![]() Nelson, a far-thinking hoops maven, then answered Killilea with a line for the ages. Just then Bird jogged around to the back of the line behind the four supposedly “average” Celtics. Looking at the fill-ins standing in the Celtic layup line, Killilea said somewhat disparagingly to Nellie, “Look, there are four average players” - as if to say, we should beat these guys. In 1987, defending champion Boston was ravaged by injuries to six of its top eight players during that postseason, yet still managed somehow (mainly behind the hoop heroics of Larry Joe Bird) to fight its way to The Finals.īecause of their unprecedented spate of injuries, the team had to pick up some relatively unknown players to fill out the roster like Conner Henry and Darren Daye, or depend on little-used reserves like Sam Vincent and Greg Kite. Milwaukee head coach and former Celtic Don Nelson was standing courtside watching Boston warm up with his assistant, John Killilea, Tom Heinsohn’s key assistant on the 19 Celtic title teams. The Celtics were battling the Bucks in an epic seven-game Eastern semifinal series during the grueling 1987 NBA Playoffs.
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