What was it like succeeding a coaching legend in Red Holzman in New York?

Well I was extremely fortunate to have a great relationship with Red Holzman. A beautiful man. The first time I met Red Holzman was in September of 1951 when our Niagara University basketball team had five scrimmages with the Rochester Royals that were the NBA champions in ’51. We scrimmaged them at Niagara and down at Rochester, which was only an hour and a half drive. And Red was a backup point guard to Bob Davies, who at that time was First-Team All-NBA. So that’s where I met him the first time. But I was a big fan of Red. We had a great relationship. My wife with his wife, they used to sit close to one another at the games at the Garden. I coached there for five years and Red was still involved with the team. So I saw him. He would come to practices. Naturally, he was at most of the home games before his health took over. But Red was highly respected for his relationship with the players, then his offensive ingenuities, his different sets that he ran offensively. And everybody called it New York City basketball. But it was organized in different sets, which people didn’t get. Red is one of the all-time greats ever to coach in the league. He was the total package. Red was always a warm, very giving person. And he treated everybody like a brother. He was just a great man.

Aside from coming up short in the Finals, what stuck with you the most about the years you coached Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson?

I would tell teams the third thing when I would take over a job, I would come in with a list of subject and topics that I would cover, the third thing I would tell them was of being involved with Kareem, who’s going to win his third MVP in four years in the league, and then Oscar, who at that time was the greatest all-around player in the history of the game and was at the end, ‘You will practice hard hard every day. We will run an organized practice session so that you can reach your potential. We as a staff owe it to you to be totally organized on a daily basis, and to give you an advantage every night to win.’ Because I learned that from those two guys. I told them there’s no one in this room who will ever match Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Oscar Robertson. And if you doubt that, just go to the record books and look up what they accomplished. So I would say to them ‘You will be accountable.’ Because for two years, I never saw a high school or college team practice as hard as the Milwaukee Bucks. And the teaching by Larry Costello opened my eyes to a whole new doctorate’s degree in basketball. Because I say this all the time, when your two best players are coachable and are winners, they demand that you come prepared. And they demand that good game plan. And they demand the scouting. And being with them was enjoyable because each guy in his own way was a genius at his profession. They both knew every play and where all five guys had to be in every one of the sets that we had. And it was eye-opening. And that loss in Game 7 was so difficult because we both won on the others court. But on the last game of the year in the regular season, we lost our excellent point guard, Lucious Allen, with an ACL. Dave Bing fell across Lucious, and Lucious came down on a uniform that they used to lay out next to the benches in the old days. And he slipped on that thing, and I’ll be dammed Dave landed right across his knee and that hurt us from winning a championship. Because Don Chaney and Jo Jo White pressed us the full time, and our backup point guards couldn’t handle the pressure. And Oscar, at his age, at that time, had to handle the ball in the last two games against that kind of pressure. And when people don’t understand what hand checking is, Don Chaney, at 6-5, had the biggest hands and could put it right on your hip and he could steer you. His hands were that big and that strong. God, you’re bringing back a lot of memories.

My last question might bring back even more. What’s the best ABA story you can tell me?

Well winning a championship in our first year. That team was only together one year. There were four new players, and I was a new coach. And back then in ’75, we only had 10 players on a team because they couldn’t afford an 11th or a 12th player. Up until February, we had the best record. We were really playing great. And then we lost Dan Issel, who’s in the Hall of Fame, and Gene Littles, our backup point guard. Both guys got hurt in a game in Denver. We lost them for a couple of months. And we were behind the Nets, who won the championship the year before with Dr. J and those guys. We were behind them five games. We had to play them three times in the last month. So we had a meeting and I told them that in our last 10 games we were going to beat the Nets three times and we were going to win all 10 games. And the Nets were going to lose these three games, and then they were going to get beat by Denver in Denver, coached by Larry Brown and Doug Moe. And we needed one other game for them to lose. Well, on the last day of the season, Memphis upset them and we beat them three times. When the playoffs came, we went 4-1, 4-1, 4-1 and won the championship. Artis Gilmore was the Most Valuable Player and won a car and, I think, $5,000 from Sport Magazine. It was a great team that only played together for one year. Because over the summer, the owners of the team sold Dan Issel for $500,000 to a team that never opened up. It was going to be a team in Baltimore. They then sold Issel to Denver for the $500,000. That’s how Denver got Dan Issel. And then Teddy McClain, our point guard, the best defensive guard in the league, from Tennessee State, went and played for the Nets. Now, the reason why I tell you that is because if you’ve heard Dr. J within the past month and they asked Doc if any teams from the ABA could ever win an NBA championship, he says without a doubt the 1975 Kentucky Colonels. Now that was a hell of a compliment about that team because we were only together one time. That was a great, great team.

Special thanks to Hubie Brown for his time. You can catch Brown broadcasting Sunday’s game between the Thunder and Lakers, as well as throughout the NBA season on ESPN and ABC.