I saw Russell play one time when I was a senior in high school. Our basketball coach took the whole team up to see the Celtics play the Pistons in old Olympia Stadium in Detroit. This would have been 1963.
Early in the game, he went WAY up in the air to snag a rebound. He grabbed it with one hand and brought it down to his other hand with a loud SMACK!! When he hit the ground, he fired a two hand overhead pass to Bob Cousy who had hustled to the sideline not quite to mid-court. Cousy, in turn, fired a one-handed baseball pass down court to Tom Heinsohn, who had sprinted down court as soon as he saw Russell leap for the rebound. Cousy's pass took one skip, and bounced right into Heinsohn's hands at about the foul line. Heinsohn took the pass in stride, leaped, and slammed it down!!!! The crowd let out a stunned "whoa....!!!"
What a play......you could tell they'd worked on that and executed it many, many times in the past!! Russell was a great player, but from everything I've read, an even greater man, advocating for civil rights and racial justice his whole life.