those Maine kids would run through walls if I asked ’em,” said Killilea, now 65 years old with no thoughts of retirement. “One thing that never changes is this game requires mental toughness. That’s one thing I’ve always looked for in players.”

Looked for and demanded.

“He expected a lot out of his players and got it,” recalled Don Sturgeon, the center on Killilea’s ’57 state champion Old Town squad and now principal of Old Town High. “He was fiery. You can only go so far with talent. You’ve got to have someone put it together and make it work, who can deal with personalities and get the skills out, maximizing the talent. He did that.”

Call it a knack for extracting potential. Call it a talent for picking winners. Whatever it is called, Killilea had it early, which helps explain the Quincy, Mass., native’s meteoric rise from high school coach to NBA assistant.

“He had intensity and he had goals,” is how Sturgeon explains Killilea’s career.

As a high school coach in Massachusetts in the 1960s, Killilea scouted on the side for Larry Costello, then head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. He did it so well that Celtics head coach Tom Heinsohn hired Killilea out from under Costello and made him a Boston assistant in ’71.

Killilea spent six seasons with the Celtics, contributing his scouting and motivational expertise to Boston’s NBA title squads of ’74 and ’76.

It was Killilea who scouted a relatively unknown sophomore at Indiana State by the name of Larry Bird and promptly recommended that Celts GM Red Auerbach draft him.

In 1977, “Killer,” as he was by then known, followed former Celtic Don Nelson to Milwaukee as an assistant director of player personnel when Nelson got the head coaching job. The Bucks won four division titles during Killilea’s last four years there.

Then it was on to the New Jersey Nets under Stan Albeck. In ’84, the Nets eliminated the defending champion 76ers from the playoffs.

Killilea retired for a year in the mid-80’s but couldn’t stay away. He came back, coaching the CBA’s Topeka Sizzlers for two years. Then the Rockets called.

“It’s been a great ride,” said Killilea, whose player contributions to the current Rockets roster include Robert Horry, Carl Herrera and former Maine Central Institute postgrad Sam Cassell.

Killilea credits MVP center Hakeem Olajuwon with carrying the team to potential championship heights.

“Hakeem was there the last time we were there in ’86. That’s an advantage. Not many of the Knicks, if any, have that kind of experience,” Killilea said.

Will the Rockets win it?

“The key is winning the first two at home. With the (2-3-2) format, you have to win those two or you might not get back home. We beat the Knicks (twice) in the regular season. I think we’ve got what it takes,” said Killilea, who, as his former Maine players can attest, knows a winner when he sees one.