The Associated Press wrote: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.
(
The Victoria Advocate, May 24, 1977)
