ThaRegul8r wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:In the '75-76 ABA season, Julius Erving led his team to the title. In doing so, he led his team in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals, making him the only player in history to do this while winning a title (LeBron would have been the 2nd if his team had won in '08-09). Also of interest, he did this while being arguably the most graceful player in history, winning the inaugural slam dunk contest, becoming known as "the League" for his combination of talent, grace, and universal leadership he displayed.
In the finals, he went for 37 & 14 while being the focus of the opponent's defense, and especially of all-world defender Bobby Jones. It might be the most impressive "biggest stage" performance in history.
Game 1 @ Denver: New York 120, Denver 118Associated Press wrote:Nets’ Erving Is A One-Man Show
DENVER (AP)—“The Doctor was great,” said Denver Nugget Coach Larry Brown, licking his wounds after Julius “Dr. J” Erving almost single-handedly whipped his club.
“I’ve never seen him play better,” said Nugget forward Bobby Jones, a bit baffled at the ineffectiveness of his defensive efforts against Erving.
“The Doc is the greatest player in the world,” said New York Nets Coach Kevin Loughery, whose team rallied behind Erving to take a 1-0 edge in the best-of-seven American Basketball Association championship series.
The 6-foot-7 Erving scored 45 points, many of them on the incredible variety of shots that only he can make. But the most important points came on a 20-foot baseline jumper at the buzzer that gave the Nets a 120-118 triumph Saturday night before a league-record crowd of 19,034.
The Nuggets’ task in Game Two, scheduled here Tuesday night, is obvious: stop Erving.
Associated Press wrote:Nuggets’ Big Task - Halt Erving
Denver, Colo.—AP—Second shots, rhythm and Julius Erving, not necessarily in that order, put the New York Nets in command, for now at least, of the American Basketball Association championship playoffs.
Now you can add Nets momentum to that list of problems the regular season champion Denver Nuggets must solve Tuesday night to get back in the title picture.
“We must do a better job on Julius,” said Larry Brown, the Nuggets’ coach, as he tried to analyze what went wrong in Saturday night’s 120-118 Net victory that gave New York a 1-0 lead in the best of seven series.
It was an understatement.
Scored 45 Points
“When the rhythm got going, I just kept it up,” said Dr. J, who scored 45 points, including 10 of the Nets’ last 11 and the last two on a 15 foot baseline jumper at the buzzer.
He tried 36 shots from the field and the free throw line, scoring on 28. He had 12 rebounds and four assists. And he forced Bobby Jones, the Denver forward who’s acknowledged among the best defensive players in the ABA, into six fouls.
In addition, he was a demon under the Nets’ offensive boards. In a span of four minutes of the final quarter he rebounded four shots into the basket.
Starred Inside
“I started out trying to play an inside game, posting up with my back to the basket, 15 feet in,” Erving said. “I had some success with it, and they had some people in foul trouble.”
Erving said he was concerned over a possible overtime when 7 foot 1 Nugget rookie Marvin Webster stuffed a rebound with four seconds to go to tie the score. “I thought about it for a split second, and obviously they were negative thoughts,” Erving said. “If we had to play five more minutes, I would have just had to reach back for more.”
Game 2 @ Denver: Denver 127, New York 121Associated Press wrote:Dr. J on Target, But Nuggets Triumph
DENVER (AP) — Denver Nuggets Coach Larry Brown insisted his team “learned a lot of things” after dropping the opening game of its American Basketball Association championship series with the New York Nets.
One of the lessons, obviously, was how to beat the Nets. Denver got its fast-break offense rolling in the second half and got better inside penetration with the ball to post a 127-121 victory last night and square the best-of-seven series at 1-1. Game Three will be played Thursday night in New York.
Some remedial work, however, will be necessary on how to stop New York forward Julius “Dr. J” Erving.
Erving, who scored 45 points in the opener, tossed in 48 last night. As in the first game, Erving did pretty much what he wanted.
His 25 points in the fourth quarter set a pro basketball playoff-game record for scoring in a period, and his 37 points in the second half likewise set a pro playoff mark.
“The way he’s playing now it’s incredible,” said Denver forward Bobby Jones, who has the unenviable task of defending Erving.
“We’ve tried to keep him outside, away from the basket,” Jones said. “And we have to deny him the ball as much as possible. But it’s tough, and he’s really shooting well besides.”
Erving connected on 15 of 23 two-point field goal attempts, a pair of three-pointers, and 12 of 16 foul shots. He added 14 rebounds, eight assists, three steals and a blocked shot.
But Erving’s efforts were in vain as Denver’s balanced scoring attack prevailed before an ABA record crowd of 19,107.
Guard Ralph Simpson, forced to play all but two minutes of the game because of a shortage of backcourt performers, had 25 points. Forwards Jones and David Thompson and center Dan Issel each scored 24.
Jones and Thompson both scored 12 points in the third period as the Nuggets surged to a 12-point lead.
After the Nets pulled within two points early in the fourth quarter, Issel hit five quick baskets, helping Denver take a 101-92 edge with 7:27 remaining.
But the Nuggets still had Erving to contend with. A flurry of steals that produced baskets and Erving’s three-point goal pulled the Nets within four points with 1:26 left.
The Nets were to get no closer, as Simpson promptly scored on a three-point play and Jones added a field goal for a 126-117 lead.
Game 3 @ New York: New York 117, Denver 111Associated Press wrote: UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) New York’s Julius Erving played it low key as usual, but Denver Coach Larry Brown and rookie David Thompson were visibly upset after the Nets had beaten the Nuggets 117-111 Thursday night in the third game of their American Basketball Association championship series.
