Original subtitles

There's only one way to stop

being haunted by the ghosts and the legends

and the champions inside this building.

It is banner 18.

Boy, I don't know.

That's heavy too.

Bill Russell would be so proud.

The 2024 Bill Russell Finals MVP goes to Jaylen Brown.

Y'all smile, man.

We just won.

MVP, MVP, MVP, MVP, MVP.

Jaylen, knowing what Bill Russell meant to you,

to have your career tied to him in that way,

what does that mean?

To be honest, I can't even put it into--to words...

What he's meant for me through my Boston journey.

I don't even know what to say.

It feels unreal.

To get one of the highest honors

at the Bill Russell MVP Award,

it's just amazing--

his legacy of pushing society forward

through sports, through culture,

and everything that he's done to get to this point.

People don't realize how hard it is

to play in the city of Boston.

It's Titletown.

You got to have a not-give-a-fuck mentality

to persevere through that.

Bill had firm beliefs, and he stood alone.

Fast forward to 2024 or any team in Celtics history,

and he's set a precedent,

not only to win,

but win in the way that the people stand with you,

because you stand with the people.

The Boston Celtics are the world champions.

Oh, my.

Oh, my.

This place has gone crazy.

I have traveled this country from one end to another.

For the championship, Boston leading 3-2

in this best four out of seven series.

There's no discounting the effect that Russell has.

I come back to Boston, Massachusetts,

with a stronger feeling of confidence.

50 seconds to go.

Hope of knowledge of the vitality

and energy of this society and our people.

West the Lakers.

Shot blocked by Russell.

Than I could have ever had before.

The Boston Celtics have won their unprecedented

fifth world championship in a row.

Oh, here's the team at the White House.

Yeah, that was pretty cool.

John F. Kennedy.

Oh, my gosh.

In '63, after we won the championship,

we had gotten a chance to meet the president,

who was clearly well thought of in Massachusetts.

Being from here, he was a fan.

And he was just one of the guys.

It was a great visit.

And so when I left,

it was easy to say, hey, take it easy, man.

A few months later, he was killed.

President Kennedy is dead.

It was like a member of the team

or a member of the family

or someone close to you had just died.

All you know is that he was gone.

This is Birmingham, the South's mightiest

industrial city as the world knew it this week.

These are the front lines of the battle between

Dr. Martin Luther King's Negro disciples of nonviolence

and the uniformed forces of Birmingham.

During the year of 1963,

this was a moment in American Civil Rights history

where there's a growing sense of racial revolution coming.

We'll be demonstrating here

until freedom comes to Negroes

here in Jackson, Mississippi.

And Bill Russell starts actively inserting himself

into the Civil Rights struggle

that connects the local to the national.

Here come the Celts, fast breaking.

Bill Russell was the first real true Black superstar

in the NBA.

Bill Russell.

Blocked by Russell!

In Boston, there is a big freedom march in alliance

with the Birmingham campaign.

And Bill Russell is at the forefront here.

And it challenged many white Bostonians

about what Black athletes could do and what they couldn't do.

Are you saying there are white people

who will never accept Negro people?

Is that what you mean?

Sure, and there are Negro people

that will never accept white people.

This thing is all about people.

You say the name Bill Russell--

that's the name.

Celtics fans, please welcome Jaylen Brown.

It's really hard to find words

that kind of represent someone whose presence was so large.

Bill Russell was a great man.

During the peak of racial tension in our society,

he represented a type of nobility and honor

that transcended sports.

There's a lot of things that have happened

that have led to the systemic inequality

that Bill Russell spoke to.

From someone coming from almost two generations away,

just how it's impacted me,

it's the ultimate respect.

In the 1964 finals, the Celtics play

the San Francisco Warriors.

Bill Russell against Wilt Chamberlain.

Here come the Warriors.

96-95.

21 seconds to go.

That's the same season where he's constantly

getting barraged about whether the Celtics

can win without Bob Cousy.

Quickly, one second.

It's all over.

The Boston Celtics now lead three games to one.

In game five, Russell showed up in an all-black suit

and he said, it's my funeral suit.

He was there to bury the Warriors.

Russell blocking.

The most remarkable season was 1964.

Bob Cousy retired.

So we had to adjust the tempo.

With this type of personnel,

we can go anyplace in the world

and beat any team that was ever put together.

This is the dream team.

This is the kind you could stay up for years and years

trying to get together.

The genius of Red Auerbach

was the players who played for him.

They had one of the most unique players

in the game, Bill Russell.

They had a backcourt of Sam Jones.

This shot is a beauty.

And KC Jones was tenacious.

He played right up on you.

After the game, you'd have scratch marks all over you.

Heinsohn really has a hot hand.

The lessons for the Celtics was...

Havlicek.

To work with each other and respect each other.

I call the Celtics basketball's Cosa Nostra.

Cosa Nostra means our thing.

