1986 was a painful sports year for the state of Massachusetts. It began with the Patriots getting destroyed by the Bears in Super Bowl XX on January 26, then saw the Bruins swept by the eventual-champion Canadiens in the 1st round of the NHL playoffs on April 12, and ended with the Red Sox losing Game 7 of the World Series to the Mets on October 27. The only ray of sunshine appeared during the summer as the Celtics beat the Rockets to win their 16th NBA title. That Celtics squad featured 5 future Hall of Fame players: Larry Bird/Dennis Johnson/Kevin McHale/Robert Parish/Bill Walton. Johnson (aka “DJ”) was no stranger to winning: he was 1979 Finals MVP with Seattle and won his 1st of 2 titles with Boston in 1984. He passed away in 2007 but HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to chat with Gary Colson (DJ’s college coach at Pepperdine) about his star player’s great defense and clutch performances. Today marks the 35th anniversary of DJ scoring 10 PTS in the Finals-clinching Game 6 on June 8, 1986.
1 of 16 children of a social worker and cement mason in Compton, Dennis began his college career at Los Angeles Harbor College where he averaged 18.3 PPG/12 RPG (as a 6’3” guard!), led his team to a state title…and was thrown off the team 3 times during his 2 years there: what made him choose Pepperdine, and how did you 2 get along? I got a call from Coach Jim White who said I should look at this kid named Johnson. He was the 10th man as a senior on his high school team and his mom made him work at a grocery store rather than go to college. He would play pick-up ball at Harbor during the evenings and his mom eventually let him enroll there. I sent my assistant to watch him play 1 night: he jumped center against a 7’ guy, won the tip, and played pretty well! I realized that he had good potential and he decided to come with us. I had a 6’10” big man from Brazil named Marcos Leite who played in 4 Olympics and NFL Hall of Famer Ollie Matson’s 6’5” son Ollie Jr. Dennis joined our team and played his role: we ended up winning the conference and made the NCAA tourney. We beat Memphis/Utah and then had to play UCLA in Pauley Pavilion in the Sweet 16. We played a heck of a game and lost by single digits. Pete Newell was in the stands because his son Greg was on our team. Pete was associated with the Trail Blazers and drafted Dennis as part of a supplemental draft based on the fact that he had sat out his freshman year. Dennis asked me what to do and I told him that if he could get a nickel out of the deal then he should take it. 15 years later they were hanging his jersey at Boston Garden and Larry Bird said he was his best teammate ever. Dennis and I got along perfectly: I had never heard about him getting kicked off the team and Jim was the 1 who recommended him to me. He met his wife Donna at Pepperdine and was with her until he passed. He was not the man and was just competing for playing time with everyone else.
His family’s home burned down during December of his lone season at Pepperdine: how close did he come to leaving school, and how were you able to convince him to stay? His mom wanted him to drop out of school but I convinced him to stay. We talked and were able to work it out. She was a great mother: not many people could take care of 16 kids. We recruited Dennis’ brother Joey at New Mexico: he was a 7’ high jumper and a great athlete but not the best basketball player.
He spent his NBA career as both a PG and SG: where do you think was the best position for him on the court? He was just an average shooter with us but he became a pretty good shooter in the pros. I got to see Dennis a lot when I worked with Jerry West in Memphis: he was on the road quite a bit and I still have photos of him with his big smile.
In the 1978 NBA Finals with Seattle, he set a record for guards with 7 BLK in a 1-PT win over Washington in Game 3 but made 0-14 FG in a 6-PT Game 7 home loss: what did you think of his later acknowledgment that he “choked” and that this game was an important lesson to make him a better player? It did not faze me a bit. I remember the blocked shots.
In the 1979 Finals he averaged 23 PPG/6 RPG/6 APG and was named MVP after winning the series in 5 games: how was he able to play his best when it mattered the most? I know that Coach Lenny Wilkens helped him a lot: they were pretty tight. He was just a late-bloomer: it was a little bit of a miracle.
He won 2 more titles with Boston in 1984/1986 and lost 2 titles to the Lakers in 1985/1987: did it reach a point where you just expected to see him in the Finals when you turned on the TV every single summer? I was a college guy who moved all over so I was not big into the NBA. However, after working for Jerry, I cannot wait to watch the Warriors win another title! The rules are so different: 24-second clock, where to inbound the ball after a timeout, etc. I also learned a lot from Coach Hubie Brown as well.
He made 9 consecutive All-Defensive 1st or 2nd teams: what made him such a great defender? His defensive ability was unbelievable: he would get 2-3 SPG due to his long arms/great hands. He was able to read the opponent as they brought the ball up the floor: you had to be careful where you put the ball on the floor around him. It was not about mid-air deflections: he would just steal the ball right out of their hands.
He was also known as a clutch player who made several game winning plays in the NBA Finals including a 19-foot buzzer-beater to win Game 4 of the 1985 Finals over the Lakers (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTfvfObCUI) and the game-winning layup with 1 second left in Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals to beat Detroit (www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYKdI_Xm9es): what made him so clutch? He was fearless. When we won the conference we had to beat teams like San Francisco who had guys like Bill Cartwright. We had 1 game that went to overtime and I told Dennis that if we won the game I would give him an All-Star watch/ring that I got from Jerry. We won the game and I jumped up: when I came down the items were gone!
He missed only 48 regular season games during his 14-year career and played in 180 playoff games (which remains top-20 in NBA history, 1 spot ahead of Michael Jordan’s 179): how was he able to remain so durable for his entire career? He was not the best player on our team but Pete Newell could see something that nobody else did. We did not get any exposure at Pepperdine unless we made the NCAA tourney: nobody would see us play for several months during the winter.
He passed away in 2007 after a heart attack at age 52 and was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2010: when people look back on his career, how do you think that he should be remembered the most? Mr. Cinderella! When I speak at clinics I always say that you never know. They are always in awe that a 10th man could turn into a Hall of Famer. We should not have beaten Utah but they made a mistake at the end of the game: if we had not gone to UCLA then maybe his whole career never would have happened. I believe in fate: certain things are just going to happen.