Erving’ the Nets’ star for the third consecutive game, scored his team’s final eight points and blocked two shots in the closing two minutes. Afterward, he said confidently, but not boastfully, “I can make any (offensive) play I want in any given situation.”
He had broken loose in the closing minutes after playing a sub-par game for him until then. After having gone wild in the first two games, with 45 points and 48, respectively, he was forced to be more reserved this time because of five early personal fouls.
“It was good, I thought, for the rest of the team to be put in the position of having to play so long without me,” said Erving, who was limited to 35 minutes after averaging 44 in the opening two games of the series.
“But I wasn’t worried,” he continued. “I thought when I got back in, I would be a lot stronger. However, I didn’t want to disrupt the team because John (Williamson) was shooting so well. I knew my shots would come.”
They did.
Emergency surgery lifts Nets
UNIONDALE, N.Y. — Now, about Dr. J.
Julius Erving carries that affectionate nickname because of the way he operates on the basketball court. The Denver Nuggets can understand that.
The New York Nets hold a 2-1 edge over the Nuggets in the American Basketball Association championship playoff mostly because of the Doctor’s operations. Game Four is scheduled tonight.
Shackled by five personal fouls, Erving was limited to only 35 minutes of action. He came off the bench in the last 65 seconds with New York leading by a single point.
FIRST, Dr. J scored on a drive, giving New York a three-point lead. Then he blocked shots by Bobby Jones and Chuck Williams, the latter in a 3-on-1 situation.
Denver’s David Thompson tied the score with a three-point play. But with 31 seconds left, Erving connected on a reverse, left-handed layup, breaking the 111-tie. Then he came up with a loose ball and converted two free throws. And finally he pulled down the rebound on Denver’s last shot and drove the length of the court for a soaring stuff shot that almost defied description.
Erving finished with 31 points — eight of them in that final, frantic minute. That followed 45 points in the first game, won by the Nets, and 48 in the second, taken by Denver.
“It was a good win, but not a good game for me,” said Erving, who picked up three of his fouls in the first period and then two more at the start of the third.
Game 4 @ New York: New York 121, Denver 112Associated Press wrote: UNIONDALE — Julius Erving put on another one-man show with 34 points and 16 rebounds and the New York Nets capitalized on excellent team defense to move within one victory of their second ABA championship in the last three years with a 121-112 triumph over the sagging Denver Nuggets Saturday night.
Erving ran his four-game total in the championship series to 158 as he combined with reserve center Jim Eakins to dominate the Nuggets completely in the second half.
Denver, trailing in all but the first period, now takes a three-games-to-one-disadvantage back home for the fifth game Tuesday night.
Eakins came off the bench to score 13 of his 17 points in the second half. Neither Dan Issel nor rookie reserve Marvin Webster could keep Eakins from laying in easy taps and grabbing rebounds in the final period.
Issel led Denver with 26 points and 15 rebounds, while David Thompson, playing with a sore leg, scored 23. John Williamson notched 24 for New York and backcourt mate Brian Taylor had 23.
Leading, 89-82, after three quarters, the Nets kept the pressure on at both ends to stretch it to 95-84 in only 90 seconds. Spearheaded by Erving and Eakins, the Nets increased the bulge to 116-97 with three minutes left in the game, then coasted to the final buzzer.
Denver ran out to a 12-4 lead as the Nets started the game cold from the floor. New York fell behind, 22-11, before putting together any semblance of an attack. A brief surge by Erving and Williamson helped the Nets close to 34-29 by the end of the first period.
The Nets clamped down on defense in the second quarter, holding Denver to only eight points in the first 6½ minutes, while scoring 14 and taking a 61-57 lead at the half.
Williamson notched 18 points in the first half, while Erving added 13 points and nine rebounds. Issel had 15 points and nine rebounds for Denver.
New York benefitted from its continued strong defense in the third quarter when they began to run and shoot better. Taylor hit an 18-footer, blocked a shot and hit another 18-footer to give the Nets their biggest lead to that point, 85-75, with three minutes to go in the period.
While the Nets celebrated loudly with beer, the Nuggets were extremely quiet.
“I don’t think I’m trying to win it all by myself,” Erving said. “It was simply that (Rich) Jones got into foul trouble and I had to help out on rebounds. Eakins had a great game and he would be starting on most other clubs.
“I don’t think it’s all over, but we’re confident,” Net coach Kevin Loughery said.
“Without him,” says Joe Mullaney, who coached the Spirits of St. Louis this season and who once coached the Los Angeles Lakers, “the Nets would be a mediocre team.”
With him, the Nets probably will win the ABA championship for the second time in three seasons since he was obtained from the Virginia Squires, the latest ABA team to go bankrupt.
Game 5 @ Denver: Denver 118, New York 110Denver stymies Nets despite Dr. J’s 37
DENVER — Veteran guard Chuck Williams teamed with rookie forward David Thompson to direct a 42-point third-quarter rally Tuesday night, giving Denver a 118-110 win over the New York Nets and keeping alive the Nuggets’ hopes of winning the American Basketball Association championship.
The loss left the Nets with a 3-2 advantage in the best-of-seven title series, with the sixth game scheduled Thursday night at Nassau Coliseum in New York and the seventh, if necessary, on Sunday in Denver.
WILLIAMS, WHO averaged only 11 points per game in the regular season, scored 20 points, including 10 in the third quarter as Denver jumped to a lead of as much as 16 points. Thompson, ABA Rookie of the Year, had nine points in the third quarter and finished with 19.
