 Welcome to the complete collection of Kevin McHale's greatest stories told by NBA players and legends. If you have missed any of the other episodes within the series, there's a playlist link on the top right of your screen and in the description box down below and if you click on that link you'll find all the episodes within the series. Comment down below which player you would like to see next and if you do enjoy these videos they do take me a long time to edit so I'd really appreciate all the support. If you do enjoy, please leave a like, let's aim for 1000 likes for the next episode, subscribe if you are new and hit that notification button so you're notified when a new episode releases. I won't keep you waiting, without further ado, here's the complete collection of Kevin McHale's greatest stories. His creative imagination, his skill set, his footwork, his touch, his shooting and then his trash talking, it was just absolutely incredible. I mean with the footwork, the soft touch around the rim, the hook shot, he had it all in his bag. Also he had long arms, as a matter of fact if I had his arms I could shake your hand from sitting in this chair. It could be 6'10", and when you put that combination together it was lethal. Low post play, step back, 15 foot jump shot, Charles Barkley said he was the toughest guy he ever had to play in the NBA. The great Charles Barkley was once asked, who was the toughest player he ever had to guard? Who was the guy that you knew you were going to have a, you couldn't wait to face? I will tell you this, I hated Kevin McHale because he's the best player I ever played against. Yeah, Charles constantly reminds us who was the toughest competition when it comes and the answer is always Kevin McHale. Kevin McHale's the best player I ever played against. Actually my personal nemesis is Kevin McHale. I'm telling you, you kids just don't know how good Kevin McHale was. Because he was such, he's the best player I ever played against. You could not stop him. He was the one guy who was so much bigger to me with his long arms and his great moves. I had a difficult time guarding him and then on the other end he was so long, you know, he was so long it was tough for me to get my shot off if I had to face him up. Six foot ten and blessed with arms so long that people often joked he could tie his shoes without bending over. He had every post move in the book, the jump hook, the up and under, the reverse lay in, the fade away. McHale was simply unstoppable on the block. So much so that in the 1986-87 season he averaged 26 points a game while shooting 60% from the floor and 80% from the line. You know how many NBA players have averaged 20 or more points, shot 60% from the floor and 80% from the strike in the same season? One! Kevin McHale. And on the other end I had to use every ounce of energy I did to score on him. That guy, when I looked at, because we all look at the schedule, we're like, okay, I can have some fun that night. Uh-oh, uh-oh, better get a good night's sleep that night. I mean, we all say the same thing about different guys, but Kevin McHale is the best player I've played against. When we talk about the top power forwards to ever play the game, the same names get mentioned, Duncan, Barkley, Malone, Novitsky, Garnett. But there's one name that's too often left off the list. The name of a guy who routinely gave some of the greatest to ever lace him up. The business. I have no idea why, because he wasn't very athletic, but for some reason he knew all the little tricks and he drove me crazy when I played against him. Like, he kicked my butt more probably than any player that I played against. Well, you probably wanted Bird to guard you, didn't you? Oh, Larry Bird didn't want any of this. Come on, brother. Hey, Larry, he's Larry Legend, but not on the defensive end. You probably didn't want any piece of that with his offense, though. You know, he was great, great, great, but like I say, in my day, I mean, it was a challenge to play against him. I mean, nobody's going to stop a great player. But listen, I'd rather play against him than Kevin McKell, because Kevin was just so much bigger to me with those long guns. And Kevin, to this day, other than Tim Duncan, had the best low post moves of any power forward to ever play the game. Because he was unstoppable offensively and he gave me nightmares on defense. As I was growing up, when we was playing against the Celtics, the Celtics would come in and, you know, they knew they was going to beat us, no matter how we start the game. In Chicago, the Celts against the Bulls, Kevin McKell, look at this great pass to Robert Parrish. McKell himself had 31 points on the night. He said he was so sure that they were going to beat the Bulls, he said he didn't even bring a change of clothes. They just knew we were going to fold new and come back and beat us. You know, Kevin McKell was, you know, was talking more trash than anybody's ever seen and buried as well. But they knew they were going to win. As we go to break, a little trash talking, what did you used to tell people in game seven or in closeout games when they were in Boston? I used to tell them all the time, I