Tag: Tommy Heinsohn

Who are the Boston Celtics’ top-10 all-time leaders in postseason wins?

Can you name all the Celtics who led Boston to the most playoff wins? Better yet, can you do it in order?

Begrudgingly tied with their longtime rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers, with the most NBA titles in league history at 17 each, few teams can rival the Boston Celtics in terms of total playoff games won by their players.

Spanning most of the years in the seven decades of existence all the way back to the Basketball Association of America (BAA — a precursor league to the NBA) era, there has been a Celtics roster playing in the postseason more often than not. But who are the stars and role players who got Boston there and played the games that led to all those banners?

Make your guesses, and scroll down to see how you did.

Who are the Boston Celtics’ top-10 all-time leaders in postseason free throws?

Can you name which 10 Boston Celtics have sunk the most postseason free throws in the history of the franchise? Better yet, can you do it in order?

In his historic, 50-point masterpiece against the Brooklyn Nets in Game 3 of the 2021 Eastern Conference first-round series, All-NBA forward Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics likely would not have won the game had the budding superstar not gotten to the line 15 times, converting 13.

But the St. Louis native has a long way to go to crack the franchise’s top ten in free throws made in the postseason given the long and storied history of the Celtics in the playoffs; you sink a lot of shots at the charity stripe when you win 17 banners, after all.

Who are the 10 most accomplished sinkers of free throws in the playoffs for Boston, then? Make your guesses, then scroll down to see how you did.

Who are the Boston Celtics’ top-10 all-time leaders in postseason rebounds?

Can you name all of the top ten rebounders for the Celtics in playoff history? Better yet, can you do it in order?

With the greatest rebounder of all time bookended by the best frontcourt ever assembled in the history of the league, there’s no reason to be surprised that the Boston Celtics have dominated the boards in the postseason across much of their seven decades of existence and the 17 titles they’ve won in it.

In fact, two of the top ten postseason rebounders for the Celtics are small forwards, demonstrating the historic importance of boards for winning titles to the storied franchise over the years. Cleaning the glass has long been a Boston fundamental, but even ardent Celtics fans may struggle to name the most proficient playoff rebounders after the first three or four.

How many of Boston’s 10 most accomplished postseason rebound leaders can you name? Scroll down, and find out.

Complete list of Boston Celtics in the Basketball Hall of Fame

Celtics Wire celebrates the 48 members of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with ties to the Boston Celtics franchise.

The Boston Celtics are one of the bedrock franchises in professional sports. Legends such as Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Tommy Heinsohn, Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett dazzled fans with their athletic exploits and won the NBA championship in Boston.

A couple of hours down the Mass Pike in Springfield, no fewer than four dozen players, coaches, and contributors with ties to the Celtics franchise have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame over the years, spanning the decades from the first years of the storied ball club’s existence up to the team’s last era of contention.

Below, Celtics Wire celebrates the 49 members of the Hall of Fame with Celtics connections in a photo gallery.

The Boston Celtics have retired 24 jersey numbers – these are the players so honored

It’s no coincidence this team has the most retired jersey numbers with 17 banners hanging alongside them as of Oct. 2023.

There are no teams in the history of the NBA to have more titles than the Boston Celtics — at least not yet — so it makes sense there are no other franchises with more retired numbers to honor the players over the decades who earned and hung those banners.

In fact, there are no teams in any sport with more retired jersey numbers at 24 overall, a reflection of the excellence behind the Celtics mystique built by franchise architect Red Auerbach. From his signing with the team as coach and general manager onward, Boston became one of the premier teams of the greatest basketball league on the planet.

But who were the players for which those jerseys were retired? Let’s take a look at them all as of Oct. 2022.

How many of Boston’s coaches have been named Coach of the Year – and who were they?

Can you name the trio of Celtics coaches who won the award? Even better — can you name the seasons they won it in?

The Boston Celtics have a storied history of NBA championships with plenty of other hardware to go with it, and when it comes to Coach of the Year, their legacy is literally written on the award — more on that shortly.

Over the course of its seven-decade history in the league and its origins in the Basketball Association of America that came before it, the club has garnered three such honors as that annually offered to the best head coach in the NBA as seen such by the media in charge of voting. Most Celtics fans can easily name one of the three, and Boston stalwarts two or even three former Boston coaches so honored.

But can you also name the seasons in which each was so honored? Make your best guess, and then scroll down to see how you did.

How many Boston Celtics have been named Rookie of the Year – and who were they?

For a team as storied as the Boston Celtics are, there are surprisingly fewer than you might think.

With the Boston Celtics a contending ball club, they do not look to have any realistic candidates in the league’s annual Rookie of the Year award come the end of this season. But, they have had several winners of that honor in the past. Still, for a team that has won 17 titles — as much as any other team in the league’s seven-decade history — you would think they would have had more of them than three over the course of their storied history.

Particularly given much of the rosters that carried the Celtics to unprecedented success in the 1960s were home-grown talent either drafted or traded for in their first season in the league. Can you name the three Rookie of the Year winners Boston has been honored to roster over the years without looking?

Make your guesses, then scroll down to find out — extra Tommy points if you can name the season they won it as well.

Who are the top 10 Boston Celtics draft picks of all time?

The Boston Celtics have had a wealth of riches as far as the NBA draft is concerned.

The Boston Celtics have had a wealth of riches as far as the NBA draft is concerned, and it’s quite a challenge to try and rank the top 10 best draft picks ever made by the franchise. And given all the hardware pulled down over the years — as well as the long period of struggle between the late 1980s and late 2000s — trying to create a rubric that works in all eras is nearly as tough.

But that is our goal here, and at least in this assessment longevity with the team, individual contributions compared to teammates, and of course hardware will all be taken into consideration here.

So, let’s take a look at how they stack up over seven decades of history.

Every player in Boston Celtics history who wore No. 20

Today’s installment focuses on the 31 players who wore No. 20 over the years as of August 2023.

The Boston Celtics have more retired jerseys than any other team in the NBA, but that doesn’t mean the rest of their jerseys have little history of interest tied to them.

In fact, with 17 titles to their name and decades of competitive basketball, their unretired jersey numbers pack in some of the most history not hanging from the rafters of any team in the league. To that end, we have launched our accounting of that history with every player in every jersey worn by more than one Celtics player in the storied franchise’s history accounted for.

Today’s installment focuses on the 31 players who wore No. 20 over the years as of August 2023.

On this day: Celtics player, coach, commentator Tommy Heinsohn born, ’20 NBA strike

On this day in 1934, Boston legend Tommy Heinsohn was born, and the NBA went on strike for a day over police violence.

On this day in Boston Celtics history, legendary big man Tommy Heinsohn was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1934. Heinsohn was an All-American who played his college ball at the College of the Holy Cross and was taken with a territorial pick (these no longer exist, but were created to keep local talents in the region they went to college) in the 1957 NBA draft by the Celtics.

Heinsohn garnered Rookie of the Year honors in a draft class with teammate Bill Russell and won a title that season. He won seven more with Boston as a player while making six All-Star games and four All-NBA teams.

After transitioning to the other side of the clipboard with the Celtics, Heinsohn won two more titles as Boston’s head coach.