Wayne Embry remembers the shock and sorrow that swept through the Boston Celtics when Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated hours before Game 1 of the 1968 Eastern Division finals. That April 5 game in Philadelphia, a day after King’s death, almost didn’t happen. “Our immediate reaction was we will not play the game,” said Embry, who spent the day of the game wrestling with his grief in the hotel room he shared with Don Nelson. “Players were just shaken, all the emotions you can probably think of. We just thought ‘We will not play the game.’” Eight of the game’s 10 starters were Black, including Bill Russell, one of the most vocal athletes during the civil rights movement.