Russell over to Havlicek shooting.

The Celtics lead 101 to 99.

The rebound is snuffed in by big Bill Russell.

That clinches it.

It's Boston's sixth consecutive NBA title.

No team in professional sports ever has won

that many consecutive playoff titles before.

At the same time that Russell's helping the Celtics

achieve greatness, Russell saw the way

that racism shaped Black lives.

Medgar Evers, his killing as a demonstration

of the blind and murderous hatred

which obsesses too many Mississippians.

This is a very dangerous situation.

After I've seen what the people,

the Negro people of Mississippi are going through,

my contribution is very, very minute.

When Medgar Evers was assassinated,

it seemed to have a pretty profound effect on Russell.

It was in the midst of his burgeoning

political involvement that was driven by

this sense of personal crisis.

Back in Boston, he participates in something

called a Stay Out For Freedom Day in this struggle

to try to make sure that there is a more genuine integration

of the city schools.

They called it the March on Washington

for Jobs and Freedom.

I didn't know that people didn't

grow up going to marches.

And my dad, you know,

literally marched

with Martin Luther King.

In the 1963, '64 season,

Russell is emerging as a particularly controversial

figure in American sports.

I said in print that there was a quota.

And everybody said, there's no quota.

We got to think about attendance.

If you got a game that's dominated by Black guys,

too many Black players, people won't go see them.

There were unspoken rules about how many

Black players you had on the floor at an NBA game.

The idea of Black quota was a huge deal.

That year, we had gotten a player, Willie Naulls.

Willie Naulls, checking in on the lineup

now for the Boston Celtics.

And when Tom Heinsohn...

Heinsohn has time to aim and that's all he needs.

Hurt himself, it was natural

for Naulls to become a starter.

Willie Naulls feeding Bill Russell for a dunk shot.

Bill Russell, Satch Sanders, Sam Jones,

KC Jones, and Willie Naulls were the first

Black starting five in NBA history when I was growing up.

The Celtics starting five Black players

violated every quota, not just in the NBA,

but in sport at the time in America.

Within the sporting world, that is as significant

as the March on Washington speech,

because it's a shot across the bow of everybody.

Are we going to play the best players we have?

I was so proud to see that that happened.

That's why I could name them off right now.

I'm 73, and I'm still proud

to be able to say that I witnessed that.

Bill Russell has written this book here

called "Go Up For Glory."

And we're very proud to welcome this great athlete.

I wrote it on three levels--

as a professional athlete, as a Negro, and as an American.

It says right on the back of the book here,

co-author William McSweeny.

"Go Up For Glory" was written in three days

on that old war correspondent typewriter there.

It was a good typewriter, very smart.

When we wrote "Go Up for Glory,"

Russell and Rose,

and to our astonishment, everybody said

this changes the realm of sports writing.

When Bill Russell wrote "Go Up For Glory,"

he is critical of the patterns of race within the NBA itself.

And that can include critiques of the Celtics

and Red Auerbach.

Bill Russell is not saying that Auerbach is

hostile to racial justice,

but more so that it's not his primary agenda

in a way that it is for Bill Russell.

I tried to isolate us from it as much as I could.

Your job to support your family is to play basketball.

I said, let's keep our concentration

on the basketball.

People have made it complicated,

but I don't believe it is.

I think he just felt you just get the best players to win.

He wanted to draft Chuck Cooper

or Bill or whoever,

who's going to stop him?

It didn't occur to him, I don't think,

that he was making a statement or making history.

This is my dad's father, and this is my dad's mother.

My grandmother was born in the States,

and my grandfather came from Russia

or Belarus or somewhere.

I grew up in the Williamsburg section

of Brooklyn.

It was a melting pot.

In Brooklyn, he learned, you know,

you're no different because you're Jewish,

and he's no different because he's Black.

We're all people.

When my father went to Boston,

it was eye-opening, to say the least.

Boston is the intellectual capital of the country

and perhaps the world,

and yet you have really segregated areas

and schools and points of view.

South End, Roxbury, Dorchester,

Chinatown, Downtown Crossing.

All this is just walking down the street.

You could fit the entirety of Boston

in the borough of Brooklyn.

Boston is the size of Shaq's left shoe.

I grew up where you go down this street,

you're in Roxbury.

You go down that street, you're in South Boston.

South Boston is a place

we didn't go when we were kids.

Uh-uh.

South Boston was a world away.

South Boston was 100% segregated,

100% flawlessly segregated,

as was almost all of the city.

Black people were not standing waiting for a bus

in South Boston, ever.

When I was in high school, they could be killed for that.

And they knew it.

The message of hate expresses itself very clearly.

And Bill Russell, of course, takes it exactly as he should.

News started to seep out

about Russell having issues with Boston.

I live here, and so I could not stand by

in comfort and relaxation.

When I see people doing things to other citizens,

I am offended.

