It was a chorus line of roundball royalty: K.C. Jones . . . Jo Jo White . . . John Havlicek . . . Cedric Maxwell . . . and finally Bill Russell, who was flanked by Tommy Heinsohn - just as they were positioned during the glory days of this fabled franchise.
All six men have their numbers hanging from the rafters. They have more rings than Elizabeth Taylor and Zsa Zsa Gabor. Four are in the Hall of Fame.
Red Auerbach's guys go gray but their legend never gets old. Not around here. And there is no team in professional sports that can assemble a gallery of gods and still have enough missing faces to field three more squads of superstars.
Playing for the Celtics is about winning championships. Nothing else. That's what made the 22-year gap so frustrating. And that's what makes the challenge so great for this Green Team of 2009.
Last Saturday, the Celtics finished off what many longtime fans consider the greatest first-round playoff series in NBA history when they beat the Bulls in Game 7 at the Garden. Two nights later, they were back at it in Round 2, and the residue of the Chicago series was obvious. They fell behind the Magic by 28 points. They lost Game 1.
"We don't know if what we want to do against them works because we never did it," Doc Rivers said before Game 2.
It all worked last night. Kendrick Perkins matched Dwight Howard the way Russell neutralized Chamberlain back in the day. Ray Allen bounced back from a flat first game with 22 points. Rondo had another triple double (15 points, 18 assists, 11 rebounds). And the Boston bench, particularly House, was spectacular.
Start with Brian Scalabrine. Jackie Moon was summoned after only two minutes of play and contributed immediately. An invisible man late in the season because of multiple concussions, Scal is considered a crucial player in this series. I learned this a couple of hours before Game 2 when Heinsohn declared, "Scal is the key" - words one never thought would be spilled in this lifetime.
But it was the Parquet Pine Brother House who totally exposed the Magic.
