Red Holzman by Mort Zachter

Author:Mort Zachter
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683582892
Publisher: Sports Publishing
Published: 2019-02-07T16:00:00+00:00

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In the opening round of the playoffs, the Knicks faced the first-place Baltimore Bullets. Earl Monroe and Wes Unseld, both future Hall of Fame players, were the team’s two best players. Monroe proved to be as gifted a player in the professional ranks as he was in college.

With the addition of Unseld, a center, selected with the second pick of the 1968 draft, the Bullets had finished with the best record in the league, giving them home-court advantage. However, the advantage did little to help the Bullets, as the Knicks took the opening game with a 113–101 victory and went on to sweep the series in four straight. After the series ended, Knicks general manager Eddie Donovan said of Holzman, “I’ve never seen anybody do a better job of coaching in all my association with basketball. He had complete control of every game. The confidence that the team has in Red never wavered. He was ahead of the action on every substitution and was able to deal with every situation that came up. It [Game One] gave us the momentum, and the Bullets never seemed to recover. When the Bullets opened with Wes Unseld bringing the ball up, it took Red only a few moments to adjust by putting DeBusschere on Unseld and letting Willis Reed drop back near the boards.”

The Knicks sweep of the Bullets was their first winning playoff series since 1953.

After blitzing the Bullets, the Knicks advanced to the Eastern Division finals to face the Boston Celtics. Although the Knicks had defeated the Celtics in six of their seven regular-season games, Holzman preached caution. “Don’t let the Celtics, or beating them in the season series ever fool you,” he said. “They have so much playoff experience and so many great players. That Bill Russell during the playoffs just murders you.”

Red was prescient. The Knicks lost to the Celtics, four games to two. The Celtics would go on to defeat the Lakers and win their eleventh championship in the thirteenth and final season of Bill Russell’s playing career. But, with Russell’s retirement, the Knicks looked forward to the 1969–70 season when they would be favored to win the Eastern Division title.

After the Celtics defeated the Knicks, Eddie Donovan was once again singing Holzman’s praises, saying, “Red adds 6 to 8 points a game for us by the job he does on the bench.” How Donovan came up with that figure is unknown, but under any analysis, Red had established himself as one of the best coaches in the NBA.

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