{"id":755646,"date":"2026-06-08T10:21:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:21:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/755646\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T10:21:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T10:21:20","slug":"today-in-boston-celtics-history-banner-16-won-vs-rockets-larry-bird-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/755646\/","title":{"rendered":"Today in Boston Celtics history: Banner 16 won vs. Rockets; Larry Bird signs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a data-ylk=\"elm:icon;slk:USA TODAY;\" href=\"https:\/\/uw-media.usatoday.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><img alt=\"USA TODAY\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"174\" height=\"40\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"pr-2.5 max-w-[150px] max-h-[40px] min-[601px]:max-w-[115px]\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:auto;max-height:100%\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/s.yimg.com\/os\/creatr-uploaded-images\/2021-07\/506fdd20-ee43-11eb-8f33-8a4102cf7edb.jpeg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Justin Quinn, Celtics Wire<\/p>\n<p>Mon, June 8, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC<\/p>\n<p>Today in Boston Celtics history, the storied franchise won its 16th championship in 1986 by beating the <a data-ylk=\"slk:Houston Rockets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/houston-rockets\/10\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Rockets<\/a> in six games. This win was the third title for the trio of Hall of Fame small forward Larry Bird, his fellow Hall of Famer, center Robert Parish, and (yest again, a Hall of Famer) forward Kevin McHale. It would be Boston&#8217;s last championship until 2008.<\/p>\n<p>The talent assembled on the roster was nearly unmatched, featuring yet another two first-ballot Hall of Famers: Bird, McHale, Parish, sixth man Bill Walton, and veteran point guard Dennis Johnson. It also included shooting guard Danny Ainge, who would later serve as team president.<\/p>\n<p>The Celtics finished the season 67-15 record and one home loss \u2014 one of the most dominant teams in all of NBA history.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein, NBAE\/Getty)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_usatoday_us_articles_590\/e6c935f86d09bd407ac4827dce1ce8b2.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>(Photo: Andrew D. Bernstein, NBAE\/Getty)<\/p>\n<p>Transactions<\/p>\n<p>It is also the anniversary of Larry Bird signing with the Celtics in 1979. Boston took a gamble by drafting Bird before he&#8217;d finished his collegiate career by using a now-closed loophole but ended up paying through the nose to do it, lest they risk Bird simply returning to the draft next year.<\/p>\n<p>After considerable negotiations, the Hick from French Lick signed a five-year, $3.25 million contract to become the highest-paid rookie in any sport up to that time.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Celtics Wire: <a data-ylk=\"slk:Celtics history: Banner 16 won vs. Rockets; Larry Bird signs;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/celticswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/celtics\/2026\/06\/08\/celtics-history-banner-16-won-vs-rockets-larry-bird-signs\/90332600007\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Celtics history: Banner 16 won vs. Rockets; Larry Bird signs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Quinn, Celtics Wire Mon, June 8, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC Today in Boston Celtics history, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755647,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3766],"tags":[7,3941,45,75,3798,46,413,5676,194,2079,3497,6,4815,3040],"class_list":["post-755646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boston-celtics","tag-basketball","tag-bill-walton","tag-boston","tag-boston-celtics","tag-bostonceltics","tag-celtics","tag-championship","tag-hall-of-famer","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-mchale","tag-larry-bird","tag-nba","tag-nba-history","tag-robert-parish"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116713992097269694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755646","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=755646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755646\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}