50 Greatest Basketball Players Ever - 31 to 40 on our Best NBA Players list

#32 Kevin McHale

Kevin McHale celebrates the 1986 NBA Finals triumph with his teammates

Per game averages: 17.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.4 steals, 1.7 blocks per game

Shooting splits: 55.4% from the field, 26.1% on 3-pointers, 79.8% on free throws

Accolades: NBA Champion (1981, 1984, 1986), Sixth Man of the year (1984, 1985), All-NBA First Team (1987), All-Defensive First Team (1986-88), All-Defensive Second Team (1983, 1989, 1990), All-Star (1984, 1986-1991)

Boston won the last three games of the series, including Game 6 on Philadelphia's home court. McHale helped save the Game 6 win by rejecting an Andrew Toney shot and collecting the rebound with 16 seconds left to protect the Celtics' one-point lead. In the NBA Finals, Boston defeated the Houston Rockets in six games to capture the team's fourteenth championship.

Backing up Larry Bird and Cedric Maxwell at forward, McHale made an immediate impact and was named to the NBA's All-Rookie First Team in his rookie season. Boston finished McHale's rookie season with a league-leading record of 62-20. In the playoffs, the Celtics swept the Chicago Bulls in the first round. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Celtics were staring down the barrel of a 3–1 deficit against the Philadelphia 76ers.

Philadelphia avenged their loss in 81 with a Game 7 win in the Conference Finals in '82. In the 1983 Eastern Conference semifinals, the Celtics were swept by the Milwaukee Bucks. This embarrassing defeat led to the firing of head coach Bill Fitch and a temporarily unhappy McHale.

McHale won the first of his consecutive NBA Sixth Man Awards in the 1983–84 season as Boston won a league-best 62 games. With the hiring of a new head coach and former Celtic KC Jones as well as the acquisition of All-Star Phoenix Suns guard Dennis Johnson, the Celtics were primed to make yet another run at a fifteenth championship.

After surviving a seven-game semifinal battle with the Knicks, the Celtics avenged the previous season's playoff loss to Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference Finals. Boston would face the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals in a highly anticipated matchup.

In Game 4 of the finals, with the Celtics trailing in both the game and the series, McHale delivered a hard foul to Kurt Rambis, violently flinging him down by his throat, as the Lakers' forward raced to the basket. The physical play touched off a bench-clearing scuffle. Boston came back to win the game in overtime and tie the series at two games apiece. They eventually prevailed in seven games to win the franchise's fifteenth championship.

McHale continued to come off the bench during first half of the 1984–1985 season but moved into a starting role in February 1985 after Cedric Maxwell suffered a knee injury. McHale enjoyed his greatest scoring night against the Pistons this season, setting the Celtics' single-game scoring record with 56 points. Two nights later, he scored 42 points against the Knicks, the only other time in his career he topped 40 points in a game.

The 98 points in consecutive games is still a Celtics' record. Nine days after McHale had scored 56 points, Larry Bird established a new Celtics' single-game scoring mark by pouring in 60 points versus the Atlanta Hawks.

The Celtics made it to their second straight Finals that year as McHale led the Celtics in scoring (26.0) and rebounding (10.7) versus the Lakers. But the Shamrock Green brigade failed to defend their title, losing in 6 games. McHale's elimination game performance of 32 points and 16 rebounds went in vain as the Lakers ran riot in a 111-100 victory.

McHale's first full season as a starter and the addition of Bill Walton to the already stacked Celtics team pushed them over the edge and made them one of the all-time great NBA teams. They finished the playoffs with a 15-3 record, winning in the Finals against the Twin Tower Rockets 4-2. McHale had a crucial role throughout the playoffs, averaging 24.9 points, 8.6 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game.

For two consecutive seasons after that, McHale posted the league's best field goal percentage (60.4% in both years) while scoring 26.1 and 22.6 points per game respectively. The Celtics lost to the Lakers in the Finals in '87 and bowed out of the Conference Finals in '88.

Ankle injuries caught up to the power forward in the 88-89 season, and despite staging a comeback of sorts and making the All-Star team for every season until the '90-91 campaign, McHale never returned to the peak of his powers as he displayed from 1984-88. He retired after the '92-93 season, accelerating the Celtics' rebuild.

McHale has often been hailed as one of the greatest players from the low post of all time, along with Hakeem Olajuwon. The region was often referred by him as the 'Torture Chamber', as McHale combined exquisite finishing ability and mobility on spin moves and the like in devastating fashion.

McHale remains one of the rare players in league history to average over 60% from the field and 80% from the free throw line. After retirement, he took a variety of off-court roles for the Cs, before coaching the Timberwolves and the Rockets for a combined 6 seasons. His name has gone down in history as one of the greatest power forwards to ever play the game.