Nets forward Julius Erving, the league’s Most Valuable Player, again dominated the game with 37 points, but it wasn’t enough to stop Denver’s more balanced attack. In the first four games of the series, Erving hit 158 points in 168 minutes of play.
The Nuggets, making their first appearance in a title playoff series, trailed by as many as 16 points in the second period but rallied to trail New York by only six, 53-47, at halftime.
DENVER, WHICH has been an explosive third-quarter team all year, outscored New York 10-2 in the opening minutes of the period and led 89-73 going into the final period.
John Williamson scored 24 points for New York, 18 in the final quarter, while teammate Al Skinner had 17 and Brian Taylor finished with 13. Taylor was ejected from the game early in the fourth quarter after getting into a fight with Denver guard Monte Towe.
Guard Ralph Simpson, who engineers Denver’s fast-break attack, and center Dan Issel finished with 21 points each. Bobby Jones added 17 and Gus Gerard 12.
Game 6 @ New York: New York 112, Denver 106
** Nets win ABA Title, 4 games to 2**Erving, Nets Finish Off Nuggets
UNIONDALE, N.Y. (AP) — “I don’t ever expect to see this team give up,” said New York Coach Kevin Loughery, his clothes dripping with the joy of champagne. “They have too much confidence in themselves to do that.”
Thursday night, the Nets, despite falling 22 points behind Denver in the third quarter, didn’t give up. Combining the scoring of John Williamson and Julius Erving with a full-court pressure defense in the last quarter, they stormed back and overtook the Nuggets 112-106 to win the American Basketball Association championship.
Erving, the ABA’s Most Valuable Player for the third consecutive years, scored 31 points in the dramatic finale. Williamson, a confident but unheralded guard, was the catalyst in the fourth quarter, firing in 16 of New York’s 34 points. And the Nets’ defense, the best in the league throughout the regular season but porous early in the final game, finally asserted itself, limiting Denver to 14 points.
The tremendous comeback gave the Nets the best-of-seven series 4-2 and their second league championship in three years.
“You can only make a comeback like that when you have the guys who can play pressure defense,” said the joyous Loughery. “And we have them.
“Coming out on top was much tougher this year because no one outside our organization expected it,” he added. “Before the season, Denver, San Antonio, Kentucky and even St. Louis were picked to finish ahead of us.
“But when we went to training camp on Sept. 15 we had only one goal in mind—and that was to win the championship.
“And we did it.”
Like their coach, most of the Nets’ players said they were not worried when the team fell behind by 22 points. The word they used was “concerned.”
“I never had any doubts we could come back,” said Jim Eakins, forced into the starting lineup because of any ankle injury that kept No. 1 center Kim Hughes on the bench. “I felt we could still win. But I felt we had to get moving right then. And fortunately we did.”
And this came after averaging 31.3 against San Antonio:
Game 1: New York 116, San Antonio 101 - Erving scores game-high 31.
Game 2: San Antonio 105, New York 79 - Erving lead the Nets with 27.
Game 3 @ SA: San Antonio 111, New York 103 - Erving scored a game-high 31.
Game 4 @ SA: New York 110, San Antonio 108 - Erving scored a game-high 35 points, and his dunk with time running out "put New York in the lead for the first time since early in the opening quarter."
Game 5: New York 110, San Antonio 108 - Erving had 32 points, 10 rebounds, six assists.
Game 6 @ SA: San Antonio 106, New York 105 - Erving had a game-high 35 points, 10 rebounds.
Game 7: New York 121, San Antonio 114 - Erving had 28 points, 18 rebounds and eight assists, which “were the critical ingredients that kept New York in the game most of the way.”
Doctor MJ wrote:The following year, as part of the merger that Erving's existence forced to happen, an existing NBA team got to have Erving. So he went from the Nets to the 76ers. Briefly, his year with the 76ers was quite good, however it differed first and foremost because on the 76ers the team already had their version of Erving in George McGinnis (who probably was the closest in build to LeBron we've ever seen), which gave us what is now a classic recipe for redundancy. Both players compromised, but especially the genial Erving who let McGinnis be ever so slightly the team's greater focal point (more shots, rebounds, assists). However, Erving obviously outperformed McGinnis (still ended up lead scorer on vastly superior efficiency, and led in modern advanced stats), and the eventually the team traded McGinnis.
People cite the '76-77 season and his reduced scoring average against Erving, but as is often the case, that's superficial "analysis" without acting looking deeply into the matter. The real problems here were bad fit and selfish teammates:
Although his teammates were in awe of his great athletic abilities, proven scorers like Doug Collins and Lloyd Free were not about to sacrifice any of their offensive game to appease the good Doctor. … “Here was the problem,” said Free, a rookie that season who now works in the 76ers’ community relations office. “A lot of us were young and wanted to make a name for ourselves; we had pretty big egos, and we wanted some of the accolades, too, so we went out there and did our thing. Sometimes, looking back on it, maybe we didn’t always get the ball to Doc when we should have gotten it to him. I think there was a lot of ego involved. We wanted to show the organization and our fans that we could play some ball as well. We wanted some of the respect that Doc always got.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that Doc was our leader; he knew how to lead, but we didn’t know how to follow. I went out there and took all my shots. [Doug] Collins was off doing his own thing, Darryl [Dawkins] was just trying to rip down as many backboards as he could, and Joe Bryant was out there putting the ball between his legs and doing all this fancy stuff. Doc did get frustrated at times, and I can’t blame him. He had a lot of meetings with the veteran guys like Billy Cunningham and George McGinnis and Steve Mix, but the guards just kind of stayed away from all that talk. We let the older, bigger guys try to hash it out, but it never really got resolved. That’s why it’s not always such a good thing when your team is as loaded [with big-name players] as we were, because you can just lose your way.”
