Of all his memories of Wilt Chamberlain, the one that stood out for Larry Brown happened long after Chamberlain's professional career was over.

On a summer day in the early 1980s at the Men's Gym on the UCLA campus, Chamberlain showed up to take part in one of the high-octane pickup games that the arena constantly attracted. Brown was the coach of the Bruins back then, and Chamberlain often drove to UCLA from his home in Bel Air, Calif.

"Magic Johnson used to run the games," Brown recalled Tuesday after hearing that Chamberlain, his friend, had died at the age of 63, "and he called a couple of chintzy fouls and a goaltending on Wilt.

"So Wilt said: 'There will be no more layups in this gym,' and he blocked every shot after that. That's the truth, I saw it. He didn't let one (of Johnson's) shots get to the rim." Chamberlain would have been in his mid-40s at the time, a decade removed from one of the greatest careers any basketball player ever produced. But the advancing years meant little to Chamberlain in terms of physical conditioning.