I would like this to be a place

where we do things for each other,

not things to each other.

I don't think they were ready for a Black athlete,

let alone a world-shaking Black athlete.

I was very aware of some of the sportswriters

and their attitude to Bill Russell.

The older sportswriters,

they all called basketball African handball.

They said, I don't know, you're going to go see

the African handball tonight?

Russell said, you know,

I really don't play for the city of Boston.

I play for the Celtics.

You know, basically, I can't stand Boston.

I like this picture, our Uncle Bill.

First, Dad was living with Bill and his wife, Rose.

And then when Dad got married, Mom and Dad got married,

then Mom and Dad lived with the Russells for a while.

Yes.

KC and I, we had been married maybe a few weeks.

We lived at Bill and Rose's house.

And it was either two or three FBI men came to the door.

They had a letter.

And they said, this letter was sent to the Garden.

And it was a threat against Bill's life

and the kids and his wife.

They used the N word.

This man said he was going to kill them all.

I don't think we ever fully felt safe.

One night, we came home

and found that we had been robbed.

The house was in shambles.

Someone had destroyed all of his trophies.

And when my parents went to go to bed,

they pulled back the sheets,

and someone had defecated in their bed.

I think that thing that was scary about him in Boston

was not feeling like he could keep my mom

and my brother safe.

In those days, our road uniforms said Boston.

Red got sick and tired of things

that were happening in Boston outside of the Celtics

that gave him concerns that our team was not

playing for the city of Boston,

as the uniform would suggest.

Red ordered new uniforms to show that

they did not represent Boston,

and they represented a team, the Celtics.

Honestly, before I got to Boston,

I was kind of scared.

When I got drafted, they booed me.

We're very glad that Jaylen Brown is a Celtic.

Thank you very much.

Even though things were in a different context

and a different period of time,

doesn't make it any less severe or any less impactful.

So paying attention to history has also given me

a greater context into where we're at now.

And it makes a lot of sense why this organization

has been a pioneer for social justice movements in society.

Hello, hello. Hello, sir.

Meet me at the grocer.

No, sir.

During the '60s, Bill Russell did not

get love from everywhere.

But God damn it,

Roxbury, South End, Mattapan loved that man.

WILD was Boston's Black radio station,

and Bill Russell had his own jazz show.

He would come on for a couple hours,

and he would just play his favorite jazz stuff

and everybody would tune in.

Nobody ever talks about

the other sides of Bill Russell.

He's always this surly, standoffish man,

and they never talk about the joy

or they never talk about the love

he experienced for the community.

However, it's something we always talk about

in the neighborhood.

The Norfolk House, which is now an elderly home

up the street, the only people that can

play up there are good folks.

Bill, Sam, and Satch started the first basketball leagues

that we had here for young people.

Now, Bill didn't come all the time,

'cause he knew that Satch would be here every day.

Slade's.

Now, that's a name in Boston that should last forever,

the real Slade's.

I haven't been in here in 30, 40 years.

In Boston, the Black-owned businesses were in Roxbury.

Slade's was really big in Roxbury.

Bill Russell purchased the Slade's in about mid-'60s.

He spent a fair amount of time in here.

My dad worked quietly, right?

And so he didn't need the glory.

There was a sit-in on Boston Common,

and every day, food arrived from Bill Russell's Slade's.

So he catered the revolution.

During the basketball season,

beer was the beverage.

If you drank anything really heavy during the playoffs,

you had to put up with all the patrons

or many of the patrons saying,

hey, you're supposed to be an athlete.

You shouldn't be drinking all that stuff.

During the 1965 season, Wilt Chamberlain's back

in his hometown of Philadelphia.

He was traded from the San Francisco Warriors

to the Philadelphia 76ers.

When Chamberlain joined the team,

the staple on a Sunday afternoon game

would have been watching Russell

face off against Chamberlain in the post.

Ladies and gentlemen, back again at Boston Garden.

Center jump.

Chamberlain controls the tap.

It seemed to me every Sunday...

Passing to Chamberlain.

Had to play against him on television.

But I was so glad when they have somebody else on.

When you look at the rivalry,

it remains and will always be

the greatest individual natural rivalry

in the history of the NBA.

Bird and Magic, for example,

they played against each other 37 times total.

Wilt and Russell played 143 times against each other.

I mean, that's a rivalry.

Chamberlain felt frustrated that he kept falling short

in series after series

and playoff after playoff to the Celtics.

For Wilt, the basket has always been easy to reach,

but the NBA championship has not.

You get these reputations about things that, you know,

really are not of your fault,

but that's just the way it was.

I guess in America, you know,

being second just doesn't count.

It's the weirdest thing

where one of the greatest players,

maybe the greatest force in basketball history,

is perceived as a loser.

The fact that Bill Russell could win these MVPs

when Wilt was so statistically dominant

tells you the respect that people had for Russell,

how he went about it, what he did.