said, look it now, when we get done tonight, just shut out the lights. Because, you know what, this game's over. I said, when it was a closeout game, I used to tell Johnny Lucas, I said, John, you know where the lights are in this place? First time, he said, what for? I said, we're getting ready to shut the lights off on this place. He tells them before the game. I'm going up. It's about maybe five seconds to go in the game. I go up the chute, Miguel goes, all right, that is your last shot of the season. I hope you make it. Some of the greatest feet ever in NBA history when you're talking about signature moves, Kevin McKell and the dream shake, Hakeem Olajewan. I think they're the two best. I played many years against both of those guys and Kevin McKell, it got to the point where they were calling him a man of 1,000 moves. Could not guard him one-on-one on the box because he had such great footwork and he did a great job of filling the contact. And once he felt you, you were done. If the double team didn't come right away, forget about it. He had too much stuff on the box. But that's what I love about the league is that no matter what level you're on, when you get to this league, first of all, you're going to be happy that the NBA players are fans of you and they encourage you, the players are, and they want you to get better, but you also have to learn. You know, throw that out the window and get better because guys have different moves that can come. I'll tell you, Kevin got this bad reputation as being the black hole and never passing the ball out. Do you think maybe you guys were a little unfair to him? Maybe you guys were never open. Well, Kevin's philosophy was, why should he pass the ball out when he's shooting 60, 65 percent? Also, Kevin was, he talked about Kevin intelligence on the court. One thing I like about Kevin, he was a very smart player. He never set a pick. The reason why he didn't set a pick, because the guy that came off him had to pass it inside. So Kevin knew he was going to get a shot. The one thing about Kevin, I'm sure you guys will attest to this, I have never seen him at all fail when the game was on the line in the clutch. This guy was cool as a cucumber, a stone of granite. Wouldn't you say Larry? I mean, he never failed. No question about it. Kevin was so calm. You always hear Kevin talking about after the game, he goes, he forgets about that game. He goes with his family, what she does. You know, that game's history. Let's get on to the next game. But in game two in 1984, we lost the first game. Gerald still has a ball. There's about 20 seconds to go in the game. And Kevin's at the free throw line. We're down by two. And he's so calm. And I just couldn't believe what happened after that. Let's go to it. Let's go to the videotape. I think there's 20 seconds left. Well, there's 30 some. But Kevin gets fouled and has to go to the free throw line. And he's got two shots. We're down by two. And everybody's thinking, well, at least he'll make one and something will happen. But you know, the players always stand to go and say he's going to hit both of them. So here he is. He's getting ready to go to the line. You can tell right now that he's a little shook up about it. Because he's looking at somebody else to see if the referee's going to put them on the line. So he walks over to their bench, gets his towel. He looks real calm at this point. He walks to the free throw line. You know, he's talking. He's having a good time. He knows we're down by two points. And this is probably the biggest game of all of our lives. Cedric comes in. He looks happy. See, right now he's seven for eight from the line. He must have got fouled on the one he missed. But the one thing you got to watch is his knees. You know, it's so important to go to the free throw line with a lot of courage and a lot of confidence. But watch Kevin's knees. Don't watch him shoot the free throw. Look us on his knees. He's calm. He's cool. And he knows he's going to make this. Follow his knees. That was bad. Those guys love that. Casey, here's my buddy Casey. We're playing the next year. And with that, all of a sudden we're having a film session. Casey goes, I got to show you guys something. He played that about 30 times. I said, come on, man. Casey, you're killing me. Gerald, I was talking with Gerald earlier. He mentioned that he wanted me to say thanks for making him famous. If you hadn't missed those two free throws in 84, that still wouldn't have mattered. You know, once upon a time, Sam Jones had the Celtics franchise record for points in a game. And then Larry Bird eclipsed that. And then Kevin McHale actually eclipsed Larry Bird's franchise scoring record. Kevin McHale, when before he had the 56, did you look at him as a guy who can absolutely dominate a game? Or was he a guy that was really good, but really you can't count on him to get you a 50-point ballgame? Three on two. Kevin, got it. McHale's got two. No, yeah. All right, spot. Two. Many traffic. Two of them. Mine's Kevin. McHale. With what got him here. Two. Two tight. McHale. McHale. Two. McHale. Got it. 54 for McHale. And Kevin McHale's coming out. Towards the end of the game, Larry