Celtic Coach Will Never Forget This Brush With Greatness

In the book “Unfinished Business,” author Jack McCallum quotes this exchange between Boston Celtic Coach Chris Ford and Kevin McHale:

“What are you doing?” Ford asked McHale as the coach prepared to convene the pregame meeting.

“I’m brushing my teeth,” McHale said. “What’s it look like?”

“We’ve got a game, you know,” Ford said.

“Well, 10 years from now nobody will know who won this game,” McHale said. “But I’ll know if I have cavities.”

Trivia time: How many Notre Dame players have the Rams drafted in the first round?

High anxiety: There’s a sign in right field in Denver that says, “Mile High Stadium, elevation 5,280 feet.” It is is easily visible from the visitor’s dugout.

Said the Rockies’ manager, Don Baylor: “Hopefully, guys will look at that and say, ‘I need oxygen.’ We’ll use any advantage we can get.”

Shaq’s game plan: The Orlando Magic’s Shaquille O’Neal, analyzing his rookie season: “Maybe I need to work on my offense a little. But no one has played me one on one, except Philadelphia, and I had 19 dunks.

“I just wanted to come in this year and see what I could get away with. It won’t take me a long time to learn.”

Scary prospect.

Mystery men: Ron Heller, a former offensive lineman with the Philadelphia Eagles who is now with the Miami Dolphins, imparted this philosophy about his position to Scott Fowler of the Miami Herald:

“The offensive line is like witchcraft. It’s the unknown, so everybody is afraid of it. Nobody knows what the offensive line is supposed to be doing, nobody knows what we were asked to do, nobody knows the adjustments we’re supposed to make.

“So when things fail, people say, ‘That thing we don’t know about must not be working.’ ”

Come again?The Celtics’ Ed Pinckney underwent knee surgery in November, and the procedure was explained in pregame press notes this way:

“Involved a lateral release and debridgement of an osteochondral defect on the left lateral femural condyle.”

Hall of shame: The Dallas Mavericks avoided the stigma of equaling, or breaking, the Philadelphia 76ers’ record for futility in an NBA season by finishing at 11-71.

So the 76ers’ record of 9-73 in 1972-73 is intact.

Roy Rubin, who coached the 76ers in their first 51 games that season, didn’t necessarily want the Mavericks to liberate him.

“I wouldn’t want anybody to go through what we went through,” Rubin told the Dallas Morning News. “The coaches have to live with the records more than the players. Every year for the past 20 years, whenever any team goes on a long losing streak, my name comes up.”

Trivia answer: Four. Jerome Bettis, 1993; Todd Lyght, 1991; Jim Seymour, 1969, and Emil Sitko, 1946.

Quotebook: New York Met left-hander Frank Tanana on his evolution as a pitcher: “In the ‘70s I threw in the 90s; in the ‘90s I throw in the 70s.”