(Emphasized for the
NBA 2K-minded GMs who think you build a team by just throwing talent together.)
“Doug Collins was a 20-point scorer per game, and he always needed somebody to throw the ball to him. Lloyd would come off the bench and shoot from everywhere—there was a lot of ego conflict going on there. The bottom line is that the 76ers were a pretty wild team in terms of shot selection and playing together out on the floor. They were a bunch of talented guys, but they were a little crazy, a little wild, and there was always a lot of competition for the ball.”
That explains the regular season drop. Then once they got in the playoffs, Rick Barry prior to the Finals against Portland
suggested that the 76ers haven’t gotten the most out of Erving this season.
“Maybe they missed the boat trying to share the responsibilities between Julius and George,” Barry said, referring to the Sixers’ other all-star forward, George McGinnis. “This is not a knock on George, don’t get me wrong. But they seem to be better off when Julius takes command.
“Look at the playoffs. With George suffering from a groin injury, Julius has taken over and the team has played better. When you have too many offensive weapons, you don’t know which one to go to. It’s hard to find the right chemistry.”
In the Finals against Portland, Erving averaged 30.3 points on 54.3 percent shooting from the floor, 85.7 percent shooting from the line and 60.4 percent true shooting, 6.8 rebounds, 5 assists and 2.67 steals.
Blazers Died Under Dr. J’s Scalpel
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — It’s like watching a Ted Williams with the bat, an O.J. Simpson run a football, a Bobby Orr on skates. He’s the ultimate in his sport of basketball. He is Julius Erving, better known to an admiring public as Dr. J.
Dr. J orchestrates on the court like Eugene Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra. He handles the basketball like a Leonard Bernstein at the piano. He’s a Picasso on a wooden floor, a mixture of sinew, grace, quickness and perception.
A sellout crowd of 18,276 watched this magician of basketball spill out his limitless bag of tricks Sunday in leading the Philadelphia 76ers to a 107-101 triumph over the Portland Trail Blazers in the first game of the National Basketball Association’s best-of-seven championship series.
If the victory proved anything, it was that Portland will have to find a way to defense Dr. J if the Blazers hope to survive. It wasn’t only that he scored 33 points, including 14 of 24 from the field and five of five at the foul line, or that he handed out four assists, stole the ball three times and rebounded five. It was the way he did it.
From the time that Erving, off the opening tap, swooped to the basket for a paralyzing dunk, he controlled the tempo of a very bruising confrontation between these playoff survivors. He was reminded of the one remark that one fan made entering the Spectrum.
“The 76ers can’t lose this series. Dr. J won’t let them,” the fan said.
Erving became the $6 million man when the 76ers gave the New York Nets a reported $2.5 million for him last fall and signed the Doc to an estimated $5.3 million contract for five years. But it’s not money, it’s pride that is driving him in these playoffs.
Someone asked him Sunday if in the back of his mind proving that the 76ers were the best basketball team in the world isn’t more important than his $23,000 of the winner’s pool.
“It’s in the front of my mind, not the back of my mind,” Erving replied. “I don’t think that I (personally) have to prove anything to anyone.”
Erving talked about the game as a businessman discusses an important deal—calmly, objectively, impassively.
“I just saw some daylight and I went to that daylight,” he explained to the mob of reporters surrounding him in the sweatbox of a dressing room. “I was trying to make the defense react to that. Personally, I went in spurts. I had good spurts and then cooled off.
“But I was trying to be consistent, trying to be a factor in scoring, on defense and passing. I was trying to maintain a total consciousness of how I could do the best for my team. I felt I had a chance today (Sunday) to show all my skills,” said Erving in his typical low speaking voice.
Erving did call on a lot of his skills. It’s doubtful if he used them all, because everytime you see this athlete he shows you something you’ve never seen before.
Against the Blazers, he drove for dunks, popped from outside, banked shots from the side. He did his Alley Oop number with Doug Collins, whereby he stands alongside the basket and waits for a high looping pass from Collins. The ball, and Erving leaping high like a standing high jumper, arrive above the rim at the same time. He simply pushes it through.
Then, he did his Superman routine in which he takes off from the foul line, literally flies 15 feet through the air to the basket holding the ball in one hand, finally whipping it through the hoop.
Alley Oop or Superman, the crowd stands and shakes the building with its roar of approval.
And when he wasn’t scoring, Erving harrassed the Blazers on defense with his quick hands. He also threw pin-point passes to teammates who converted them into field goals. He kept the Blazers’ defense off balance by forcing them to double team him, which opened options for other 76ers.
Erving, of course, didn’t win the game alone. Collins scored 30 points, Henry Bibby contributed nine and keyed the offensive patterns. Centers Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins did an excellent job on 6-foot-11 Bill Walton, despite Walton’s 28 points and 20 rebounds—17 on the defensive boards.
And Coach Gene Shue gave his Portland opposite number, Jack Ramsey, something to think about when the 76ers had their centers bring the ball up court. It was an unorthodox maneuver that forced the Blazers guards out of their pressure defense.
