Basketball's Best

They are basketball's greatest team, a band of talented opportunists who can do everything--shoot with bull's-eye marksmanship, dissect a defense with pinpoint passes, and, for good measure, spice the exhibition with the tang of showmanship.

In fact, few teams have ever dominated their sport the way the Boston Celtics rule pro basketball. Going into this week's N.B.A. playoffs, they are top-heavy favorites to defend their league championship, are winning nearly four out of every five games. With two games still to play, the proud Celtics have already toted up 57 victories, five more than the league record they themselves set last year.

Team of Horses. To keep the Celtics in top trim, referee-baiting Coach Red Auerbach, 42, allows his players only a few cigarettes and an occasional glass of beer, draws the line at whisky ("Any player that drinks it will be fined"). Auerbach dutifully drives his Celtics in frequent practice sessions; once, when he detected loafing, he sent the champions ignominiously puffing up and down the cliff-steep aisles of Boston Garden. But Auerbach himself is quick to admit that his coaching has worked no miracles: "Remember this--I've got some damn good horses." He has indeed. Guard Bob Cousy is basketball's finest little man (6 ft. 1 in., 175 lbs.). In his tenth season, Cousy is again leading the N.B.A. in play making (9.4 a game), averaging a solid 19.6 points and directing the fast break up the middle with near insolent skill. But the team is so well-balanced that it has no single outstanding high scorer. As many as four men may break 20 points, yet seldom does any one individual score more than 30. If the defense sags, Cousy will hit all night from behind the foul circle. So will Fellow Guard Bill Sharman (6 ft. 1 in., 190 lbs.), who has the finest outside shot in the game (19.3-point average). If the defense presses Cousy and Sharman, the Celtics open up the center for the drives of two tough corner men: Frank Ramsey (6 ft. 3 in., 190 lbs.) and crew-cut Tommy Heinsohn (6 ft. 7 in., 220 lbs.), who averages 21.5 points despite a flat-trajectory shot that makes purists wince.

But the man who turned the Celtics into champions is the lean, agile Negro at center: Bill Russell (6 ft. 10 in., 220 lbs.), the league's finest defensive player and its best rebounder until the advent of Philadelphia's Wilt Chamberlain (who is four inches taller). On occasion, Russell can even out-rebound Chamberlain, more than makes up for his relatively weak, left-handed shots from the pivot (18.1-point average). "Boston will gamble with its little men, knowing that Russell will get the rebound," says Syracuse Coach Paul Seymour. "He'll jump right out of the building. You'd think he was ten feet tall."

Spoiled by Success. As if all this were not enough, the Celtics have the finest bench in basketball. Even the loss of Hatchetman Jim Loscutoff (6 ft. 5 in., 230 lbs.) with a back injury has not slowed the team. Negro Guards K. C. Jones (6 ft. 1 in., 202 lbs.) and Sam Jones (6 ft. 4 in., 198 lbs.) can move the ball nearly as well as Cousy and Sharman. The Celtics' only faults: lack of talented height to back up Bill Russell and creeping old age (Cousy is 31, Loscutoff 30, Ramsey 28).

Though the Celtics draw heavily on the road, Boston fans often seem jaded with their victories at home (26 in 28 games this year). Average attendance at Boston Garden is only 8,500, off 1,000 from the peak three years ago when the rise to fame was beginning. To increase interest, Celtic Owner Walter Brown is convinced the N.B.A. needs more and better-balanced teams, is willing to pass up his first draft choice of the nation's college stars to help a new club get started. Even so, age and injuries seem to be the only foes with a chance of ending the Celtics' reign as basketball's best.

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