From Celtics stalwart to top coach

Mr. Nelson planted a kiss on Red Auerbach’s 

head during a Celtics legends game in 1995.

To Garden fans, Hall of Famer will always be ‘Nellie’

10 ago 2026 - The Boston Globe

By John Powers GLOBE CORRESPONDENT

Don Nelson, who won five championships as a versatile player for the Celtics before becoming an innovative Hall of Fame coach for four NBA clubs, died Sunday at 86, his family said.

His health deteriorated after a stroke about three weeks ago, The New York Times reported, citing his granddaughter Christie Nelson Armstrong.

Mr. Nelson, who spent 11 seasons with Boston after Los Angeles discarded him and another 31 directing from the sidelines, was involved with basketball for nearly a half-century.

“Can you imagine doing something that you love the most in the entire world and doing it for your entire life and besides that getting a pile of money for it?” he said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Mr. Nelson, whose No. 19 was retired by the Celtics, worked around his limitations to make himself an indispensable performer who missed only 27 regular-season games during his Boston tenure.

“I didn’t have the size, speed, or jumping ability most forwards have,” said Mr. Nelson, who was 6 feet, 6 inches tall. “So I had to compensate by working at it and trying to play a smart game instead of an emotional one.”

As a coach he turned losing quintets into playoff teams by employing “Nellie Ball,” an unconventional system that used a “point forward” instead of a customary playmaking guard to run an up-tempo offense that disoriented opponents.

“When you have bad teams you’ve got to be creative to win games you’re not supposed to win,” said Mr. Nelson, who’d set an NBA record for most victories (1,335) when he retired in 2010. That has since been passed by former San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich.

Growing up on a farm in rural Illinois, Mr. Nelson learned the game by shooting at a spokeless bicycle wheel nailed to the shed in the chicken yard. “We got a ball after a while,” he said. “It was tough dribbling corn cobs.”

After starring at the University of Iowa, where he set the all-time scoring record as an undersized center, Mr. Nelson was drafted in the third round by the expansion Chicago Zephyrs in 1962 and was consigned to the bench where he remained during two subsequent seasons with the Lakers before he was waived in 1965.

“I was feeling as low as I’ve ever felt,” said Mr. Nelson, who assumed that his career was finished. But the Celtics, who needed a replacement for the retired Tom Heinsohn, signed him as a free agent for $4,000 less than he was making with Los Angeles.

“Anybody could have had him,” observed coach Red Auerbach, who paid the Lakers only a $1,000 fee in what he considered “the best deal I ever made.” “But only I took him.”

Expectations were modest — the Celtics merely wanted a reserve who could play defense and give starters a rest. “I’ll never be an All-star,” said Mr. Nelson. “But I feel I can come off the bench and not get the team in trouble because I’m playing.”

Mr. Nelson did considerably more than that, scoring in double figures for almost all of his time in Boston and becoming a capable free throw shooter by using only one hand.

“Because his style was so deceptive and unspectacular, Nellie’s contribution over the years went largely unnoticed,” said teammate John Havlicek. “But we knew and so did our opponents.”

The most famous shot of Mr. Nelson’s career — which player/ coach Bill Russell called “the kind that gives you three heart attacks” — came late in the seventh game of the 1969 NBA Finals at Los Angeles with Boston clinging to a 1-point lead.

His 15-footer hit the back of the rim, bounced several feet up, and dropped through the net to give the Celtics a priceless cushion. “It was the luckiest shot in basketball history,” Mr. Nelson observed. “But it counted.”

Mr. Nelson’s unlikely basket provided dramatic punctuation to what would be Boston’s 11th title in 13 years but its last for another five as Boston rebuilt after the retirement of Russell and sharpshooter Sam Jones.

Mr. Nelson’s adaptability and reliability made him a crucial piece of the club’s reconstruction over the next several seasons. “Don Nelson epitomizes what it meant to be a Celtic,” Russell said.

Mr. Nelson, who’d performed the sixth-man role, now became a starter but also continued filling in at center going up against 7-footers such as Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. “Nelson always does what he has to do,” said then-Cleveland coach Bill Fitch. “He’s a pro.”

What made Mr. Nelson most valuable was his night-in, nightout dependability. For five straight seasons he didn’t miss a game, eventually setting the club record for most consecutive appearances with 463.

When the Celtics reclaimed their crown in 1974 Mr. Nelson was a vital contributor in the playoffs, averaging 15 points against Buffalo and nemesis New York.

