His blood always ran green: eight titles with Boston as a Hall of Fame forward and two as head coach followed by a three-decade career as a die-hard Celtics broadcaster.
Tom Heinsohn, the Hall of Fame forward who played on eight N.B.A. championship teams with the Boston Celtics, coached them to two titles and became their passionate broadcaster for more than three decades, has died at 86. The Celtics announced his death but gave no other details. Playing on the parquet floor of the old Boston Garden from 1956 to 1965, Heinsohn brought a superb shooting touch to the dynasty engineered by Coach Red Auerbach. He loved to shoot, most famously hitting flat-trajectory jumpers, and he had a deadly running hook. Heinsohn was the N.B.A.’s rookie of the year in 1957, capping the season by scoring 37 points when the Celtics defeated the St. Louis Hawks for the first N.B.A. championship in their history, and he was a six-time All-Star. Coaching a rebuilt team after the retirement of Bill Russell, who had become a player-coach with the Celtics after revolutionizing the game with his defensive prowess at center, Heinsohn took Boston to N.B.A. championships in 1974 and ’76. As the Celtics’ TV color analyst, he bemoaned referees’ calls that went against Boston while exulting, “That’s the basketball I’m talking about!” when they scored off fast breaks the way the Celtics of his playing days had done. He gave the Celtics players “Tommy points” for hustle and toughness. Apart from his intensity behind the microphone, Heinsohn endeared himself to Celtics fans by showing a softer side, telling how “the redhead in Needham” would have reacted to particular plays — a running tribute to his wife, Helen, who was being treated for cancer. (She died in Needham, Mass., in 2008.) Heinsohn found a serene world as an accomplished painter, pursuing his love of art while playing and coaching. His works, most notably watercolors of the New England seashore, were displayed in shows and at museums. He was bemused by that calling, spawned in his grammar school years in New Jersey.