But the series is far from over. Portland has Walton and Maurice Lucas and others who won’t be intimidated when the series resumes here Thursday night. Their big problem is to contain No 6—the Doctor. When seen last Sunday, he was still pulling rabbits, or was that the NBA championship trophy, out of his sleeves?
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Julius Erving doesn’t need a calendar to know what time it is.
“This is what I call net-cutting time,” said Dr. J, the basketball surgeon of the Philadelphia 76ers. “The playoffs — I love them. This is the best time of year, what we work for all winter.
“Not everybody gets the chance to be here, and as long as I’m here I’m going to do something. I’m going to make my presence felt.”
Erving put on a dazzling display for the sellout crowd of 18,276 that watched the Sixers win the opening game of their National Basketball Association championship series from the Portland Trail Blazers 107-101 Sunday.
He started with a slam-dunk off the opening tip, then dipped into his doctor’s bag for an assortment of twisting jumpers, soaring dunks, spinning layups and sparkling passes. By the time he was through, he had 33 points, five rebounds, four assists and three steals.
If Portland is to even the series which resumes here Thursday night, it’s going to have to find a way to put the doctor under sedation.
“It’s difficult to stay with him, because the Sixers tend to isolate him so well,” said Bob Gross, who fouled out of Sunday’s game trying to guard Erving. “He has so much talent, such quick moves, he’s just tough to play. He can always have a great game, no matter how hard you play him.
“You try to keep him honest, keep him from the things he likes to do best,” said Larry Steele, who chased Erving’s shadow when Gross was on the bench. “For example, when you try and keep him going to the basket down the right side and dunking. If he goes where he wants to, he’ll score 40. It shouldn’t be that difficult to make a guy go left when you want him to go left, but with him it’s hard.”
And it’s especially hard this time of year, during “net-cutting time.”
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — After dropping the first two games in their National Basketball Association championship series against the Philadelphia 76ers, the Portland Trail Blazers were in desperate need of a psychological life.
Maurice Lucas provided one even before the tipoff in Sunday’s third game. Lucas, a 6-foot-9 forward, had brawled with Philadelphia’s 6-foot-11 Darryl Dawkins, in last Thursday’s 107-89 victory by the 76ers.
Lucas wiped out those bitter memories by conspicuously shaking hands with the 20-year-old Dawkins when Portland’s starting lineup was introduced prior to the contest.
Two hours later, Lucas had scored 25 points in leading the Blazers to a 129-107 rout that diminished to 2-1 the Philadelphia edge in the best-of-seven series.
Game Four will be played here Tuesday night at 9 p.m., EDT.
“It wasn’t planned, it was just something that happened,” the soft-voiced Lucas said of the game-opening handshake.
“People are trying to make Dawkins out to be this big gorilla. But he’s a very nice person.”
The Blazers bolted to an 18-point lead late in the first quarter. Then Julius Erving and Doug Collins took control and the 76ers sliced the margin to 56-53 with 1:23 left in the first half.
But Lucas hit two quick baskets and Lionel Hollins sank two free throws to give the Western Conference champions a 60-53 halftime edge.
Philadelphia stayed close through the third quarter. Then Bill Walton came up with a couple of classic Waltonian plays that doomed the 76ers’ hopes for a four-game sweep.
Portland’s Bob Gross lofted the ball towards the basket and Walton battled Dawkins somewhere above the rim. Walton’s right hand finally tipped the ball through the hoop as his 6-foot-11 frame crashed to the floor.
An instant later, guard Dave Twardzik stole the ball in backcourt and lofted a pass towards the hoop. Walton climbed back on his feet and stuffed the ball through the hoop with both hands, giving the Blazers a 95-87 lead with 9½ minutes to go.
The 76ers never got any closer as the Blazers, principally Gross and reserve Lloyd Neal, turned the game into a rout.”
“The first basket was a set play,” Walton said. “We improvised on the second one. When I got up, all of a sudden Twardzik had the ball and I moved back to the basket.”
“He comes up with big plays like that,” said Portland Coach Jack Ramsay, recalling Walton’s now-famous slam dunk over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the semifinals.
Gross couldn’t believe the Portland team captain’s first basket.
“I don’t know how he did it. It was a super play,” Gross said.
Walton hit 9 of 15 from the field, scored 20 points, grabbed 18 rebounds, handed out 9 assists, and blocked 4 shots. Gross added 19 points. Rookie guard Johnny Davis scored 18 and Lionel Hollins, despite a 4-for-17 shooting day, added 15 points.
As usual, Erving sizzled. He scored 28 points, including 10 of 11 free throws. Collins was 9-for-13 from the field and scored 21 points.
NBA Championship: Portland Vs. Erving
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The National Basketball Association championship series has become a matter of 12 against one, and even The Doctor can’t handle those odds.
The Portland Trail Blazers, their fast break running like a well-oiled machine, got points from all 12 men on their roster as they routed the Philadelphia 76ers 130-98 Tuesday night to even the best-of-seven playoff finals at two victories apiece.
Philadelphia, by contrast, got 24 points from Julius “Dr. J” Erving and little from anyone else. Erving had 14 points in the second period to keep the 76ers close, but was no match for the Blazers’ sizzling 41-point third quarter.
Are the 76ers, with George McGinnis still in his woeful slump, relying too heavily on Erving?
“No,” replied Portland coach Jack Ramsay. “Teams go to their strength. It’s very reasonable. Philadelphia goes to Erving just as Los Angeles goes to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”
“You can never do too much,” contended Erving. “But it’s depressing. When they triple-team me, it should help us as a team. But it hasn’t. Our defense went from bad (in Sunday’s 129-107 loss in Portland) to worse.”