Then in the seventh game of the finals against Milwaukee he helped double-team Abdul-Jabbar as Boston won by 15 points. “Nellie used what God gave him better than any basketball player I’ve ever seen,” said teammate Paul Silas.

The following season Mr. Nelson led the league in field goal percentage at 34, becoming the oldest and shortest player to do so. “There’s nobody left like him,” observed Havlicek.

After playing one more season, Mr. Nelson went out a champion in 1976 as Boston defeated Phoenix. “I don’t think they’ll remember me as well as they do Cousy, Sharman, Russell, and all the other greats,” he mused when his number was retired two years later. “I’ll be the biggest trivia question at the Garden in about four years. They’ll look up and say, ‘hey, who’s Number 19?’”

Yet for the Celtics franchise, the memories run deep.

“Don Nelson’s success as a Hall of Fame Coach is so vast, that it could overshadow his playing career, but it would be a mistake to do so,” the team said in a statement. “A favorite of Red Auerbach’s, “Nellie” was a tough and reliable all-around player whose tenacity and ability to “think the game” was on full display throughout his 11 seasons with the Boston Celtics, where he was a key member of five championship teams across two eras."

After his playing days, Mr. Nelson considered becoming a referee or selling cars. Instead, he took a job as Milwaukee’s assistant coach. When Larry Costello resigned after the Bucks lost 15 of their first 18 in games in 1976-77 he found himself with the top job.

Although he said that he wasn’t ready to be a head coach, Mr. Nelson reversed the club’s slide in his first full season and transformed Milwaukee into a perennial playoff team, winning seven straight divisional titles.

His Nellie Ball strategy, which reduced the role of the center, often used two forwards and three guards to create offensive mismatches.

Critics said that the unconventional format, a precursor to the “small ball” system now used by numerous teams, left the team vulnerable on defense against top rivals such as Boston and Philadelphia.

While none of his clubs reached the NBA Finals, Mr. Nelson, who was named Coach of the Year three times, was a skilled turnaround artiste whose position as a general manager gave him the ability to upgrade rosters with bold trades.

Under his direction the Golden State Warriors, who’d won 20 games the previous season, won more than twice as many in 1988-89 and, behind Mr. Nelson’s “Run TMC” run-and-gun concept, reached the playoffs four times in six years.

Dallas, which hadn’t had a winning season in seven years when Mr. Nelson arrived in 1997 after an abortive season in New York, eventually made the playoffs four straight times after his draft-day trade brought in future stars Dirk Nowitzki and Steve Nash.

In 2006 Mr. Nelson returned to Golden State, which hadn’t qualified for the postseason since he’d left more than a decade earlier. The Warriors pulled off one of the most startling upsets in NBA history by ousting Dallas, the league’s top team, in the first round.

When the club later regressed, its new ownership pushed out Mr. Nelson before the 2010-11 season. “I was pretty well fried at that point,” he said.

The most talented of all his teams was the star-studded US squad that won the 1994 world title by demolishing the Russians by 46 points. “I just took the guys they gave me,” Mr. Nelson said. “And they were all really, really good.”

Coaches and former players on Sunday recalled an innovator with a heart.

“Don Nelson had an impact on my life that went far beyond basketball,” said Hall of Famer and Olympic gold medalist Chris Mullin, who played for Mr. Nelson with Golden State. “At a time when I needed it, Nellie was there for me. He cared about me as a person first, and I’ll never forget the support, honesty and belief he showed me during a difficult time in my life. We shared so much together over the years.”

“So much of what is now commonplace in the modern NBA can be traced back to the way Nellie approached the game. His impact on the Warriors is just as significant,“current Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. ”He helped shape some of the most memorable teams and moments in franchise history."

Mr. Nelson’s coaching success across more than three decades led to his enshrinement in the Naismith Hall of Fame in 2012. It also belatedly fulfilled his college degree requirements for teaching credits and he received his Iowa diploma.

“I know how far I’ve come from being a hog farmer,” said Mr. Nelson, who by then was farming coffee, flowers, fish, and cannabis in Maui, Hawaii. “I’ve come a long, long way from being some country kid. I got in the fast lane and I’ve stayed there a long time. I’ve done pretty well.”

He leaves his wife, Joy. Information on other survivors was not immediately available.

“Throughout his last week, friends and family encircled him with love, sharing the blessing of his friendship and revisiting treasured memories,” his family said in a statement.