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Welcome to History Week

After getting our first glimpse of the newest Celtics in green, we take a look back this week at the Boston’s legends that paved the way.

By CelticsBlog Staff
2019 NBA Rookie Photo Shoot Photo by Brian Babineau/NBAE via Getty Images

Youth and promise and upside can be intoxicating, but there may not be anything more comforting and assuring than reminiscing about the good times. And the Celtics have had plenty of good times.

With every crop of Celtics rookies, there’s always the running joke that it’s difficult to pick a number because so many of them hang in the rafters of TD Garden. Carsen Edwards has #4, but it’s hard to forget that just two years ago, Isaiah Thomas wore it with Celtic pride and was an inspiration to a city. Even with the available jerseys, there’s memory magic in those uniforms.

NBA TV will broadcast a new edition of “Hardwood Classics” featuring the the defending champion Boston Celtics at the Denver Nuggets from Feb. 20, 1985 at McNichols Arena this week. The high-scoring shootout is scheduled to air this Thursday, August 15 from 7-9 p.m. EST on NBA TV.

Larry Bird scores 40 points and Kevin McHale tallies 32 but Boston, with Robert Parish out, loses a 132-129 thriller to the Nuggets. Alex English nets 38, Calvin Natt scores 33 and Dan Issel adds 22 for Denver.

Denver finished 52-30 in 1984-85, and won the Midwest Division. The Nuggets advanced to the 1985 Western Conference finals and challenged Los Angeles, winning Game 2 in LA 136-114. But after a 1-1 start to the series, injuries to stars English and Lafayette Lever helped the Lakers win 4-1 and prevented Denver from meeting Boston in the 1985 NBA Finals.

It marked the 15th and final season for sweet-shooting 6-9 Denver Hall of Fame center/forward Dan “Horse” Issel, an ABA superstar with the Kentucky Colonels before the merger. A seven-time ABA and NBA All-Star, the underrated Issel scored over 30,000 career points and grabbed nearly 13,000 rebounds, including his ABA and NBA regular season/playoff totals. He averaged 22.6 points and 9.1 rebounds a game over his long career.Boston was 44-12 after the 132-129 loss to Denver, but went on to post the league’s best record for the fifth time in Bird’s six seasons at 63-19. The Lakers ended up 62-20 and beat Boston 4-2 in a rematch of their epic seven-game 1984 Finals won by the Celtics.

And that’s what History Week is all about here at CelticsBlog. Over the next couple of days, we’ll take a trip down memory lane to appreciate just how long this storied road goes. Look out for a Tommy Heinsohn retrospective on his unheralded coaching career, a few quizzes to test your Celtics knowledge, and some staff roundtables on the 2008 banner and how Dee Brown and Gerald Green influenced a generation of fans. Before you jump into History Week, check out a few more picks from the yesterday’s rookie photoshoot:

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