The Blazers, meanwhile, rebounded from a woeful performance in the second game of the series here Thursday with two brilliant games on their home floor.
“We hadn’t played well, and we had begun to wonder if we could beat Philly,” said Portland guard Lionel Hollins. “We were tight. But after we won our first game at home, we started to realize we’ve still got a good ball team.”
“On Sunday we ran very well,” said reserve guard Dave Twardzik. “On Tuesday we ran even better.”
Everybody got into the act for the Blazers.
“Portland was super, absolutely super,” said Philadelphia coach Gene Shue. “It didn’t matter who they put in. All their players were effective.”
Which is the point Ramsay has been making all along about the Blazers, a young team which includes seven players who weren’t on the roster a year ago. “We stress the team concept above all else,” said Ramsay.
“We want everyone to be involved. There’s nobody on this team who doesn’t have a play designed for him. They all have contributed something to us.”
“That’s what has been doing it for us all year,” agreed Hollins. “Guys coming off the bench and doing a job.”
“Our game is to move the ball and move ourselves and not look for any one player,” said Portland veteran reserve center-forward Lloyd Neal, who filled in brilliantly when Bill Walton got into foul trouble Tuesday.
Neal then looked, by contrast, at Philadelphia’s style: “Erving, McGinnis, Doug Collins-they look for these guys,” he said. “And when Julius comes out of the game, they’re a different team. They don’t have anybody who can play the type of game he does, and they don’t adjust.”
The teams flew here from Portland Wednesday and were scheduled to practice on Thursday.
The first four games of the series were all won by the home team, but the Blazers are confident of breaking that streak Friday night.
“We’re playing our game now,” said Maurice Lucas. “In the last two games, we’ve run our offense much better. We can win on any floor if we play our game.”
“I know we’re capable of games like this on the road as well as at home,” said Hollins after the Blazers’ rout on Tuesday.
But Ramsay was being more cautious. “We’re now in a three-game series with two games on their court,” he said. “We have to carry our game to Philadelphia, which we haven’t done until now.”
“Erving kept Philadelphia close, […] scoring 11 points in the third quarter. The Sixers pulled to within two at 80-78 on a layup by Collins with 1:52 to go, but Lucas, who had 13 points in the quarter, hit two baskets and a pair of free throws to help Portland take an 87-82 lead into the final period.” Portland then won Game 4 130-98 to tie the series at 2-2. “
Julius Erving had 24 points for Philadelphia, but Portland shut down guard Doug Collins, holding him to 11 points, his lowest output in the series. McGinnis continued to be plagued by an agonizing playoff slump. He wound up with just five points Tuesday night, 14 Sunday, and has not been a factor in any of the four games” (
The Deseret News, Jun 1, 1977). “
Julius Erving was about the only effective player for Philadelphia, scoring 24 points, 14 of them in the second quarter, as he tried to keep the 76ers in the game” (
The Morning Record and Journal, Jun 1, 1977).
The ‘Doctor’ Luring Far Too Many Patients
PHILADELPHIA (UPI) — Julius Erving knows he’ll never be left alone on the offensive end of a basketball court, but he’s drawing bigger crowds than usual in the NBA championship finals.
The Doctor has remained his spectacular self even in the two overwhelming defeats the Portland Trail Blazers handed his Philadelphia 76ers to square the best-of-seven series at two games apiece.
But with George McGinnis hopelessly mired in a shooting slump and center Caldwell Jones offering little more than bringing the ball upcourt, Erving has drawn two, and sometimes three, Blazers around him each time he’s touched the ball.
Coach Gene Shue protested early in Tuesday night’s 130-98 Portland romp that the Blazers were playing a zone defense but the referees disagreed. Erving, however, thinks his coach was right.
“If a player is within six feet of another player, it’s not illegal,” Erving said. “But they played a lot of zone and that’s illegal. It kind of stymied our offense when we tried to run plays. And when we tried to freelance we missed more often than we made it.”
“While Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas have been doing the brunt of the scoring and rebounding, the Blazers have also been aided by superb work from the bench, especially from Lloyd Neal, Herm Gillam and Dave Twardzik.
Meanwhile, the Sixers have relied solely on Julius Erving, the leading scorer in the series with a 26-point average. Collins, who averaged 26 points after three games, was never a factor in Game 4, shooting only 10 times from the field and scoring 11 points. George McGinnis remained in the throes of a dreadful slump and the normally steady Bibby was ineffective” (
The Telegraph-Herald, Jun 3, 1977).
“Big George McGinnis, one of the men who got the 76ers into the playoffs, has not played well in the postseason.
He must break out of his slump to give Philadelphia the balanced attack it needs to blunt the Trail Blazers’ defense, which has concentrated on stopping Julius Erving” (
Lodi News-Sentinel, May 28, 1977).
PHILADELPHIA (UPI) — An aching stomach plus the responsibility of guarding Julius Erving would send a weaker man back to Portland on the next flight, but Bob Gross found a cure for both problems.
The cure couldn’t be found in a medical journal but in a basketball textbook, which is what Gross’ Portland Trail Blazers followed Friday night, exhibiting a picture fast break to pull within one game of winning the first NBA title of their history.
With Gross scored 25 points and his teammates burning up and down the court, the Blazers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers, 110-104, giving them a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven championship series. The sixth game will be played Sunday in Portland.
