Stocking Stuffers
The Boston Celtics on Christmas Day
For the first time since 2015, the Boston Celtics will not be playing on Christmas Day. The Celtics’ nine-year run of playing games on the holiday was the second-longest in team history, falling three years short of their twelve-year streak from 1948 through 1959.
From 1947 through the 1960’s, the NBA, and its predecessor, the BAA, generally played a full slate of games on Christmas. The league scaled back its holiday presence after that, bottoming out in 1989 and 1990 with just one game per year. By 2008 the NBA had adopted the five-game “marathon” format that still exists today.
The ABA initially tried to follow the NBA’s lead, scheduling games on Christmas from 1967 through 1971 before abandoning the holiday. In 1974 the ABA scheduled one final Christmas Day contest, as Moses Malone and the Utah Stars defeated the San Diego Conquistadors, 112-100, in Salt Lake City.
The Celtics have played 38 games on Christmas, posting a 17-21 record. But from 1948 through 2016 they were at a significant disadvantage: the Celtics first 30 games on the holiday were played on the road. (Two of them were technically neutral site games played in New York City.) Meanwhile, the Boston Bruins played a Christmas Day game at the Garden every year from 1946 through 1971.
One reason for this is that the Celtics, were second-class tenants of the original Boston Garden for most of its existence. During their first decade, Celtics games were frequently bumped to the smaller Boston Arena by Boston Bruins games because the more established Bruins, founded in 1924, drew larger crowds. The Bruins continued to average more fans than the Celtics until the dawn of the Larry Bird era in 1979.1
The tangled ownership histories of the Garden, the Bruins, and the Celtics also came into play. To summarize:
Prior to 1950, the Garden-Arena Corporation (which managed, but did not own, the buildings) and its president Walter Brown owned the Celtics.
In 1950, when the Garden-Arena Corporation wanted to fold the Celtics, Brown and Lou Pieri bought the team.
In 1951, the Garden-Arena Corporation bought a controlling interest in the Bruins; from 1951 through 1964 Brown was the president of the Garden and the Bruins, while also owning the Celtics.
In 1965, about a year after Brown had suffered a fatal heart attack, the Celtics were sold to the Ruppert Knickerbocker Brewing Company, the first of numerous owners over the next two decades.
Without Brown in the picture, the relationship between the Garden/Bruins and the Celtics became a more formal manager-tenant relationship. In 1973, the Garden and the Garden-Arena Corporation, which still owned the Bruins, were bought by Storer Broadcasting further consolidating the Garden-Bruins alliance.2
December 25, 1985
When I think of the Celtics on Christmas Day, my mind flashes back to 40 years ago, when the legendary 1985-86 Celtics blew a 25-point lead (58-33) in the third quarter and lost to the New York Knicks and rookie center Patrick Ewing in double overtime. I’m pretty sure I did not watch the game; it tipped off at 3:30pm ET on CBS, but in those days my Christmas schedule consisted of trips to both of my grandparents’ houses, and watching television was not usually on the menu.
For Ewing, who had attended high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it was his first victory over the Celtics in three tries. Ewing led all scorers with 32 points, the first 30-point game of his career. “We proved we have some heart,” Ewing said afterwards, “and I finally showed up.”3 New York raised their record to 10-19, while the Celtics fell to 21-7. Larry Bird summed up the loss by telling reporters: “It was a real lousy exhibition.”4
Kevin McHale sparked a minor controversy by refusing to accede to the NBA’s mandate that visiting teams needed to arrive the night before a game unless they were playing back-to-back games. McHale skipped the Celtics’ flight to New York on Christmas Eve, spent Christmas morning with his wife and kids, then caught a 9AM shuttle flight. The Celtics’ last game on the holiday had been in 1980, when McHale was still single and not yet a father. “People lose perspective on the family and holiday part of Christmas. … I knew it was wrong from the team perspective, but I knew that I would not miss the game and I got there in plenty of time.”5 Publicly, head coach K.C. Jones announced that McHale had been fined, but team president Red Auerbach later said that no fine would be imposed.6
The Celtics shook off the loss quickly; three days later, the Celtics defeated the Utah Jazz to start a streak of 17 victories in 18 games. Boston would finish the regular season with a record of 67-15 and went on to capture their 16th NBA Championship.
Merry Christmas!
Celtics yearly attendance: https://www.apbr.org/attendance.html; Bruins attendance: https://www.hockeydb.com/nhl-attendance/att_graph.php?tmi=4919
Storer also owned television station WSBK Channel 38 in Boston, which had been broadcasting Bruins games since 1967.
Lesley Visser, “Knicks Catch Celtics,” Boston Globe, December 26, 1985.
Visser, “Knicks Catch Celtics.”
May, Peter. The Last Banner: The Story of the 1985-85 Celtics, the NBA’s Greatest Team of All Time. Holbrook, Massachusetts: Adams Media, 1996, p121.
Dan Shaughnessy, “McHale Handed a Fine,” Boston Globe, December 27, 1985. May, The Last Banner, p121.