Bill Woten has written a book about game 7s.
Remember the famous "Havlicek Stole the Ball!" moment? (Can't find that video of Havlicek, but here's a much funnier one that finishes here.) (UPDATE: Here's that video. Thanks, Eric.)
Anyway, Woten emails that that moment might never have happened if Wilt Chamberlain had been willing to shoot free throws with the game on the line:
The 76ers trailed 110-109 with five seconds to go and called timeout to set up the game-winning play. In an exclusive interview for the book, coach Dolph Schayes recalled that he decided on a play to get Hal Greer a jump shot after Greer first passed the ball inbounds to Chet Walker and then took a return pass.
Of course, the inbounds pass never got to Walker as Havlicek anticipated well and deflected the soft pass to Sam Jones, securing victory for the Celtics.
But 76ers players Johnny Kerr and Al Bianchi revealed that Schayes made his play selection only after Chamberlain backed out as Schayes' No. 1 option.
Recalled Kerr, "Wilt said, 'no don't throw it to me, they'll foul me. They're going to foul me.' Here's a guy that had all kinds of problems being a winner and yet didn't want to take the onus on his shoulders and say, Give me the ball and I'll get it for you.'"
As for Wilt's free-throw fear, in this situation it was completely unfounded. Given the NBA's three-attempts-to-make-two format at the time, even a poor shooter such as Wilt (he shot 46.4 percent from the line in 1965) on average would have made at least one out of three nearly 85 percent of the time. Fouling would not have been a good strategy for the Celtics, who also had stalwart Bill Russell dug in to defend Chamberlain.