Chamberlain in the pivot.

What his effect on games was.

Russell with the rebound.

Had effect on other players and teams.

It was always something Wilt had to prove to the world.

It was to show the world I'm more than just a big freak,

you know, dunking a ball.

And Russell was never trying to prove anything to anybody.

He knows what he can do.

He knows what he can't do, and that's that.

Here come the world champions,

the Boston Celtics.

The challengers, naturally, are young and hungry.

We were in trouble, because Philadelphia is

the only team that could beat us.

They gave them a hell of a battle.

It was a seven-game series.

April 15, 1965.

It's a game I will never forget.

Chamberlain goes underneath and he got fouled by KC Jones.

We were going for the seventh game.

And Chamberlain swings at an imaginary object.

And we never lost a seventh game.

I remember the excitement.

It was deafening.

13,000 people were just howling.

Sam Baker throws the ball, takes again.

And he has the ball knocked loose.

He picks it back up.

He comes around to the left.

And the 24 second clock went off

and there are 8 seconds left to go in the ball game.

The Celtics lead by 3.

Chamberlain.

Chamberlain turns and stuffs the ball.

There are 5 seconds left.

Now Russell is--

he loses the ball off the support.

And the ball goes to Philadelphia

with 5 seconds left.

Boston only has a 1-point lead.

Boston Garden being an old place to play,

we just had these guide wires

that would hold up the end of the basket.

I did not trust anyone to throw that pass in but me,

because I always felt that I was the best passer.

And so I'm looking.

And I got the ball over my head

and the guy standing in front of me.

So I go up and I pass it in and I hit the wire.

110 to 109.

Now the tension is really there.

I go to the huddle.

I say, you guys got to do something.

You got to take care of me now.

We were normally thinking that we were in control.

We could do this. And that was not the case.

And I remember Red saying, what are we going to do?

In his fashion.

What are we going to do?

The Celtics, of course, cannot foul.

They have to play as tight a defense

as they possibly can in these final 5 seconds.

I said to myself, he has 5 seconds

to throw the ball inbounds.

And when the official handed him the ball,

I went 1,001, 1,002,

1,003,

and the ball still hasn't left his hands.

So I take a peek, a little bigger peek,

and on 1,005, I see the ball coming.

Putting the ball in a play.

He gets it out.

And Havlicek steals it.

Oh, there he goes.

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!

Oh, boy.

What a play by Havlicek at the end of this ball game.

I tell Havlicek, you know, I made you famous.

I said, that's something for the ages, you know.

Havlicek stole the ball. Havlicek stole the ball.

I said, if I hadn't messed up, nobody would have heard of you.

The number one local radio morning show.

So they had the tape, and he kept playing it

over and over and perpetuated it immediately.

It immortalized him.

Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!

I can be walking down the street and someone will go,

Havlicek stole the ball!

They'll recognize me and say something.

It's just stuck with people because

of the way Johnny Most just flipped out

over that interception.

John Havlicek being hoisted along.

Havlicek saved this ball game.

I'm here to tell you that the Celtics

were the luckiest team I ever saw,

and not just against us.

They always kept themselves in position

to take advantage of any luck that came their way.

But luck did come their way.

And of course, they did win

the championship that year

by beating the Lakers.

With its record seventh title in a row.

No other major professional sports team

has held a championship through seven

consecutive seasons.

But it was the "Havlicek stole the ball"

that people always remember.

John Havlicek, he was amazing in that way.

He was a neat freak.

He hung his executive socks

over a hanger in the locker room,

and he arranged the cologne bottles and stuff

and in ascending height order.

And his locker room looked like the general

was coming for inspection.

You wrote a whole piece about the Garden

for "Sports Illustrated."

Yeah.

There were all the little things

that were around the Garden, the parquet floor,

how the guy had saved the wood from World War II,

and da, da, da.

In the late 1940s, wood at that time

was very scarce because World War II was ending.

Parquet means scraps of wood meshed together.

And that stayed that way

pretty much up to around the 1990s.

It got worn out over several years.

So you just take out a panel, put another one in.

That was it. It's like a spare part.

It's like having an oil change

or something like that in your car.

As time went on, the mythology grew

that it had all these dead spots,

and the Celtics knew where they were.

I said, sure, we know where they are.

We don't know.

But as long as they thought so

and they thought it was a disadvantage to their team,

we let 'em believe it.

So there are no dead spots on the floor?

Oh, I didn't say that.

It was just a funky place.

And the thing was Fenway Park,

they would always talk in revered, hushed tones,

whereas the Garden,

they always talked about what a dump it was.

The Boston Garden, that court was trash.

I'm looking at, like, bolts jumping up.

So I'm sitting watching it.

You know, you can see the little things

in the rivets, though.

I mean, the place is a dump.

No air conditioning.

Usually kind of dirty, smelly.

There were a few rats.

And of course, it always smelled of elephants.

