With an unmatched record in US professional sports, Arnold “Red” Auerbach threw in the towel on being an NBA head coach when he played his last game in that role for the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Celtics’ 1966 NBA Finals series with their longtime rivals, the Los Angeles Lakers.
Boston would of course win the game, the series, and the title — their eighth consecutive and ninth overall. In the years that followed, Celtics star big man Bill Russell would take the team’s helm as a player-coach, becoming the first Black head coach not only in NBA history but in the histories of any of the four major North American sports. Red had earned his retirement to a front-office job, having amassed a 938 – 479 record as a head coach, most of it with the Celtics.
To watch clips from that historic game, check out the video embedded below, courtesy of our friends over at CLNS Media’s “NBA History & Legends on CLNS” YouTube channel.
This post originally appeared on Celtics Wire. Follow us on Facebook!
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