Big stars, fundamentals keys for Boston Celtics Revitalized team reminiscent of former champs

Much to the surprise of everyone in my house, I’ve been watching a lot of NBA basketball these days – particularly Boston Celtics basketball.

Heck, I grew up listening and watching the stuff, and my heroes who wore green and white uniforms back then played a different style of run-and-gun offense than most of the teams do today.

Funny thing, though, the best teams, and the annual winners each spring of league titles, get back to the basics when championship matches roll around.

Teams such as the San Antonio Spurs, with rosters composed of big man Tim Duncan, guard Tony Parker and sharpshooting forward Manu Ginobili, remind me of those old Celtics teams.

At the highest level of play, there always seems to be that combination of talent and the fundamentals. Give-and-go basketball was always a favorite of mine. Screening to the ball, then rolling to the basket was a close second. Toss into that mix less dribbling and precise passing, and you’ve got the mix of high-fiber, true fundamentals played by the really good teams at all levels of play.

The old Celtics teams of my generation were taught to play like that by their fiery coach, Red Auerbach, and each of the great teams from the 1950s and the 1960s seemed to thrive on three or four great players to execute the plays and play good defense at the other end of the floor.

Names such as Bill Russell, Bob Cousy and Tommy Heinsohn dominated the Celts roster back when I started paying attention to all this stuff. Yes, dear readers, that’s the same hook-shooting Heinsohn who mans the TV booth these days with slick announcer Mike Gorman.

I grew up with other great threesomes in Boston.

When another Celtic great, Bill Sharman, retired in 1961, the team just kept rolling. I have many fond memories of listening to the 1961-62 team on my little transistor radio, tucked surreptitiously under my pillow.

Russell’s play was larger than life to me then, and announcer Johnny Most was the voice of the team. Sharpshooter Sam Jones was teaming with the aforementioned stars to “shoot the lights out,” as Most would say in his gravelly voice.

My, what a team they had.

Looking back, I think it was three stars, maybe four, who seemed to bring all those titles to Boston.

That’s why I’m so high on this year’s team. Under head coach Doc Rivers, a master at teaching fundamentals, stars such as newly-acquired Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen team nicely with the likes of Paul Pierce, a nine-year C’s veteran, to form another dynamic Boston threesome.

This year’s team reminds me of the Dave Cowens, John Havlicek and Jo Jo White teams. They run the ball effectively, and they play sound basketball in the half-court.

With Garnett being almost unstoppable outside and inside, could this group win another title and hang banner No. 17 in Boston?

Memories of another great group of Celtics, headed by Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale, are starting to resurface again, and all of New England is hopeful.

And this group of Garnett-led C’s also has a nifty supporting cast in sharpshooter Eddie House, strong man James Posey and swift Rajon Rondo.

Yes, it has been a long dry spell in Boston for professional basketball titles.

But with a new talented trio leading the way, things are starting to look familiar again.

30-Second Time Out

Speaking of the San Antonio Spurs, one of the assistant coaches on head coach Gregg Popovich’s bench is none other than Brett Brown, son of legendary Maine hoop coach Bob Brown.

The elder Brown briefly assisted his son in Australia before getting back into high school coaching in the Pine Tree State.

Popovich, no stranger to the hoop happenings in Maine, is friends with former Ellsworth High School basketball coach Bruce Lindberg, who hangs his hat as principal of Lee Academy.

BDN columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net