Because in February every year,

the circus would come in.

And you never got the smell of elephants out of there.

In the locker room,

you didn't even have a locker then.

You had a nail, you know, to hang their stuff on.

It was like covering a high school team or something

where you would go to the locker room

and you'd be the only person.

I mean, and they were all taking showers and coming out,

and they're talking about whatever they're talking about.

You put that opposed to what it is now, it's ludicrous.

In the '60s, the access was great.

You would call the Celtics' office.

You had a one in four shot of getting Red on the phone.

And if you wanted to buy a season ticket,

he would take you up to whatever seat

that he was trying to sell you and he'd say,

"Here, it's a great view. You can see this."

It was pretty much like a mom and pop operation.

A friend of mine said to me,

you're going to Boston to see your dad?

And I said oh, no, I go to Boston, I see Red Auerbach.

I go to Washington, I see my dad.

We all have these Celtic charms my dad got for us.

And Randy and I never take them off.

Mine's all worn out.

I take it to the jeweler.

Can't you solder it on me, you know?

In the winter, he never made my birthday.

Wasn't home.

I told him that he cared more about the Celtics

than he did about us.

And I felt awful,

because I never should have said that.

And he didn't.

You know?

He loved what he was doing, but he was tired.

He told them at the beginning of the year,

this is my last year coaching.

This is your last shot at Red.

And now for the World Championships,

the Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

The Lakers are picked by many experts

as the next professional basketball power.

Jerry West hits and they have six quick points.

I didn't pay any attention to Red Auerbach.

I didn't care who was coaching.

I did not.

You go out there and compete and try to win a game.

Sam Jones taking a long set shot.

Wowee.

They all want Red to light up the cigar.

45 seconds remaining.

Red had an ego.

And see him sitting there with that big cigar,

you know, like I'm looking over my domain here,

because we're going to kick your fannies tonight.

When he lights up that cigar, it'll be

the culmination of 20 years of the most

unbelievable coaching job in the history of pro basketball.

Bill Russell goes in.

He dunks it.

That did it.

95-85.

Red Auerbach a deliriously happy man.

There you see Red Auerbach as

he's lighting up his cigar

with Governor John Volpe standing by.

Would light up that victory cigar

before the game was over.

It was just the signal to all of us, you know, we can relax.

You know, it's over.

It would never occur to me that in other cities,

he could be hated even, you know, by intense fans

who don't like that gloating with the cigar thing.

KC Jones.

KC holding the ball.

That's it.

The game is over.

And John Havlicek is running for his life.

Eighth straight world championship

certainly is an unbelievable feat.

Eight in a row is incredible.

Eight straight and nine out of the last 10.

Absolutely and totally unprecedented.

This will never happen again.

The 1959 champion.

The home crowd goes wild.

An unprecedented championship.

People say oh, well, the competition.

No, no, no.

The competition is the competition

in today's world and yesterday's world

and tomorrow's world.

It's one of the most dominant moments in sports history.

A remarkable accomplishment.

And that speaks to Russell, to the Jones boys.

It speaks to Red Auerbach.

Greatest thing I ever heard,

here comes the world champion Boston Celtics.

That "world champions" meant something.

Red Auerbach put that into us.

The greatest team to ever walk on the floor in the NBA.

And that was the Boston Celtics.

He went out a winner.

Is that--oh, that's to me.

I think it's to me.

It's either to me or my sister.

No, it's to me, to Nancy.

When he stopped coaching, he was home somewhat more,

but he was still loyal to the Celtics

and he became general manager.

He said to me, one day we were talking,

he says, I'm not going to hire a coach that

you don't get 100% approval of.

Everybody seems to know who the next coach

of the Celtics is going to be.

It all boils down to a couple of things.

He wants to do it, he knows he can do it,

we went over all the details of this thing,

and he proves that coaching the Celtics next year,

they could also win a championship.

Now here he is, the new coach of the Celtics.

The best to you.

Thank you.

It's practically impossible to follow Red as a coach.

You know, he's got a pretty good record.

If Red hadn't assured me more than once

that he really, sincerely wanted me to take the job,

I wouldn't consider it.

Yes.

Any other questions?

Many Boston sports reporters and Boston fans

were resentful of Bill Russell.

Is he biting off more than he can chew?

Does he have the capacity to do this?

Coaching and playing,

it must be a difficult job for you.

The debates over Russell as coach, in a lot of ways,

mirrored the debates over Russell as a public figure.

Came out of friendship to Muhammad Ali.

You've always felt very strongly about, as you call it,

human rights, and have expressed

yourself in many ways.

Now, are you going to be inclined

to be less concerned with this,

or are you going to be asked in any way by management

to be less expressive?

Don, I'm the same guy that I was last year.

I am what I am.

I'm the same person.

And so I have a different job, a bigger job.

I'm still the same person.

