“I don’t think there’s any way we could have won the title—or even gotten into the final round—if we had not defeated the Bucks in that second game. The last few seconds of that game were among the most unusual and dramatic I have ever seen in my many years in professional basketball.”
Tag Archives: 1970s NBA
Dave Bing: Going Through Changes, 1970
Pain has become a constant in Dave Bing’s basketball life. Even in the 1968-69 season—his third NBA campaign in which he went through multiple changes—bodily ache remained a verity of his working hours.
Mike Riordan: Bags on the Run, 1973
For the next year, during the 1968–69 season, Mike’s uniform stayed clean and dry; mostly, he just mastered the art of giving fouls, an art now extinct, killed by a rule change.
Lenny Wilkens: A Pro’s Pro, 1973
Wilkens doesn’t fool anybody anymore: Everybody knows he’s a ballplayer.
It’s Murder Under the Basket, 1976
No officiating changes are going to eliminate rough play from professional basketball. It has become part of the game, every aspect of it.
Jimmy Walker: Play It Again Sam, 1968
“All I saw or heard was how inconsistent I was playing. But the only way I can play consistently is to have consistent time, and for the last two years, it hasn’t been.”
Calvin Murphy: Four Seasons, Three Coaches, 1974
“Ever since high school, I have always played taller ballplayers, and I’ve never had any trouble. Every year, it’s been getting easier for me.”
Pete Maravich: Close Up of a Baby Hawk, 1970
When the quarter ended and Coach Richie Guerin put Pete Maravich in the game, a small cheer went up from the crowd.
Henry Finkel: Bill Russell’s Unfortunate Replacement, 1971
But it isn’t only Russell’s ghost. The problem is really Finkel himself. He is a quiet, gentle man, who never could hide in a crowd, not even when he was a youngster back in Union City, NJ.
How the Boston Celtics Established a Dynasty, 1976
The guiding hand behind those brilliant personnel decisions was, of course, Auerbach, the feisty, little, self-proclaimed “dictator” of the Celtics, who is still the club’s general manager and still producing winners. There is no longer a dynasty in Boston simply because no new Bill Russell has come along—and probably never will.
From Way Downtown 