Not a good day for Boston Celtics and their fans

With just a limited number of fans in the stands at TD Garden, it just wasn’t a good night for the Boston Celtics.

It began with a moment of silence following the passing on Friday morning of Hall of Fame point guard and coach K.C. Jones at age 88, and ended after a 123-95 whooping from the visiting new-look Brooklyn Nets.

It also followed the recent passing of former Celtics’ Tommy Heinsohn and John Thompson, and brought more sadness among the Boston fans who have lived through 17 National Basketball Association championships. Their rosters contained elite players like Jones, Heinsohn, Thompson, Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, Tom (Satch) Sanders, John Havelick, Sam Jones, Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, Danny Ainge, and in their later years, (Pistol) Pete Maravich and Bill Walton.

But Russell and K.C. knew each other the longest. They were teammates, roommates and friends first at the University of San Francisco and then with the Celtics. They both checked in with the Dons after playing high school ball in San Fran, the 6-foot-9 Russell with McClymonds and the 6-1 Jones with Commence. With the Dons, they teamed for back-to-back national championships in 1955 and 1956, both making All-America and both having their numbers retired.

Said Russell, now 86: “K.C. was my all-time friend, a great person, a great ballplayer, a great teammate, and so this is a very sad time for me, and I will miss him.”

,

It was in the 1955 Elite 8 tough task against highly regarded Utah that Russell took a perfect pass inside from Jones and laid it in for a 57-56 win at the buzzer. In the championship game versus LaSalle and its star Tom Gola, Russell and Jones combined for 47 points as the Dons emerged with the 77-63 victory to hoist their initial title. In 1956, none of the tournament games were close as Jones paved the way with nine assists in the 72-61 Sweet 16 triumph over UCLA, and then turned in the game-high 33 points against Iowa in the 83-71 final. In 1957, they settled for third place via a 67-60 success over Michigan.

The Celtics said Jones’ family confirmed that he died Friday at an assisted living facility in Connecticut, where he had been receiving care for Alzheimer’s disease for several years.

He was a Basketball Hall of Famer, an Olympic gold medalist, and the two-time NCAA champion who also won eight straight NBA titles during the Russell era, and then coached the Celt teams that played at Boston Gardens and included Bird, McHale and Parish.

“K.C. was like the nicest I ever knew,” said Bird. “He always went out of his way to make people feel good, and it was an honor to play for him. His accomplishments are too many to list, but, to me, his greatest accomplishment was being such an outstanding person to all who had the privilege of knowing him. I will miss him daily.”

Jones is one of seven players to have won an Olympic gold medal, an NCAA championship, and an NBA title. He won two more NBA crowns as an assistant coach, and was the Boston head coach when it went to the NBA finals four straight times from 1984-87, winning it all in ’84 and again two years later with a team that won a then-record 67 regular-season games and went 15-3 in the postseason.

Only Russell and former teammate Sam Jones won more NBA championships as players.

“Where K.C. Jones went,” said current Celtics’ president pf basketball operations Ainge before the Christmas Day game against Brooklyn, “winning was sure to follow. K.C. also demonstrated that one could be both a fierce competitor and gentleman in every sense of the word. He made his teammates better, and he got the most out of the players he coached. Never one to seek credit, his glory was found in the most fundamental of basketball ideas — being part of a championship team.”

Ainge played for the team from 1981-88 when Jones was an assistant and then head coach.

“He was a great coach to work for.” said McHale, an Ainge teammate. “He was a class act, and yet he had this competitive edge that was fierce.”

K.C. is the third Hall of Famer from the 1965 NBA champions to die this year, Thompson, who went on to greater success as the coach at Georgetown, in August, and Heinsohn, a former playing legend and coach, last month.