Andy Phillip: pulled out of retirement by Red Auerbach, a hall-of-famer finally got his shot at an NBA title - The Game I'll Never Forget - basketball player - Interview

Basketball Digest, Jan, 2002 by Chuck O'Donnell

Editor's Note: Chuck O'Donnell visited with Andy Phillip one night last April, just five weeks before Phillip passed away. O'Donnell offered this rememberance of the Hall-of-Famer:

In just one 25-minute conversation, you can tell a lot about a person. I could tell that Andy Phillip was a gentleman, a family man, and a pretty intelligent guy. And even though he hadn't suited up in more than 40 years, he still loved basketball.

He couldn't hide that love. On the other end of the phone, 3,000 miles away, he had me hooked on every word as he took me down memory lane with him.

Along the way, he glowed talking about the NBA's infancy, when a guy named Bill Russell was just coming aboard and the game was played because the players loved it, not because they could get rich off it.

There were tales of high-top sneakers and traveling in coach cars and all-night card games. He talked about Tom Heinsohn and Bob Pettit and Red Auerbach, about the Celtics' championship in 1957. These were the days of youth and he told of them as if they happened last summer.

We could have talked all night. And now that he's gone, I wish we had.

AT THE END OF THE 1955-56 season, I was ready to quit. The game had been very good to me and it just seemed like a good time for me to retire. I had put together some good years, and although I thought I still had a few seasons left in me, I figured it was time to say goodbye to the Fort Wayne Pistons, retire, and get on with my life.

That was until I got a call from Red Auerbach. Auerbach was the coach and general manager of the Boston Celtics. He called me up out of the blue one day during the offseason, telling me that the Celtics needed some help, that he liked me and wanted me to come play on the Celtics. He told me how Frank Ramsey was in the service and Bill Russell who they just had drafted, wouldn't be eligible until after the Olympics.

Let's just say that Auerbach must have had a way with words because as our conversation continued, I realized that I already had started to miss basketball. To make a long story short, he pretty much talked me into it. He arranged a trade with Fort Wayne and there I was, wearing a green uniform the next season when camp opened up.

Part of the reason I was tempted to come out of retirement and join the Celtics was because they had a good chance of winning it all that year. They had been a very good team for several years, but now they were really starting to build something. Anyone could see that.

They always had a great backcourt with Bob Cousy and Bill Sharman. Those guys were magic with the ball. But then they added Ramsey and Tommy Heinsohn and Jim Loscutoff and Arnie Risen. They suddenly had the makings of a really strong team. Then you add Russell to the mix, and well, you've got a championship-caliber club.

The Celtics hit the ground running that year. We all blended together, the young guys and the old guys. Everyone was so willing to play his role, it was amazing. It wasn't like now, where the coaches get blamed for everything because the players are allowed to do whatever they want. The players accepted their roles and they never complained.

As the third guard on the team, I was a backup to Cousy and Sharman that year, and that was that. I had been a starter for most of my career up until that point, but I knew my role on the Celtics and I accepted it. We finished first in the Eastern Division that year and beat the Syracuse Nationals in the first round of the playoffs.

The St. Louis Hawks came out of the West The Hawks had a lot of talent, too: Ed Macauley, Jack Coleman, Slater Martin, Cliff Hagan, Charlie Share. We weren't about to take them too lightly even though we felt confident going into the Finals. You can't take a team lightly when they have Bob Pettit. He was maybe the best player in the league at the time and any team with him on it had to be reckoned with.

There was a little extra spice going into the series because the Celtics and Hawks had made that big trade that gave the Celtics the rights to draft Russell in exchange for Macauley and Hagan. A lot of people thought that the winner of the series was going to be the winner of that trade. Few people knew that Russell would go on to do what he did and win all those titles, so at the time, that trade was a little bit of a subplot to the series.

It was a pretty close series throughout. It got heated, too. There was a little confrontation between Auerbach and Hawks owner Ben Kerner before Game 3 where Red supposedly hit Kerner, but he wasn't suspended.

Trying to stop Pettit was a problem. Occasionally we'd put Russell on him because he could stop anyone. But Pettit would take Russell away from the basket, take him outside and open up the middle. Auerbach didn't think that was a good idea. So Pettit got his points and his rebounds. We would put Heinsohn on him, but we knew Pettit was going to do his thing.

With Pettit having a great series, the Hawks kept battling. They avoided elimination in Game 6 when Hagan hit a last-second shot.