A lot of guys were playing basketball

for a living, for money, for a lot of reasons.

Russell had a cause.

And as Russell had said,

basketball is a stage

on which I can let people know how I feel.

In 1966, Bill Russell began

putting himself in alliance with the larger

Black community in Boston.

We're in a church here tonight

because we couldn't be in a school.

He becomes increasingly active in this struggle

against racism shaping policy.

We're being assaulted by certain members

of the city government that we're not expected to react.

And lately we've been hearing a lot

about the new Boston,

government center, bank buildings.

But while all this new Boston is being developed,

Roxbury is one of 10 poorest communities

in the United States.

There's a fire here in Roxbury,

and nobody's listening.

There's nobody listening.

What the people don't realize is that a fire

that consumes Roxbury consumes Boston.

Thank you very much.

My sister from another mister.

Hello. Hello.

I want people to know what our fathers did.

Yeah.

I want people to be inspired by people

who took risks, who were misunderstood.

I can't imagine one without the other.

And I don't think either would have been nearly as successful.

Competition, you know, forced them

into innovating and taking these risks.

When you think of a victory cigar being lit for each win,

it's a lot, but think of all the cigars in between.

My great grandfather-- this is my dad's grandfather,

my great grandfather--

at a game, it was the first time in his life

that someone called him Mr. Russell.

Really?

And he went into the locker room

and saw the water running off of a white guy's back

to a Black guy's back, and it just blew his mind.

Your dad and my dad created a world where we could thrive.

Let's meet the moment.

Embrace it. Embrace it.

I miss my dad, but this makes me miss him less.

Go, go, go, go, go!

Go, go, go!

I love how loud it is here!

I feel very lucky.

People come up to you and so there are

all these wonderful stories.

I'm sitting tall here in Boston Garden.

They had Cousy.

They had Auerbach before him.

But they didn't have the world championship

until they got Bill Russell, and now he's the player coach.

For us fans, we were worried at the idea

that Red Auerbach wasn't going to coach anymore.

Bill Russell, player coach,

at that level, we'd never seen it.

I just thought it's impossible.

It's crazy to think there could be

a player coach in the NBA.

But I think in Russell's case,

Red was still around, lurking in the shadows,

there to help if needed.

How many plays do the Celtics have?

Was it seven?

Six plays.

That never changed?

Never changed.

One of the attributes that made Red

such a great coach was

making the execution of these plays

tantamount to how to do it.

I had watched all his coaching,

and I wanted to change things as little as possible.

Last year, the 76ers were the almost team of the NBA.

But the Celts ended the great dream

in the Eastern Division playoffs.

The past cries out.

Beat Boston.

Philly in '67 was in many ways

a perfectly balanced squad.

The famous Russell-Chamberlain duel

reaches a settlement.

And that year, Wilt had so much talent around him,

and they just wiped people out.

Wilt goes wild.

The 76ers take the lead.

Blocked by Chamberlain.

Greer scoring and scoring.

Driving, shooting.

We were so powerful, it was expected for us to win.

Russell was playing 48 minutes a game.

He didn't have much time for strategy,

'cause he was trying to catch his breath in this Tong War

with Wilt Chamberlain.

Tremendous tension here.

Jackson lost it.

Sam Jones.

Little fight going on there.

A capacity crowd of over 14,000

is here hoping for the kill.

Russell got the last laugh until that year.

Game five in 1967, Wilt, he had 29 points,

36 rebounds, and 13 assists.

Boston has been the champion

of the National Basketball Association since 1958.

Bill Russell has been the hub of this successful team.

His first year as a coach, and now he stands

one minute away from his team being

ousted from the playoffs.

Five, four, three, two, one!

The Sixers, who were a great, great team.

And it all came together that year.

It's kind of a strange feeling.

You felt like you did something,

but you felt like also, well, you know, it's way overdue.

Now I can walk in peace.

And not saying, well, we're not going to beat those Celtics.

When the Celtics lost to the 76ers,

that was finally some vindication

for Russell's doubters.

And this may be the end of an era, a Boston era.

You don't feel that in any way

that you would have had a better year as a player

last year if you didn't have the worries

of being a first year coach?

Well, I had a better year than I did the year before

my first year as coach.

Uh, it's hard to say.

No one will ever know.

That really was something that stuck

in the back of Russell's mind.

I am going to win a championship.

Even though we lost my first year,

we're going to get this done.

Philadelphia and Boston are set

for the Eastern Division final.

NBC interrupts its regular program scheduled.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed

tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King's death,

that was...

it was an empty moment.

Racial violence erupted in many American cities.

Everybody, I think, was upset.

I think everybody on every team,

regardless of race or religion or whatever, felt a loss.

And I felt somehow responsible.

You have to understand what that meant to Bill Russell.

He was not just a follower of Dr. King,

he was talking with him constantly

about how he could make a difference

in his own activism.

So you're talking about

a very, very close relationship.