Portland got its fast break rolling to establish control early, watched the Sixers pull to within a point early in the third quarter and then lost their opponents in a 26-8 tear in the next 5:44. In all, the Blazers scored 40 points in the period, with nine of their 14 field goals coming on layups.
Gross, who began the spurt with a basket and finished it with a three-point play off a steal, had 11 points in the quarter. For the game he was 10-for-13 from the floor with six of his field goals coming on outside shots.
“If we can run our offense, I’m going to be open,” the 6-foot-6 second-year-man from Long Beach State said. “I didn’t play exceptional tonight, but I shot the ball well.”
If Gross played as well as he felt, the Blazers would have been in trouble. The combination of pre-game jitters and a spaghetti dinner turned into one big ache in his stomach.
“Tonight I felt bad, my stomach was upset,” he said. “It was really aching and I couldn’t get rid of it.”
Gross didn’t have much luck guarding Erving but not many players do. The Doctor scored 37 points, including 13 in a frantic fourth-quarter comeback. Gross eventually fouled out with 4:54 to play.
“I was pleased with our defense — that’s what won the game,” Portland Coach Jack Ramsey said. “Our guards did a good job. Bill (Walton) was fantastic. He’s a great force inside. He kept Philadelphia out. The perimeter shots were under pressure.”
Sixers’ Coach Gene Shue didn’t have such kind words for the defensive play of his team.
“We didn’t play a good game,” he said. “The Portland team had easy baskets due to poor defense on our part. In the last quarter we loosened up but Portland always had control of the game.”
The Blazers built their lead to 22 points, 91-69, with 8:28 remaining before Philadelphia rallied behind Erving, Doug Collins and sub Joe Bryant. Two foul shots and a jumper by Bryant pulled the Sixers to within five, 101-96, with 3:26 to play, but it was as close as they came.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Philadelphia 76ers have more talent on their roster, man for man, than any other team in pro basketball. But the Portland Trail Blazers have the champions.
If anything was proven during the National Basketball Association playoff finals, it is that it takes more than talent to win in this league.
“Everything we do comes from the team concept,” said Jack Ramsey, who in his first season as coach of the Blazers took a six-year-old expansion franchise and guided it all the way to the NBA title.
“If we play our game, we know that sooner or later we’re going to get someone open,” Ramsey said of the Blazers’ finely tuned offense. “It’s just a matter of being patient and getting the ball to the right man at the right time.
“You have to be patient, maintain a level of poise and emotional control. All the players in this league have talent, but not all of them know how to best use their talent. A player has to use his game within the framework of the team.”
By working within that framework, the Blazers were able to shake off losses in the first two games of the best-of-seven series against the Sixers, wrapping the title with a 109-107 victory Sunday.
Heroes? The Blazers had plenty.
Center Bill Walton was the one irreplaceable cog in the machine and the Most Valuable Player of the playoffs, performing well in every game. But the other Blazers drifted in and out of the spotlight. Maurice Lucas, Bobby Gross, Lionel Hollins, Johnny Davis, Dave Twardzik, Corky Calhoun and Lloyd Neal all had their moments of glory.
Not so for Philadelphia.
Julius Erving was magnificent in defeat, twice scoring 40 points and showing why he is regarded by his peers as the most dynamic player in the game.
But he received little help.
George McGinnis was embarrassingly inept for five of the six games of the final series and Doug Collins started quickly but fizzled in the last two games.
The other Sixers contributed little. So the series often seemed like a game of five-on-one, and Portland’s team concept overcame the individual brilliance of Erving.
The recently concluded National Basketball Association season will be best remembered for two significant events: the emergence of Bill Walton as one of the game’s dominant centers, and the proof that Julius Erving could play the game of basketball as well as anyone who had ever played before him.
There was no doubt in anyone's mind after the Finals that Erving was everything he was said to be.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — “I still think we have a championship team,” said Philadelphia superstar Julius Erving, the consummate court artisan. “We have a better team than Portland. We have more talent and more depth.”
But the Portland Trail Blazers – not the Philadelphia 76ers – are the National Basketball Association champions, and Erving knows why.
“They are cohesive,” he said. “They help each other better than we do. Their consistency enabled them to win.
“They have mental conditioning that they’ve developed in practices all year. They stuck with their basic game plan, the one they had been successful with all year.
“We attack defenses and try to create things. It was a matchup of opposing styles, and theirs won out.”
The Blazers won because, for all his individual brilliance, Erving could not offset the spotty play of his teammates.
George McGinnis was in a woeful slump which did not end until Sunday’s final game of the best-of-seven series, won by Portland 109-107 to give the Blazers the title four games to two.
Doug Collins played well until the last two games, when he tailed off badly. Centers Caldwell Jones and Darryl Dawkins were inconsistent, key reserves Lloyd Free and Steve Mix were hampered by injuries and playmaker Henry Bibby had trouble keeping pace with Portland’s speedier guards.
So, the team which had been conceded the championship by some people back in October, when Erving was purchased from the New York Nets, came up two victories short.
And the man who will take most of the heat for that shortcoming is Coach Gene Shue, who all along warned against expecting too much too soon.
“It takes time to mold a winning team,” said Shue over and over. “The players have to know each others’ moves and styles. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
And at least partly because of the undisciplined, free-spirited nature of the players Shue had to work with, the 76ers never did develop the cohesiveness that was so much a part of the Blazers’ victory plan.
“My philosophy is to play classic basketball, with great passes and great defense,” said Shue, describing concisely the game played by Portland. “But you have to coach the players you end up with.
