Five Can Always Beat One

From the rafters of Boston Garden, high above the hardwood parquet floor, hang two huge green-and-white banners bearing the retired jersey numbers of Boston Celtics who are basketball immortals: Bob Cousy's No. 14, Tommy Heinsohn's No. 15, Bill Russell's No. 6. Flanking the banners are 13 championship pennants signifying N.B.A. titles in nearly half of the league's 32 seasons. It is the gallery of a dynasty, the pantheon of Celtic pride. But this year only the memories are alive. The Celtics are floundering through their worst season since 1949-50 (22 wins, 46 defeats). Injuries and bad trades have been partially to blame; but the Celtics, of all teams, have been playing the kind of playground, hot-dog basketball that plagues so many clubs in the N.B.A. and mars games featuring athletes who are the best, as a group, the sport has ever known.

The indulgence in selfish point-grabbing by the pros spurted during the bidding war for talent between the N.B.A. and the American Basketball Association, which was absorbed by the older league in 1976. Agents negotiated longterm, no-cut contracts, and even so-so players got $200,000 or more a year. Admits Detroit's Center Bob Lanier, a team player himself: "Most people, and I'm one of them, get paid by the statistics they produce. A lot of guys have inflated values of their worth." In Boston, the egos got so big that the players forced the retirement of Coach Heinsohn in midseason. Says Celtic Vice President Jeff Cohen: "The players weren't listening to Heinsohn. You can't make them listen. If a player has three years to go on his contract, you aren't going to fire him. We are in a new era now. But the question is whether the players are killing the goose that laid the golden egg."

Adds Cousy, the Celtics' superlative playmaker of old: "The problems of the Celtics are an accumulation of things I see across the board in the N.B.A.: no-cut contracts, big money. The system has created a Frankenstein, and he's finally turning on his maker. Younger players are very aware that they've got to put the ball in the hole, and if they do, it will result in substantial salary benefits. By the time they get to be professionals, it's difficult to convince them that basketball is a team sport and that guys play together."

Rookie Forward Cedric ("Cornbread") Maxwell had a jolting comeuppance when he joined Boston with high expectations. Says he: "Oh, man, 'Celtic pride.' I've been hearing about Celtic pride from the day I got drafted. People asking me what happened to Celtic pride. I don't know what happened to it, because I don't know what it looks like."

Celtic pride, young man, has gone West--to Portland, Ore., where the Trailblazers play generous team basketball, heed the guidance of Coach Jack Ramsay and win games with a sizzling fast break, tough defense and percentage shotmaking --all hallmarks of the glory years in Boston. Despite their bulging playbooks, most N.B.A. teams have only two or three options for any situation before shoveling the ball to a star. Coach Ramsay has devised 25 variations for each of his three basic offensive plays. The result is a juggernaut of guards and forwards, weaving, cutting, running first clockwise, then counterclockwise, until someone is open to get a crisp pass from Supercenter Bill Walton for an unchallenged shot. Says New Jersey Nets Coach Kevin Loughery: "It's like trying to patch a leak in the dike. You think you have it fixed and another cutter opens up a new hole." Tenacity means easy goals: Portland leads the N.B.A. in lay-ups.

Portland's style requires discipline and depth on the bench to sustain the relentless running. The Celtics once shone with "sixth man" basketball; the Blazers have upped the ante. Playing time is shared almost equally by nine of the roster's eleven men. The Trailblazers also divide the scoring. No Blazer--not even Walton--is among the top-20 scorers in the league, but Portland ranks fourth in field goals scored, as well as first in defense. And with 40 wins against only eight defeats, Portland is playing at a record-challenging pace.*Their longest losing streak this season is just two games, and, halfway through the season, no team has beaten the Blazers more than once.

Portland's band of brothers have become the city's darlings. Memorial Coliseum sells out for every game, as have recent closed-circuit theater telecasts. The team is also winning support back East. The nation's fans voted Walton the top center for last weekend's All-Star game; the Blazers' marvelous power forward, Maurice Lucas, led the balloting for his position in the Western Conference, despite a modest 16.7 scoring average. Says Walton: "The honor for Luke and me is especially encouraging because it shows that the fans will recognize good players, not just good statistics." Says Ramsay: "If you contribute to winning, you'll get recognized just as quickly as those who average 30 points a game."

Maybe so, and maybe there is hope that the N.B.A.'s superstars will be able to raise the game to new heights by playing together as well as they play alone. Philadelphia's gang of superb freelancers again heads its division, but two other sections of the N.B.A. are led by relatively unglamorous, team-play clubs: the Denver Nuggets and the San Antonio Spurs. The well-drilled Phoenix Suns have the league's third-best won-lost record, yet still trail Portland by eight games.

Denver Coach Larry Brown is an optimist: "Watch the draft. Teams are going to take their picks from colleges where team play is strong, not just high scoring." Adds Portland Vice President Stu Inman: "What we're doing will have an effect on how other teams in the league build for the future. Front runners are always emulated, and in basketball there is nothing better than team play. Five guys could always beat one. You don't have to be a whiz at math to know that."

* The Los Angeles Lakers of Chamberlain. West and Goodrich set a 69-13 mark in 1972.

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