He did not want to play.

And Russell's teammates felt the same way.

I was angry, and the players were angry.

Our first inclination was

the game didn't seem important.

We got word that the commissioner had spoken

with the Mayor of Boston and Philadelphia

and thought that we should play the game.

The league itself said, listen,

there's riots all over America right now.

We feel like if you play,

it can be a pause for one night for everybody.

It can be a pause.

We really think it'll make a difference.

There's approximately 15,000 people in this building.

Now, do we want to send them all out

of the building with this stuff going on,

or do you want to play the game?

And so we decided, both teams decided,

we would play the game.

My mother's philosophy was, if you're Black or Negro

or whatever it is in this country,

you can't allow all of the things

that can happen to affect what you're

trying to do with your life.

You can give in, maybe get angry and get upset.

Is it going to solve the problem?

She always used to say, what is the bottom line here?

It's getting stuff done.

The games were going to be played.

I'm not saying I didn't feel the pain

of the things happening.

I'm saying life continues.

We were undergoing all of the pinpoint pressures

of that time.

For us as players,

basketball meant more

during the times that we played.

Boston carries it to a seventh and final game.

Before this game, we had pride in big letters

on the blackboard.

We knew we would go out and win.

Pride took over.

If I see something that bothers me,

I'm going to say so.

There are a lot of things that are happening

outside the arena that were difficult,

but the time I spent in the locker room

and on the floor with my teammates was like heaven.

Always a big night when the Boston Celtics

come to Los Angeles.

What a rivalry.

This is the fifth time in seven years

that these two have faced in the NBA Finals.

The never-say-die Boston team

wins the world's professional basketball crown.

At the end of 1968, "Sports Illustrated,"

the magazine, has the Sportsman of the Year.

The person who they pick is Bill Russell.

And there's a beautiful profile that he is the man

as their coach who's leading this integrated team

while at the same time that he can

express much of the discontent in Black America.

This is one that sort of flatters me,

because the emphasis is not on just winning or losing.

It's--you know, it reflects the man.

For my 12th birthday in 1969,

my father took me to a preseason game.

This player gets in the middle of the lane.

He puts his arms out like this.

Looks like an eagle.

And he's got this goatee.

And I can see, like, sweat dripping off of it.

I was like, wow, that's that Bill Russell.

Wow.

You know, I'm 66 years old.

It stuck with me my whole life,

this image of Bill Russell.

When I look at Jaylen Brown,

who's a super talented, smart, conscious guy,

this kind of role model of excellence,

but also intelligence and introspection,

it may help some young men and women

see a possibility they did not see.

Two-time NBA all star Jaylen Brown

made history this week.

The 26-year-old Boston Celtics player

signed the biggest contract in NBA history.

The world is...

Mine.

- The world is... - Mine.

- The world is... - Mine!

It's important to understand context

and history in order to get to the present moment.

Bill Russell, he was one of those people

that don't come around very often.

And I hold myself to that standard.

I honestly feel like the reason why I'm here

is to be able to be a voice

for certain conversations.

My goal is just to remind people of the bigger

conversation of life and that we all play a role

in the city, the community.

Through my platform, through influential partners,

through selected leaders, government officials,

a lot who are in this room, and that we can come together

and attack the wealth disparity here

that nobody wants to talk about.

Having an impact outside of the game of basketball

and making Boston a better Boston,

I think that would be a great legacy to leave,

and I just want to do my part-- no more, no less.

Everybody keeps talking about,

the Celtics are so old now.

They're over the hill. They can't win again.

Do you really, deep down in your heart

feel like you can do it again?

Yes.

They went through Philadelphia.

They went through the Knicks.

Turns out there was more in the tank

than everybody thought there was.

Like, they knew what to do.

This has got to be the greatest ball club

I've ever played with, because we've never finished

lower than second place.

And this year, we finished fourth.

And here we are, going for the championship.

The Celtics, as the Lakers have found out,

they're a tough team to win the World Championship from.

But with Chamberlain in the Los Angeles lineup,

Los Angeles is ready to go.

Los Angeles, because of super Jerry West,

super Elgin Baylor, and super Wilt Chamberlain

look like the team to beat.

Till the day I die, they were not the better team.

They were absolutely not the better team.

The last five times

they had a chance to be world champions,

the Celtics have defeated them.

Jerry West.

Two in a row for the superstar.

And there it is.

Chamberlain.

Celtics have been down before, their backs to the wall.

Clock is moving.

5 seconds.

To Sam, his 20-foot jumper.

Yes!

So many times, the Celtics have

played the Lakers in the NBA Finals,

and the Celtics have prevailed.

So many times, Bill Russell has faced off

against Wilt Chamberlain

and Russell's team has prevailed.

Now we get to game seven.

He's at the fabulous Forum.

The Los Angeles Lakers just one victory away

from their first World Championship.

