{"id":583896,"date":"2026-02-05T10:53:41","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583896\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T10:53:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T10:53:41","slug":"today-in-boston-celtics-history-russells-51-boards-hondos-last-asg-pierces-last-at-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/583896\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in Boston Celtics history: Russell’s 51 boards; Hondo’s last ASG, Pierce’s last at the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today in Boston Celtics history, Bill Russell pulled down a career-high 51 rebounds on this date in 1960.<\/p>\n

Russell would pull off the feat despite playing the game with a cramped muscle that slowed his ability to play \u2013 not that it showed in the box score \u2013 making the feat all the more impressive. It was the second-most boards taken down by a player in the league’s history at that time, and it came in a home game at the old Boston Garden against the (then) Syracuse Nationals (now, Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>) that the Celtics won comfortably in a 124 – 100 blowout.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Historic milestones<\/p>\n

It is also the date of iconic Celtics small forward John Havlicek\u2019s last All-Star Game in 1978. Doug Collins of the Philadelphia 76ers gave Hondo his starting spot so he could retire an All-Star starter. Havlicek would score 10 points in the midseason friendly.<\/p>\n

\"Unknown<\/p>\n

Unknown date & location; USA: FILE PHOTO; Baltimore Bullets guard Earl Monroe (10) is defended by Boston Celtics guard John Havlicek (17) at Cincinnati Gardens. Mandatory Credit: Malcolm Emmons-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n

Finally, in a weird twist of fate, it is the anniversary of Celtic legend Paul Pierce’s first and last “home” game as a Celtic in 2017, if you take some liberty with what counts as a home game. The first was in his rookie campaign of 1998-99, a 103 – 92 loss to the Toronto Raptors<\/a>, in which the Truth scored an impressive 19 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: Celtics history: Russell’s 51 boards; Hondo’s last ASG, Pierce’s last at the Garden<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today in Boston Celtics history, Bill Russell pulled down a career-high 51 rebounds on this date in 1960.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":583897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,45,75,5916,3798,46,6,2078,207,47963,1690,476],"class_list":["post-583896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-boston-garden","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-nba","tag-paul-pierce","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-playing-the-game","tag-syracuse-nationals","tag-toronto-raptors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116017654173937580","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/583897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}