Paul Westphal has died.

Reggie's Racquet

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https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30638260/paul-westphal-member-naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-fame-dies-age-70

RIP Paul.

A brief story about when I first met Paul...I was a good basketball player in my younger years. I played basketball all four years in high school and then was planning to play in college at the Air Force Academy before I left and transferred to Boston College. Boston College had a very good team and I was trying out as a walk on. We used to gather to play pick up games on the full court at the Roberts Center after school. Most of the basketball team was there along with a variety of football players. About halfway through the first quarter of a five on five pick up game I was rotated into a full court game and was told to pick up the guy playing guard who was bringing the ball up the court. He blew by me to my left at the top of the key and hammer dunked with his left hand. I was impressed. Then the next time down the court he schooled me again and went by me and dunked with his right hand. He made a couple of long jump shots and then there was a timeout. I came to our bench to a group of laughing teammates and asked who is that guy. It was Paul Westphal who was in his first season with the Celtics. Paul passed away today at 70. Paul taught me that I probably wasn’t going to become a professional basketball player and I refocused on academics and switched my collegiate sports to fencing and tennis. RIP Paul and thanks for the hard-earned lesson.
 
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bankshot1

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Red Auerbach is often lauded as stealing other NBA GMs blind, and the examples are too numerous to mention, but one trade I think Red might have rethought was the Westphal for the Phoenix Sun's Charlie Scott trade after the '75 season. As i remember there was some concern over his court quickness and whether he would be the next Celt's star to emerge. While the Celts won a championship with Scott in '76 (ironically against the Suns-I was lucky to see the classic 3OT game 5 of that series) Westphal turned into a star, one of the NBAs best guards over the next several years, a solid 20 pt 5 asst guy, and a Hall of Famer on and off the court.

RIP Paul
 

TripleOT

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Trading Westphal for Charlie Scott got Red a title, but lost him a HOF player.

In the chaotic last seconds of regulation in that classic triple OT game, Westphal was savvy enough to call a time out that allowed the Suns to move the ball to halfcourt so Gar Heard coule make his historic shot.

Paul was such a handful in that series, but the Celtics were just a bit better than Phoenix. RIP.

This has not been a good period of time for ex-Celtics.
 

kfoss99

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https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/30638260/paul-westphal-member-naismith-memorial-basketball-hall-fame-dies-age-70

RIP Paul.

A brief story about when I first met Paul...I was a good basketball player in my younger years. I played basketball all four years in high school and then was planning to play in college at the Air Force Academy before I left and transferred to Boston College. Boston College had a very good team and I was trying out as a walk on. We used to gather to play pick up games on the full court at the Roberts Center after school. Most of the basketball team was there along with a variety of football players. About halfway through the first quarter of a five on five pick up game I was rotated into a full court game and was told to pick up the guy playing guard who was bringing the ball up the court. He blew by me to my left at the top of the key and hammer dunked with his left hand. I was impressed. Then the next time down the court he schooled me again and went by me and dunked with his right hand. He made a couple of long jump shots and then there was a timeout. I came to our bench to a group of laughing teammates and asked who is that guy. It was Paul Westphal who was in his first season with the Celtics. Paul passed away today at 70. Paul taught me that I probably wasn’t going to become a professional basketball player and I refocused on academics and switched my collegiate sports to fencing and tennis. RIP Paul and thanks for the hard-earned lesson.
Thank you for this story.
 

lexrageorge

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Trading Westphal for Charlie Scott got Red a title, but lost him a HOF player.

In the chaotic last seconds of regulation in that classic triple OT game, Westphal was savvy enough to call a time out that allowed the Suns to move the ball to halfcourt so Gar Heard coule make his historic shot.

Paul was such a handful in that series, but the Celtics were just a bit better than Phoenix. RIP.

This has not been a good period of time for ex-Celtics.
Didn’t the timeout result a technical foul, as the Suns had none left? But the T still allows the Suns to get the ball at half court.

RIP Westphal.
 

jaytftwofive

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Jan 20, 2013
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Trading Westphal for Charlie Scott got Red a title, but lost him a HOF player.

In the chaotic last seconds of regulation in that classic triple OT game, Westphal was savvy enough to call a time out that allowed the Suns to move the ball to halfcourt so Gar Heard coule make his historic shot.

Paul was such a handful in that series, but the Celtics were just a bit better than Phoenix. RIP.

This has not been a good period of time for ex-Celtics.
It was the end of the 2nd overtime. Jo Jo hit the foul shot and then Heard hit the "GAR HEARD ROUND THE WORLD" shot. Today an illegal timeout would be 2 shots and you still have the ball. Paul was smart to do it. Remember it was an illegal time out. Brent Musberger..."Ohhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! I don't believe it. We're going to a third overtime"
 
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Harry Hooper

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I can't find a picture of it, but in the 1976 Finals didn't Westphal almost pull the shorts off of JoJo or Scott as they started a breakaway on a turnover? Lobel on Channel 4 had a captioning contest for the photo, and the winning viewer entry was "Sun and Moon."
 

bankshot1

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RIP, Small Paul. What a pleasure it was to see you play many games in person wearing the home green.

Jack you must have been on a helluva road trip because (generally) the Celts back in the day (60s- until maybe the past 10 years or so) always wore home WHITES when home.

White with Celtics in Green at home

Green with BOSTON in white on the road. (they changed post-Russell and had Celtics on the front starting in the early 70s)

and then the marketers took over about 15 years ago and we got all sorts of iterations.
 

snowmanny

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I can't find a picture of it, but in the 1976 Finals didn't Westphal almost pull the shorts off of JoJo or Scott as they started a breakaway on a turnover? Lobel on Channel 4 had a captioning contest for the photo, and the winning viewer entry was "Sun and Moon."
I remember that clearly. Game 2.
 

Mugsy's Jock

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In the moment, watching that 3OT game as a 14 year-old, I thought Paul Westphal was playing the greatest game of basketball anybody's ever played.

What a fun guy to watch. RIP.
 

jaytftwofive

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And of course Hondo's bank shot and the Celts leaving the court. Very embarrassing incident after and a disgrace when the fans stormed the court and Richie Powers the ref got punched out by some drunk thug and security and the Police never caught him or arrested him. It seemed it took 20 minutes or probably more to re-start the game. Anybody remember exactly? Celts should have been told right away there were 2 seconds left. Rick Barry was the only one who called it right away. Ironically many Warriors fans and others including some players blame him for the 7 game upset in WC finals by the Suns. They say he was playing selfish and petty. They(The Warriors) only lost game 7 by 2 I believe.
 

Harry Hooper

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Datsun, lol. I had one right before they changed to Nisaan.
My brother had a Datsun 510 which he bought used with about 40K on the odometer. We put another 200,000 on it with minimal maintenance. It was still mechanically flawless when it dissolved into a pile of rust.
 

J.T. Pinch

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Oct 3, 2020
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Westy had perhaps the best left hand in the game during his career. He and Bobby Jones were in a class by themselves in the off-hand dept.