came up to me and said, I said I'm going to come on. I was mid-and-a-half for two minutes to go to the game. Larry said, are you crazy? I said, I'm had enough, man. We're ahead. And he goes, if I get that hot, I'm not stopping. Well, nine days later, you got that hot. I said, you stopped me. He said, I'm not stopping. Yeah, you were playing the Hawks. And it was one of those times they were playing some home games down in New Orleans. Yep. And I mean, everybody was entertained by this. Even the guys on the Atlanta bench. They got fine for that, I heard. Yeah. Watch the reactions on the Atlanta bench. Because he's got all up there laughing. Watch Cliff Levingston over here. I think this is Cliff. Yeah, right there, he told me. Right there, he looked at me and said, I told you I wasn't stopping. You know, Cedric Maxwell had been playing a lot. Kevin, obviously, had moved into that starting position. Yeah, Kevin McHale was saying, yeah, I was right in this corner and I'm looking at him score. You know, I guess it was a time when I got hurt and I saw him score 56 points and I'm thinking, yeah, I need a new damn address right now. It don't look like I'm going to be playing no more. Kevin, with his length, with his footwork, and I mean, supreme confidence in his ability not only to knock down the 14, 15 footer, one dribble to a spot, one dribble to the rim, up and under. He had all of that game. And Larry had great confidence in it. I mean, Larry was specifically, when we ran the offense, if you threw it to Larry and it was, you know, Larry come off a pin down on Kevin, he wouldn't come off looking to shoot. That's, Brian, you know, that's an indication that if you got a guy that's in position to score, you'll throw him the ball and that's what Larry did with him. So we knew he was capable of scoring. I didn't see the 56 points coming. I will not tell that to you. You know playing when you've got a guy that you've got your number one player has confidence in, then you know you got a guy that could play. You know, Kevin McHale is a Hall of Fame player. Compare him to a guy nowadays. It feels like his style of play is like a lost art form now. It is. I don't think there's any doubt about it. First of all, you don't see post up. You know, you and I, I see you all the time. Matter of fact, last time we were talking about it, we saw each other. It was the last game respectively that both teams played. But no, you don't see Kevin's game anymore because guys just, they don't post up to try to get to a position. He just kind of, with that length, just faced you, walked you down. And then he could get it off the block a couple of dribbles and still be able to get himself in position to get a shot that you've had a hard time challenging. You don't see anybody in the game like that today. Two guys who were great in the low post. And obviously, and one was a mentor to the other, McHale being to Garnett. You know, how prevalent will the low post game be in the next five years? You know, we see all the stretch for us and we talk about it all the time. But here are two guys that's skill was magnificent over the power. So what do you two guys think that's going to happen in the next five years? You know, we kind of talked about, you know, the evolution of the post and it coming from, you know, Welk and, you know, Elvin Hayes and us, you know, just, when you think about the post being a big man, you know, before you had Wilk, Shaq, strong guys being grit, then you see another style of post. You know, the Kevin McHale to Jack Sycamore to Charles Barkley's using pump fakes from not just verticals, but at angles using the backboard up and under and stuff like that to really to where you get to, you know, my class and we was more face-up shooters being able to put the ball on the floor, took a finesse kind of approach to it. And it kind of really birthed, you know, myself, Chris Bosch, even Dirk Nowinski, guys, you can, Tim Duncan, you can throw in there that kind of shaped us to what we are. KG and his prime versus McHale and his prime while you would win. I'm going to give it to Mack. Mack's shoulders, Mack is unguardable. Mack had to be double team, triple team. You know, he taught me, it's only right. That's a great question. That's not a great question. That's a great question. That's the best player I've played. You can't spit because you've played against, don't mean it's not the best player. Kevin McGovern, that's not the best player somebody else played. Come on, man. This guy's the best player I've played against. I'm not saying that you, it doesn't mean that Kevin Governet didn't have all of this, ooh, all of this too. Oh, goodness. Oh, give me that. There you go. Hold on. Dream shake, bro. It's out of this business. Out of this business, man. Out of this business, that's all. It's not as good a cut as you think it is. Ain't no man, listen, I ain't worried about no man that wears skinny jeans. It always goes back to that. Hey, Chuck. One leg at a time, Chuck. One leg at a time. He's a tremendous opponent to have too, with those big square shoulders and, you know, as awkward as he might have seemed sometimes on the court, he always knew where