Sam Jones

And I, and I, and I said, "Mr.

Russell, can you tell me your secret to how you guys just beat everybody year in and year out? You know, was it Red Auerbach? Was it, uh, uh, uh, uh, Cousy? Was it Sam Jones? Or, you know, who was it? Sat Sanders?" And he goes, "No, man." He goes, "We loved each other."

Wow.

And, and I was like, I was like, "Really? [laughs] That's how you did it?" [laughs]

He recounts how people always said he wasn't a good ball handler, just didn't know how to handle and shoot the ball.

He said, sure, I could do all those things, but why would I lead the fast break when Bob Cousy was playing with me? Why would I shoot jumpers when Sam Jones was on my wing? The message was that if you want to win championships, you have to let people focus on what they do best while you focus on what you do best.

For him, that was rebounding, running the floor, and blocking shots.

I thought that teaching was simple yet profound.

So it's hard to leave him out of the equation.

We know how great koozie was Sam Jones, but a lot of times have a check gets dropped down on that list.

Sixth player.

We hear all of this other stuff.

And Frank Ramsey, 8 points.

Sam Jones had 3.

Andy Phillip failed to score.

Well it's just about time for us to get down to the clubhouse and we will in just a moment.

Casey Jones picks up people 94 feet, and he doesn't put up big stats, but just like Bill Russell, all he does is do things that make it possible to win, and he backs up Bob Cousy.

And if they're ever on the court together, may God have mercy on all of you souls, right? And then later on, you get Sam Jones, who I call the real Mr.

Clutch, because I know that people talk about Jerry West as Mr.

Clutch, but the man who hit the shots that prevented Jerry West from winning any championships while he was still playing until 69 is Sam Jones.

And then Satch Sanders.

Seth Sanders was the Mr. Do-everything guy.

That's never going to be Casey Jones has his day.

Nope, I'm not doing that.

And even though the Nuggets won Game 3, that was all they could do against a more talented team, in a series that will be remembered by Dwight Howard and JaVale McGee taking turns in muscling up Jokic.

AD led all players in scoring with 31 points, while LeBron added 27-10-9 to make his 10th NBA Finals, trailing only the legendary Celtics Bill Russell and Sam Jones.

But even though the Lakers had the two best players in the playoffs in LeBron and Davis, in the finals against Miami, the Heat had an advantage everywhere else.

Out of the best eight players in that series, six played for Miami, and the finals were supposed to be extremely close.

And you think about the racial tension during those time back in Kentucky and some of the other places.

But, you know, Sam Jones shared this story with me as well as Bill Russell.

that what happened was they came back and certainly, you know, they wanted to display and show Frank Ramsey and what he had accomplished in such a short time.

And so they brought the Celtics in, they had Sam Jones, Casey Jones, and Bill Russell.

And so Sam's version as well as Bill Russell, you know, he went down to the restaurant to eat.

And they said, well, you know, I'm sorry.

Give us a quick recap here.

Okay, very quickly.

Now, in the past, he did everything.

You know, that first, you know, that run with Russell and Kuzi and Havlicek and Heinsen and Sam Jones and Casey Jones and Satch Sanders and Don, all those guys.

Uh... you know, he was a traveling secretary.

He was the only head coach.

Currently, Jayson Tatum, he's trying to catch these guys.

But there's other names too like Sam Jones, Kevin McHale, Tommy Heinsohn, Reggie Lewis.

Uh, really only the Lakers as a franchise challenge the Celtics when it comes to like guys that only played their entire career in that one spot when you're talking about like super teams.

Like you can have an awesome like eight-on-eight game between the Celtics and Lakers for players that only played for the respective franchises.