Red Auerbach, Phil Jackson share more than W’s

Phil Jackson left town yesterday with 1,078 career wins and 10 NBA championships from the bench. And among the many reasons to miss Red Auerbach is that he most certainly would have had something interesting to say about that.

Auerbach finished with 938 wins and nine titles - and a pain in his side when he saw the former Bulls and current Lakers coach approaching his milestones. The ever-competitive Auerbach always would have a jab for Jackson, claiming he took over teams that were ready to win or that it was much tougher to win when the NBA wasn’t so watered down.

Jackson, who made his share of rebuttals, was asked yesterday if he actually enjoyed the back-and-forth.

“That was a personal thing that went on over the years of coming in the old Garden,” Jackson said. “Red would always have a rejoinder or something going on. One time Jimmy Rodgers gave me his seats, which were right behind Red and (John) Havlicek, and he gave me a, ‘How in the hell did you get these seats’ type of thing. That kind of comment.

“So there was always a little bit of an edge that went on between the two of us. And it was competitive back from the days when Tommy (Heinsohn) was coaching the team back in the ’60s and early-’70s era.”

Some of it goes back to the Celtics [team stats]-Knicks wars of the time, when Jackson was an effective if quirky forward who always seemed to give the C’s trouble.

Still, one gets the sense Jackson would have enjoyed playing for Auerbach. Jackson does, too.

“Yeah,” he said. “You know, we use this players’ coach type of thing pretty loosely, but with Bill (Russell) at the end of his career, he’d let him sit and watch practice and drink coffee and read the newspaper. And he understood that to get the most out of the team that Bill was probably going to have to be a coach. He stepped back and allowed Russ to coach that team and kept that winning streak going here in Boston. So, yeah, he was very nifty about how he saw competition.”

Demeanor aside, Jackson and Auerbach were alike in their views on the game.

“Perhaps,” Jackson said. “He was tough on referees. I’ve never been hard on referees. That was part of his coaching technique and not mine. But having a system and letting guys play in the system, those things I think are similar.”

While Auerbach recognized he had to tread intelligently in dealing with Russell, Jackson managed to deal with the eccentricities of Dennis Rodman.

They were from different times and had different ways of expressing themselves, but Jackson and Auerbach were bound by their creativity and competitiveness.