Feb. 18, 1965 - As a player and a coach, Richie Guerin (left) has suffered while his St. Louis Hawks dropped eight of nine games to the Boston Celtics this season.
You’d think he’d be impressed with the champions, who are likely to break their own record of 60 victories en route to a ninth consecutive Eastern division title in the NBA.
But when Guerin was asked what he thought of the Celtics after they whipped the Hawks, 119-109, in Providence, R.I., tonight, he replied: “It may sound funny, but they don’t impress me as much as you might think. Sure, they’ve beaten us regularly this year. But in a couple of those games, Bob Pettit was out, and I missed several myself.
“With one exception — a game in New York — Boston hasn’t beaten us badly when we were at full strength. The other times we lost by four or five points. Those kinds of games can go either way and swing on a couple of breaks — something we haven’t been getting our share of.”
This observation launched Guerin into another tirade against the officials assigned to Hawks games.
“Something ought to be done about the way referees are being assigned,” he said. “Here we have two important games with the Celtics in two nights, and what do we get? Four second-string officials, that’s what. It just isn’t right.”
The Celtics, with Sam Jones scoring 18 points in the first period, took a nine-point lead, and the difference in favor of Boston remained between 12 and 18 points through most of the contest.
“We must have missed at least 10 layups,” said Guerin. “But what bothers me even more is that we’re not talking on defense. That’s something we’re going to have to correct — and in a hurry.”
John Havlicek and Sam Jones again led Boston with 28 and 27 points respectively. K.C. Jones was hitting from outside and scored 19 — one short of his career high.
It was a frustrating two-day stay in New England for Guerin, but the jaunty Hawk coach left Boston writers with food for thought when he said upon leaving:“See you in the playoffs.”
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