“Naturally I would love to have a Bill Walton,” Shue said of the versatile Portland center. “Then we would play a classic style.
“But my job is to get the most out of the players I have. I don’t necessarily like the styles we use, but we win.”
But the fact remains, the 76ers did not win it all. Should Shue have tried to apply more of a disciplined approach to the group Erving described as “outlaws” and “a bunch of renegades?”
Shue said he felt the discipline had to come from the players themselves.
“I’m a strong believer in players learning to accept responsibility, learning how to handle themselves,” he said.
Last week, when the series was tied 2-2 and it looked like it could go either way, Shue was asked whether all the aggravation and intra-squad bickering he has had to cope with this season was worth it.
He paused for a moment before replying.
“If think if winning the championship were the goal, and it was possible that it could be accomplished, I would go through anything,” he said. “That’s the way I feel about this team.”
“The 76ers,” agreed Jack Ramsey, “have a lot of individual talent, but you need more than that.”
Not that Julius Erving did not show he has worth every penny of his 6 million cost - $3 million to the New York Nets, $3 million in his contract. But until the final game, George McGinnis was not worth much. And when George McGinnis finally started scoring, Doug Collins stopped. In the end, the 76ers lacked what the Trail Blazers had - balance and teamwork. Too often the 76ers were not willing to play together. Unless that problem is solved by a change in personnel, Julius Erving sooner or later will decide that he no longer wants to play in that atmosphere. He’ll ask to be traded, probably to Knicks who can afford him.
He could have been doing that before if not for his selfish teammates and him trying to blend in and make it work.
All For One Sure Beats One For All
Dr. J was his usual out-a-sight, but one man can't beat five, particularly when five men play like one, as Portland did to win the NBA title
At the end last Sunday, as bare-chested Bill Walton stood there, one moment higher than the highest mountain, the next submerged by Blazermaniacs deeper than the deep blue sea, Julius Erving would have been forgiven had he raised the roster of the Philadelphia 76ers over his head and jam-dunked it into the nearest garbage can.
The Portland Trail Blazers had whip-lashed the 76ers four times in eight days to win the NBA championship, simply because whenever Walton rolled his arms over his head in those strange, jerky circles, all of Multnomah County came to his aid; but when Erving asked for help, what most of the 76ers came up with was zilch.
Before Portland's clinching 109-107 victory on Sunday, only Doug Collins had joined Erving in fending off the Blazer legions of Bob Gross, Lionel Hollins, Johnny Davis, Dave Twardzik and Maurice Lucas. Then in Game Six, George McGinnis finally got his act together with 28 points.
But it was too late. The Sixers had waited too long to care that here was the magnificent Dr. J playing his heart out—one against all, 40 points on Sunday, 182 points for the series—and there were the Trail Blazers wrapping up the title with another disciplined, unselfish, well-balanced job of teamwork.
NEW YORK — The season of struggle ended yesterday in Portland, Ore., for the team of turmoil.
The Philadelphia 76ers, the best team money could buy, lost the National Basketball Association championship they were supposed to win, 109-107, to the Portland Trail Blazers.
In the 31-year existence of the NBA, there probably never has been a team like the 76ers and there may never again be another like it. They were a team of players with exaggerated egos in a season of exaggerated hopes, magic moments, inflamed temperaments, discontent and divisive public utterances.
The 76ers were at their best before the start of a game. They were a combination of cheerleaders and showmen. They sold out arenas and excited crowds in the Spectrum, their home arena, and in the other 21 league cities with their dunk drills and one-on-one moves that brought the crowds to their feet.
Most of their practice sessions had the appearance of a schoolyard get-together, where players had to win to keep possession of the basketball court. In essence, that was what the 76ers were all about — a collection of talented schoolyard and playground players whose egos came before team play.
After all, Lloyd Free, the backcourt man from the streets of Brooklyn, relished the name of “all world” that he picked up in the Brownsville playgrounds.
Darryl Dawkins, the 20-year-old, 6-foot-11-inch, 260-pound center, enjoyed bragging about the dunk shots he had not yet shown off. In the end, it was that schoolyard one-on-one play, and their lapses on defense, that did the 76ers in against the Trail Blazers, a team basketball textbooks could be written about.
The finishing touch for assembling the best team money could buy and then just awaiting the delivery of the championship came last October with the purchase for almost $3 million of Julius Erving from the New York Nets. It was made by the 76ers’ new millionaire owner, F. Eugene Dixon, despite the rather cool interest at first expressed by the 76ers’ coach, Gene Shue. Shue was not interested in adding another forward, even if that forward was Erving, the game’s most exciting player.
Shue recently explained that reasoning to a Philadelphia newsman.
“The reason was,” said Shue, “I didn’t know if he could strengthen our team. That sounds ridiculous, but the strength of our team was already in our forwards. I also told the owner there was no way I was going to guarantee we would win a championship just because we got Dr. J. If it would have been Bill Walton (the Trail Blazer center), I would have said something different.”
The 76ers were already set at forward, which resulted in the problems that occurred.
With the New York Nets Erving was the most explosive and exciting player in basketball. With Philadelphia he modified his game to blend in with his teammates. The result has been enough to take the Sixers to the NBA finals. All year long people have criticized Dr. J for keeping so much of his talent under wraps—but an NBA title would prove he was right.
But Erving's performance in the '77 Finals in the NBA after his performance in the '76 Finals in the ABA against Bobby Jones, who we know is one of the greatest defenders ever, validates his season.
This is why it irks me when people are so lazy they just spout informed statements without looking into the matter.