he was going and he knew what he was doing. And he was probably the most feared guy in Boston by the 76ers. Another Boston Philadelphia classic. I was excited every time I played against you guys, and I loved the challenge of guarding you, you get out there, you have this wingspan. I might as well just take a jump shot. He's all the way down here. You know, I knew if I beat Bird or Maxwell, McCall was going to be there. Kevin wasn't afraid to take a shot at you. You know, he was a critical piece to the puzzle, and there were many nights when he was the MVP at Boston. Each and every time I walked into Boston Garden, I knew I had to be at my best. People think that you keep these grudges your whole life. Man, we played hard, Doc. We got after it, and I was doing everything I could to beat you. It was a fierce rivalry, but at the end, like I say, a lot of those old wounds, they kind of fade over. The one night we were playing against the Celtics, and McCall really has it going. And he's torching, you know, our power forward, you know, Kent Benson. Now, you played with Kent Benson. He was the former number one pick. He's on the pistons, and McCall is working him. And finally, you know, he started saying, he's got these guys in the torture chamber. I know when I talk to my friends to get worked by my current teammates, I lay into them. Were you laying into Kent Benson a little bit? I didn't lay into Kent, because I knew it was more than Kent could handle, quite frankly. You have to kind of know your personality. Kent played on our championship team when I was out of college, but he also had, Larry had come to visit Indiana University, decided to go to Indiana State, and frankly, I'm not sure Kent gave the respect to Larry that Larry deserved when Larry came. Larry always intended to play really well against Kent Benson. And now Kevin's got it. Kevin knows about Larry's intent, and if you know Kevin's personality, like all of us, we all want to be like, loved, whatever that's about, he wants to make sure he maintains Larry's respect. So Larry is feeding him the ball so he can give it to Kent Benson. Kent was overmatched. There's just not any question about it. Kevin McCall taught me more about basketball, I would say, than any big man coach, the way he would move his body, lean the other side. It looks like his body is halfway leaned over, halfway down, but his head is up here. It's just a weird look. So every time they would enter the basketball into him, he would holla chamber, like, you know, he got him in a torture chamber, and, you know, it's too late. He would go back to double teams, and he was looking down at me, shooting like, you're too late, I, there's nothing you can do about this. And how he would spin, catch you, make you go up, lean on you, get under you, make you foul. You know, once he caught the ball, you were at his mercy. So the best. Kent was a guy that probably was more of a shooting center than he was playing Power Forward. At any rate, Kevin went to work on him, and there wasn't a thing Kent could do about it. And I don't, I don't tease Kent about that. I think he, he got enough that day. He doesn't need any more teasing about that. You know, Kevin is one of those guys who can really get under your skin at times. But when practice sessions were completed, some of the most competitive competition began. Double dribble! Double dribble! No! Double dribble! Double dribble! Double dribble! He did, too. I didn't. That's all I'm telling you. I was a big cry. I didn't do it. It's easy to play to you like this. All the more I didn't do it. Because when I went to get it with this hand, this hand came with the ball. No, I didn't. Big cry. I'm going to do something. I'm good. I stole your framework. You cheated. You cheated. I can tell you. Look at this. Practical Joker makes fun, real tease. Man, I'm glad when Bill Walton showed up. Because Kevin got off my case and couldn't wait to get ahold of Bill. Kevin taught me a lot about the game. And one thing in particular is he really taught me how to deal with the media. Just lie. Raise tape, John. Get tighter. Get tighter. My last game report is like an asbestos stick, but you're really ready to play because it hurts so much when you want to kill people. That was one of the reasons I collared with Kurt Rand with my flipper. It's so bad. I couldn't help it. I'm just kidding, babe. Sometimes playing against a person, you appreciate him even more. And when, as I traveled and played with a few different teams against Kevin and we'd go through the scouting report and we'd walk through how we're going to defend him, you know, I'd hear coaches say things like, you know, fake the double team, wait till he puts it on the floor. All the coaching terminology is how you defend him. And I'd always have to step in and say, no, wait a minute. Kevin had this philosophy that if you double teamed him, he thought you could get four points. He scored. He used to tell me all the time, I'd say, Kevin, my man is right on you. I'm wide open. My man's guarding you. Pass me the ball. He'd say, tell your man to guard you then. And I'd go up to him, I'd say, Kevin, mine and DJ's man are both on you. He'd say, I should get six points for scoring that. He had a great perspective on the game. And I think that all the players that played with him really learned from him to have fun, to compete when it was time to compete and to deal with adversities. