June 2007

On April 16, 1947, future Hall of Famer Joe Fulks, the 6'5" forward of the Philadelphia Warriors, led his team to the first championship of the Basketball Association of America, the forerunner of the NBA, before a crowd of 7,918 in the old Philadelphia Arena. The game was not televised and barely made a ripple on the American sports scene at that time, but the foundation was firmly set in place for the NBA Finals to become one of America's great sporting traditions.

Fast forward to today. The NBA Finals will be watched by millions of fans around the world. Each game will be broadcast live on national television complete with pre- and post-game analysis, sports talk radio shows, podcasts, blogs...and of course YouTube will capture the most spectacular plays for those who just can't get enough, even with NBATV's 24-hour nonstop coverage! From the two-handed set shot of yesterday to the aerial flights above the rim of the present, the contemporary game of basketball bears little resemblance to its ancestor. Yet, the magic of the Finals has persisted throughout its sixty-year history.

In 1947, the Philadelphia Warriors and owner Eddie Gottlieb marched to victory over the Chicago Stags in the BAA's first championship series. In the first game "Jumpin' Joe" Fulks hit for 37 points, 29 of them in the second half. Philadelphia won the second game led by players with names like Musi, Dallmar, Fleishman, Hillhouse, and Senesky. Matt Guokas, more of a household name than the others, was on the roster for that magical championship run; his son later played and coached in the NBA. Flying to Chicago for the third game the Warriors plane had to return to the airport because black smoke filled the plane while in flight.

Once in Chicago, Philadelphia took a commanding 3-0 series lead, lost the fourth game, and then came back to win the championship with an 83-80 victory in game five. Each player received a $2,000 bonus and an autographed picture of Commissioner Maurice Podoloff.

Ten years later, with the league still struggling and its future in doubt, the Boston Celtics would use the Finals to give rise to the league's first dynasty. Struggling themselves in those early years, under Red Auerbach's guidance the Celtics added player after player to their roster until in 1957 they added the one ingredient everyone agreed had been missing: a defensive force as well as a rebounding machine that would spark their relentless fast break. That force was Bill Russell.

Bill Russell joined a team that already had six future Hall of Famers: Bill Sharman, Bob Cousy, Tom Heinsohn, Frank Ramsey, Arnie Risen, and Andy Phillip. The Celtics would begin their dynasty with a 4-3 victory over the St. Louis Hawks who themselves featured future Hall of Famers Bob Pettit, Ed Macauley, Slater Martin, Cliff Hagan, and Alex Hannum. St. Louis was loaded with talent and until 1985 when the Magic and the Lakers came along, Pettit and Company were the only team to beat the Celtics in the NBA Finals.

In 1962 the Celtics, led by Heinsohn, Russell, the Jones boys, Sam and KC, Cousy and Ramsey would add another chapter to the book on dynasties, winning a memorable seven-game series against the Los Angeles Lakers. This series was decided in a dramatic seventh game overtime victory by Boston, 110 to 107. Each team won not once, but twice, on the other team's home court. For the Celtics, it was the fourth of a string of eight straight NBA championships.

In 1967, the Philadelphia 76ers would break that Celtic streak. The Sixers opened the season by winning 15 of their first 16 games. Then two more streaks brought their record to a stunning 37-3. They would go on to win 68 games, a record at the time. Led by new coach Alex Hannum and all-time great Wilt Chamberlain, the Sixers breezed through the playoffs the same way they did the regular season. They defeated Cincinnati 3 games to 1, Boston 4 games to 1, and concluded their remarkable season with a 4-2 victory in the Finals over the San Francisco Warriors.

In 1972, the Los Angeles Lakers galloped to an incredible 69-13 regular season record that included an unprecedented 33-game winning streak. Having been defeated by Boston six times in the NBA playoffs, the Lakers turned to an ex-Celtic to coach them to the mountain top, Bill Sharman. Displaying a quiet intensity, Sharman coached a Laker team led by future Hall of Famers Gail Goodrich, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain through a season for the ages. The Lakers blew through the opposition in the playoffs, 4 games to 0 against Chicago, 4 games to 2 against Milwaukee, and 4 games to 1 against the New York Knicks. Chamberlain won his second Finals MVP Award.

By the 1976-77 season, the NBA/ABA war was won by the NBA as four teams from the defunct ABA - the Denver Nuggets, New York Nets, San Antonio Spurs, and the Indiana Pacers - joined the older league. In addition, players from the ABA were dispersed across the NBA. One of these players was Maurice Lucas who wound up in Portland joining future Hall of Fame Coach Jack Ramsay and emerging star and future Hall of Famer Bill Walton. Ramsay was in the process of molding the Blazers into a rebounding and running team and Lucas proved to be an extraordinarily important piece of that package. In this their seventh season in the NBA, the Blazers faced the Philadelphia 76ers who were considered the favorites given their talent. Philadelphia Coach Gene Shue put Julius Erving, George McGinnis, Doug Collins, Henry Bibby, and Caldwell Jones on the floor with World B. Free, and Darryl "Chocolate Thunder" Dawkins coming off the bench. On paper the 76ers should have been champs. But Ramsay's Blazers prevailed in six games, lending credence to the old adage that team trumps talent.

In 1987, the enduring image as played over and over on NBA highlight reels is Magic Johnson's "Junior Sky Hook." The shot came in the closing moments of Game 4 of the 1987 NBA Finals against an injury-plagued Boston Celtics team. Somehow the Celtics made the Finals that year surviving injuries and talented and healthy opposition. But the Lakers were on fire by the time the playoffs rolled around. And while the Celtics were able to capture two games, including one in Los Angeles, the Lakers were just too strong. The heartbreaker was the Magic sky hook in Game 4 in the Boston Garden. With seconds remaining in the game and down by one, the Magic man took the inbounds pass, moved to the key, and lofted a hook just over Robert Parish's outstretched hands. Hall of Famer Larry Bird later remarked, "You expect to lose on a sky-hook. You don't expect it to be from Magic." The Lakers went on to win the championship in six games.

Surprisingly, in the sixty years since 1947 only twenty different teams have captured the NBA title. Boston and Minneapolis/Los Angeles have 30 of the 60 titles between them and much like the series in 1987, basketball's greatest rivals have squared off ten times to decide who sits atop the basketball world.