[The old pocket-sized Basketball Digest, which published from 1973-2005, often ran a feature at the back of the magazine called “The Game I’ll Never Forget.” A reporter asked a prominent retired- or veteran player to share the most-memorable game of his career. The feature was a great idea, but it sometimes dragged from being formulaic and heavily and stiffly edited. But still, player memories are player memories, and data are data for basketball historians.
Here we have the most-unforgettable game for Ron Boone, the former ABA great and long-time TV commentator for the Utah Jazz. Boone’s memory, published in the magazine’s May 1979 issue, was offered near the end of his playing career while knocking down shots for the Los Angeles Lakers. And no, Boone didn’t win a championship with the Lakers, as hoped for in the text below. But Boone did get one while knocking down shots for the ABA Utah Stars, and that is the source of Boone’s “The Game I’ll Never Forget.”]
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Of course, of all my accomplishments in basketball, I am proudest of breaking the record of 844 consecutive professional games, formerly held by Johnny Kerr [and still recognized as the standard by the NBA]. I passed that mark when I played my 845th game in a row last November 22 against the Houston Rockets. [Ed. Note: Boone would reach 1,041 games in a row, which A.C. Green several years later would top with 1,192 consecutive games. The NBA, as Boone just mentioned, doesn’t recognize his accomplishment because most of his games were played in the ABA.]
I began the string when I played my first game with the Dallas Chaparrals of the old American Basketball Association in 1968 after graduating from Idaho State University. I spent 2 ½ seasons with the Chaparrals, then played 4 ½ seasons with the Utah Stars, and one season with the Spirits of St. Louis before the league folded and four ABA teams were absorbed by the National Basketball Association. In the NBA, I was with the Kansas City Kings for two years before getting traded to the Los Angeles Lakers last season.
And in all that time—in the ABA and the NBA—I have never missed a game. In fact, I have not missed a game since I first started playing organized basketball back in 1956 in the fourth grade at Kellom Elementary School in Omaha, Neb. That includes my years at Technical Junior High School and Tech High in Omaha, one year at Iowa Western Community College, and three years at Idaho State.
I thank God and consider myself very lucky to have put together such a streak. I don’t know how long I will continue playing, but I would like to play three more years. It all depends on how well my body treats me. So far it has been very good. I don’t feel any older than when I started. But maybe it will hit me all at once. I just can’t tell.
While the consecutive-game streak has been a cumulative “high” for me, the final game of the 1970-71 season would have to be the one game I’ll never forget.
I started that season with the Texas Chaparrals (previously known as the Dallas Chaparrals), but in January 1971, I was traded with guard Glen Combs to Utah for guard Donnie Freeman and forward Wayne Hightower.
It was a good trade for several reasons. One was that the Stars were a very good team. The previous season, when they were based in Los Angeles, they had reached the ABA final series before losing to Indiana. And in that season that I was traded, 1970-71, they were battling Indiana for first place in the Western Division, while Texas was far out of contention.
Secondly, Utah was a running team, and that was the kind of basketball I liked to play. Third, the Stars, under Bill Sharman (now my general manager in Los Angeles) were a well-coached team. And finally, it was fun playing in the Salt Palace. We always felt that when we had stepped out on the court there, we had a 10-point advantage, and that’s a good feeling.
With the Chaps, I had been a starter in the backcourt with Combs. But with the Stars, Sharman employed me as a “sixth man,” either at guard behind Combs or Merv Jackson, or up front in place of Willie Wise or Red Robbins. The only place I didn’t play was center, and there we had Zelmo Beaty, who was having an outstanding season.
Even though I wasn’t a starter, I got a lot of playing time and finished the regular season averaging nearly 18 points per game.
We just missed winning the Western Division championship, finishing one game behind Indiana. Then we opened the playoffs against my old Texas team and wiped out the Chaps in four straight games. After that we faced Indiana in a showdown for the Western Division final. After losing a 3-1 lead, we finally beat the Pacers in the decisive seventh game at Indianapolis.
That put us into the league championship series against the Kentucky Colonels. The Colonels had finished second to Virginia during the regular season in the Eastern Division, but they had upset the Squires in the playoffs. The Colonels were an outstanding team with great shooters such as center Dan Issel, guards Louie Dampier and Darel Carrier, and tough forwards in Cincy Powell and Jim Ligon.
Since we had finished with a better regular-season record than the Colonels, we had the luxury of the homecourt advantage for the best-of-seven championship series. We won the first two games at home, lost the next two at Louisville, including one in overtime, then won again at the Salt Palace. But we lost again at Kentucky, making the series 3-3 and setting up the decisive seventh game in Utah.
In all my years in the pros, that was the only championship series I have ever played in, and to have it come down to a seventh game really made it dramatic . . . especially since Sharman told me I would be starting, after having played four months as a reserve with the Stars.
I wasn’t nervous, but I was excited. I wanted to play. I don’t know why I started, Sharman really never told me, and now he still doesn’t remember. But I kidded him about it when I joined the Lakers this season. Maybe he just figured that Combs and I would be most effective in the backcourt.
However, it didn’t work out that way. I missed a few shots, got into early foul trouble (eventually fouling out), and played very little. But the others—Beaty, Wise, Robbins, Combs, and Jackson—plus reserves George Stone and Mike Butler—all played well, and we got great support from the capacity crowd at the Salt Palace. They kept screaming throughout the game, cheering us as loudly as possible.
Combs and Beaty were our most effective scorers in the first half, with Glen scoring all of his 20 points during the first two periods and Zelmo hitting 18 of his 36 points. Our frontline also gave us a big advantage, as Wise (who then was at the peak of his career before his knees went bad), Beaty, and Robbins were controlling the boards. We did trail, 32-28, after the first period. But by halftime, we were ahead, 61-54, with the help of three baskets by Robbins in the final three minutes of the second quarter.
We maintained a seven- or eight-point advantage during most of the third period. Then, early in the fourth quarter, we went ahead by as many as 14 points. But led by Issel, who was to wind up with a game-high 41 points, and Carrier, who started firing in three-point field goals, Kentucky twice cut our lead to five points.
However, Butler came off the bench to hit a three-pointer and two free throws in the closing minutes, and we hung on for a 131-121 victory. It didn’t matter that I have played only 17 minutes and had contributed a mere five points, one of my lowest-scoring efforts of the season.
What was important was that we had won a championship. To get that championship ring—a ring that I still have and will always cherish—is something I’ll never forget. It is such a great feeling to accomplish something that you set out to do, and, of course, winning the title is something that every team sets out to do at the start of every season.
I hope we can accomplish the same thing with the Lakers this season. Not many players have won championship rings in both the ABA and the NBA, and I would like to join the exclusive group. We can win the title if we play with the same intensity that we showed during our 14-game winning streak early in the season.
Wouldn’t that be something . . . two championship rings? I hope it’s just more than wishful thinking.
From Way Downtown 