The whole idea was that this was going to be

the coronation of the Lakers.

This was their time and their moment,

and that's how everybody felt about it.

I'm going to ask you a very difficult question,

but I can't help but wonder, how do you feel

about going into another seventh game,

this time on somebody else's floor?

We've done it before.

I was unbelievably confident that they could not beat us.

And in the event of a Laker victory here at the Forum,

many, many balloons hang in the rafters.

When I saw all these balloons,

I was absolutely furious.

Why are you putting the cart before the horse?

It was sickening.

Jack Kent Cooke was the owner of the Lakers.

He put out a sheet in all the seats.

When the Lakers win the championship,

the USC band would play "Happy Days Are Here Again."

The balloons in the rafters would fall down.

Well, I took this back to Russell.

I said, the Lakers cannot beat us.

It's not--it's not something that can happen.

But it's going to be fun to watch them

get those balloons out one at a time.

Sam Jones, 35 years old, playing like a 25-year-old,

and Russell.

It was quite a game.

The Celtics took a big lead,

and then the Lakers were coming back.

The Lakers have come back within 1 point.

And of course, it was quite a finish.

A minute 33 to go.

Boston by a single point.

Now it's Havlicek.

Erickson.

Erickson taps the ball to Nelson.

I'm running across the key, and it came right to me, right?

I had, like, two seconds to catch and shoot it,

so I just got it up as quick as I could.

As the years have gone by,

the ball has gone higher and higher.

Now it's gone, like, into outer space.

And then straight through.

Don Nelson.

Well, I shot it terrible.

It was just the luckiest shot I ever made.

There was nothing-- there wasn't any skill to it.

And time has run out,

and the Boston Celtics have done it again.

Another jewel in that crown.

A thriller to the end as the miraculous

Boston Celtics become the--

Their 11th world championship.

You were so close to doing all those balloons up there.

They'll leave them.

Sam, what a way to go out.

Balloons hang in the rafters,

but they will not be released.

The balloons stayed up on the ceiling,

and the Southern Cal band went back to their dorms

to study for their biology finals.

A disappointed Wilt Chamberlain

brought here by Jack Kent Cooke.

It turned out to be the worst party

that you could possibly have.

The Lakers have lost all six.

It seemed like there was a spell

that was cast over the Lakers versus the Celtics.

Really, all my life has haunted me.

It's just a kid looking in a candy store.

Unless you break that glass, he can't have the candy.

Congratulations.

You brought us all the way,

and we had to scratch for our lives.

I'm here with Bill Russell.

Bill, this must have been a great win for you.

Jack...

One more time.

One more time.

I know it's hard to say what's in your mind

right now, Bill.

And it must have been a great win.

Boy, this is such a great bunch of guys, you know?

And it's been-- it's just been so fabulous

the way they played for me.

And it sounds all corny, you know,

to start talking like that.

But they're such a great bunch of guys.

I just can't say enough about the guys.

In the Celtics, that was a unique group of men.

And that things happening outside of that arena,

a lot of it was offensive.

The atmosphere was not what anybody wanted it to be.

But this group of guys were confident in who they were,

and they didn't need to diminish anyone else

in order to be what they were.

The Celtics, greatest sports dynasty

in the history of professional athletics.

This word dynasty, where did it start in sports?

It might have started with the Green Bay Packers,

with the New York Yankees, maybe the Montreal Canadiens.

They can't equal the Celtics.

They never pulled off 11 titles in 13 years.

That leaves the Celtics as the gold standard

for sports dynasties.

Celtics win.

We can't compare anything to the '50s and '60s Celtics,

as they kept repeating and repeating

and repeating and reloading.

I was a child in Massachusetts, born in '53.

So when I go to kindergarten, they're the world champs,

and I was in high school before they weren't.

I mean, it was just like...

We just thought it was part of the--winter comes,

and then there's the marathon and the forsythia bloom,

and then the Celtics win the championship,

and then we go on to the summer.

Congratulations.

We were so spoiled.

They were annual champions,

and we didn't know anything else.

So there's definitely happiness

in Boston tonight.

They can say, well, so-and-so is a better player

or this guy is a better player.

He's the greatest player ever or anything.

And I don't concern myself with that.

I'll just say I got 11 championships.

And that's done.

We beat the Lakers in Los Angeles.

The next day, a reporter from one of the Boston papers

walked into Red's office and asked him,

are you satisfied with the coaching

you had this year?

You win the championship,

and the guy asked this question.

Are you satisfied with the coaching you had?

And Red says, what are you talking about?

We just won a championship two days ago.

And so then I realized that, first of all,

there are no final victories.

I knew that was my last game, and I was the only one

that knew that was my last game.

People found out a couple months later

picking up "Sports Illustrated."

There was a championship parade in Boston,

and Russell didn't go.

He was gone.

I don't know.

Once Russell was gone,

you knew trouble had arrived.