You don't mess with the Heinsohn ...

I've been catching up on some online readings over the last couple of weeks, when I came across this entry from Celtics legend JoJo White's blog during the Finals (nbrpa.com), and I knew I had to share:

Back in the 1970s we always had this issue with the Chicago Bulls. They always played us physical and never took it easy on us.

They had guys like Norm Van Lier and Jerry Sloan, who were tough as nails and weren't afraid to scrap. We were playing them back in '73 and I remember driving to the basket, left my feet and then Sloan got under me and flopped.The referee Darrell Garretson called a charge on me and that cost us the game.

After the call, Tommy Heinsohn just lost it. I mean, he was ready to strangle him on the court. After the game my teammate Tom "Satch" Sanders gave me the heads up that Tommy was waiting for Darrell under the bleachers.

We hustled out of the locker room to stop Tommy from doing something foolish and he was fixed on giving Garretson a piece of his mind. Darrell eventually comes out and Tommy is screaming, "I'm going to kill him, I'm going to kill him."

Thank goodness Satch and I were there because there's no telling what would have happened. Before we dragged Tommy away he yelled at Garretson, "I hope your plane goes down in flames tonight."

Later on that night the team gets to the airport and there's Darrell at the gate. Turns out he was on our flight. Back then we all flew together there were no chartered flights.