1965 Boston Garden Parquet Floor Section where "Havlicek Stole the Ball!"
Grass dies, ice melts, but parquet is forever.
This large section the Boston Garden’s famed Parquet Floor not only played host to over fifty years of Celtics history, but it was also ground zero for a signature moment in the history of professional basketball’s greatest dynasty.
In 1946, the Boston Celtics commissioned a new floor crafted from scraps of northern Tennessee red oak, a playing surface that would come to be the most famous in the history of the professional game. For over a half-century, until 1999, this floor served as the team's sole home court, bedeviling visiting clubs with its mysterious and multitudinous "dead spots" that could suck the bounce right out of a dribble, a quirk that favored the home team's familiarity in much the same way the town's Green Monster does for baseball.
''You have to be a sure dribbler,'' says former Celtics guard Chris Ford, now an assistant coach. ''I never tried to do anything fancy. I remember when Ray Williams was here a few years ago, he'd try one of his fancy moves--behind the back or between his legs--and the ball never came up. You've got to really concentrate on the dribbling.''
But the most famous steal ever registered on this storied hardcourt was not the result of a deadened bounce but rather the daring and trademark hustle of Hall of Fame shooting guard John Havlicek. With the result of the 1965 NBA Eastern Conference Championship teetering upon a single play--Game Seven, five seconds left and the Philadelphia 76ers trailing by one and inbounding--Havlicek realized that Bill Russell had the obvious target of the pass, Wilt Chamberlain, fully covered. The ball would be coming to his mark, Sixers forward Chet Walker. Like a cornerback, Havlicek readied himself to intercept.
The call by the Celtics' raspy-voiced play-by-play announcer, Johnny Most has endured throughout history:
"Greer is putting the ball into play. He gets it out deep and Havlicek steals it! Over to Sam Jones! Havlicek stole the ball! It's all over! It's all over! Johnny Havlicek is being mobbed by the fans! It's all over! Johnny Havlicek stole the ball!"
Most’s legendary narration is rivaled perhaps only by Russ Hodges' call of Bobby Thomson's home run to send the New York Giants to the World Series in 1951 as the most famous call in U.S. sports history.
For another thirty-four years after that steal cleared the Celtics' path to an eventual eighth NBA Championship, the location of that most consequential floor segment in franchise history remained in the same place, tattooed in 1979 by a portion of the newly-innovated three-point line. When the entire floor was dismantled and sold off at auction in 2000, this 24” by 26" section was carefully identified through comprehensive video analysis and later presented to Havlicek himself, who boldly inscribed the piece, "The Steal, Game 7, Eastern Finals, 4-15-65, John Havlicek."
The floor segment is showcased in a large shadowbox (32” by 45” by 4") and accompanied by a dedicated audio player which blasts Most's famous call at the press of a button. This is a monumental artifact of Boston Celtics history with multi-faceted exhibition value whether displayed publicly in a commercial establishment, a corporate environment, or as a cornerstone of an elite private collection. Full LOA from PSA/DNA.
