Expert: Fabio Anderle - 9/26/2009

Question
Hello Fabio,

i've a question about the US National Team from the mid 60's, which inclusive Red, Bill Russell, Heinsohn, KC, Big O, Pettit, Gola, and Lucas.

I beileve such a team was not a official National team because the professional players in it. There was a international game between USA and Yugoslavia in Europe at that time , ended with 55 points won by USA and Red was the coach.

All the information that I found was on Boston Globe's forum:
http://www.boston.com/community/forums.html?plckForumPage=ForumDiscussion&plckDi...

Take a look at the "Yugoslavian Massacre" section.could you tell me more about this game? like what's the event's name and one more question, was such USA team against the FIBA rules?

Answer
Hi Bruno,

of course this would not be a strictly Celtics-related question, but of course since I know well what happened in 1964, I think I can help you. In the spring of '64 Nick Rodis, Chairman of the State Department Agency on International Athletics called Red Auerbach asking him to take an All Star team behind the Iron Curtain. An inadequate AAU team had ventured in 1963 and had placed third at the World Championship in Rio de Janeiro, and after that the same team had been soundly beaten in Russia 5 times in 8 tries in a series of friendly matches. Auerbach could select the NBA players he wanted, and so he did: Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn, K.C. Jones, Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Bob Pettit, Tom Gola and the already retired Bob Cousy were part of the roster. The russians looked closely at the squad and decided they didn't want to face them friendly games... maybe with an AAU selection it was easier. So the All Star team flied to Poland where it played some local clubs winning by 20 and 28. Auerbach reached Poland a few days later (he had to stay behind because of the NBA draft) and when he joined the team his fire propelled the All Star to a 49 points win over polish champion Wroclaw. After another rout (110-66), the America All Stars scoured Rumania winning quite easily all the games in spite of the fact that Russell was sick.

Then the team flied to Cairo, Egypt, where they were not welcomed by the american ambassador prompting Auerbach to lash out the diplomatic service. Of course they won all the games before flying back to Europe, where they faced the Yugoslavian national team. In the first game they won by 32, but one night later, fired up by the local team playing hardball to keep the game close, they went on to win by 52 sending a message to the whole "Iron Curtain".

It is also true that Russell blocked 6 shots by the Yugoslavian star player in the second game, but in his "Let Me Tell You A Story" John Feinstein made a huge mistake saying that the victim of Russell's blok-shot hunger was Belov. Alexander and Sergei Belov were two russian brothers who played for the USSR national team in the Seventies, while the yugoslavian star in the Early Sixties was Radivoje Korac, a truly great player who later would have died in a car accident and would have honored by FIBA by naming after him an European tournament for clubs. Korac would get so frustrated in that game that he was eventually ejected.
Anyway, to complete the answer, it wasn't a particular event, just a series of friendly games. And they were played with the FIBA rules, 40 minutes games and all.

I hope this helps...


Fabio