Can't Anybody Here Beat These Guys?

Some day the Boston Celtics will lose and make news. The law of averages demands it. But not this year, apparently.

Last week the Celtics clobbered San Francisco 104-94 for their 16th victory in a row -- just one short of the National Basketball Association record. The winning streak ended when Philadelphia edged them next night in a squeaker, 104-100. But with 31 games still to play, their season's record is 41-8, which gives them a 7 1/2-game lead over the second-place Cincinnati Royals -- a team they have beaten six straight times this season. Embarrassment seems to be the only thing that could possibly keep the Celtics from winning their seventh straight N.B.A. Championship.

How do the Celtics do it? They have a brilliant coach in Arnold ("Red") Auerbach, 47, a cantankerous carrottop who tells his players: "If any of you think this is a democracy we are running here, forget it. I'm a dictator." They also have pro basketball's best defensive player in Bill Russell, a goateed giant who leads the N.B.A. in rebounds, ranks fourth in assists.

But they have nobody to match the point-scoring potential of the Los Angeles Lakers' Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, the playmaking abilities of Cincinnati's Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas. Out of the Celtics' starting five, only one player -- Guard Tom Sanders -- is under 30. Except for Forward Sam Jones, who has been averaging 25 points a game, the Celtics do not have a man among the top 15 scorers in the National Basketball Association. Center Russell, four times the league's Most Valuable Player, has been complaining of a mysterious stomach ailment. Forward Tommy Heinsohn, the team's top pointmaker for three out of the last five years, has missed 14 games with a torn ligament and a blood clot in his foot. And Guard John Havlicek has water on the knee.

Yet they have outscored their opposition by an average of 9.9 points a game, and three of their seven defeats were by two points or less. Coach Auerbach calls "teamwork" the key to the Celtics' success, says that they have been playing together so long that they instinctively know one another's every move; fast breaks and tricky pass patterns click automatically. Forward Heinsohn says that it is "defense--Russell is playing absolutely fantastic basketball.'' But nobody really knows. "If we knew why we are so good," sighs Heinsohn, "we'd bottle it and sell it.''

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