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate Kevin's friendship and the chance to play with him. I get picked on all these teams I play with. Now, Dan Marley just came up with a new statistic that he's keeping track of, and it's called SPDs. And it's stories per day. And every one of those stories I'm telling is about the Boston Celtics. And most of them are about Kevin McHale. Thank you very much. I was so lucky to have teammates that we really enjoyed. Bill Walton made the 86 season for me. For a lot of us, Bill Walton was like a guy that we looked at at UCLA, the 21 for 22, the Memphis. Just some of the stuff he had done in UCLA and the Bruins coming in in the 77 series in Portland when the Trailblazers beat the 76ers. And just some of the stuff he had done, you're like, wow, this guy is like a special player. How much does he have left? With Bill's history, we had no clue. We got off to a pretty good start in training camp. He was pretty healthy, and we was trying to ride the wave. As special as it was because being around Bill like that, and actually I hate to admit this, I had a picture of Bill on my wall. He was my idol growing up, and I hate to admit that, but he was, so playing with my idol was just fantastic. The greatest moment of my life on the basketball court was in 2006. Forget the championships. Forget the parades. We were practicing, and it was one of the few days that Kevin actually got there on time. Maybe KC finally got the point of telling Kevin practice started at 9.30 instead of 10.30, and Kevin and I used to love to play one-on-one before practice. KC at 10.30 blew the whistle, and we were really going at it at the other end and asked us to come on down, let's get started. Well, we totally ignored him, and he was heart and heavy. A couple minutes later, KC really blows the whistle and says, okay, get down here right now. We're going to get started. We're serious. We dropped the ball, we're walking down, and Kevin and I are going at each other. Pretty good as we're walking down the court, and I'm telling him, you know, Kevin, I'm killing you out here. This is embarrassing. You probably wouldn't even be in the league if you didn't have Larry passing you the ball with all those easy layups. KC said, okay, I've had enough of this. I've listened to you guys moan and complain and whine and boast all season. Let's settle this right now. We've got the whole team here. Red's here. Red was over there smoking a cigar. But that day, Kevin and I, we decided to have DJ be the ref. Bill's talking trash again, you know, Bill's telling me that, oh, and by that way, that game of one-on-one we had. DJ was the worst ref for you've ever seen in your life. He was killing me. I shot for outs. I made it. And I went on and proceeded to kick Kevin McHale's ass all over the court and beat him that day. Everything I did, he called traveling. I mean, DJ was killing me that day and Bill did win the game of one-on-one, but it was under protest to this day. After I hit the game winner and Kevin's faced that day and DJ waved it off, called off the jam and said, that's it, Bill's the winner. I took the ball out of the net and tossed it to KC. I said, KC, practice is over. We're heading to the bar. It's on me. KC said, right on. Let's go. Glenn Ordway talked about my induction into the Hall of Fame. I got thousands of phone calls from around the country, so many of them from the Celtics, the management, the players and all. None meant more to me than the phone call from Kevin McHale. Called me up and he said, Bill, congratulations, but you know you never would have made it to the Hall of Fame if you hadn't beaten me that day at Hellenic College. And I said to Kevin, Kevin, if I couldn't beat you, I don't belong in the Hall of Fame. Kevin McHale. Just with Celtics, I thought, well, I'm going to kill this guy today because he came in late, went there about the first two or three times and he blocked my shot and I thought, you know, bring this guy a little bit more respect. I mean, he actually blocked my shot the first two times I went in there and I thought, boy, this guy can play defense. Well, couldn't have found out. He's a great defensive player, but he's a lot better score. Even a type of guy that you find yourself watching him, you know, what is he going to do next? You know, because like I said, he had so many moves around the basket and you got to realize Kevin McHale didn't believe in passing the ball back out once he's got it. So he's doing these unbelievable moves over two and three people. I don't think you can sum up in any modern time what it's like being a Celtic. I suppose just an immense pride, a willingness to do whatever it takes to win, playing hurt, playing when you didn't feel like it and playing for the best organization that there's ever been. I mean, it's just, Larry said it best. I think he said, if you didn't play for the Celtics, you never played basketball.