1975 Eastern Conference Final

This piece is edited from a letter that I wrote to some writer for Newsweek. He commented about Black College segment for ESPN. This was about Al Attles coach of the 1974-1975 Golden State Warriors. He mentioned that Al was wrong saying that his own fans booed him because they were going to win the championship in 1975. I said, they booed him because of his coaching relationship with Rick Barry from the next year when they were trying to repeat. Moving on. Careful about film editing.

To me, the 1975 Bullets/Celtics fascinated me beyond belief. Both teams won 60 games but the Celtics won home court advantage due to a coin toss. I know that the 1969 Bullets and the 1973 Celtics are one of the best teams without winning a championship but the 1975 one was fascinating.

Boston had their stars but the role players like Paul Westphal, Kevin Stacom, Don Chaney, Jim Ard, Hank Finkel, and Glenn McDonald really made that team go in '75. Dave Cowens played 65 games while recovering from a foot injury. Don Nelson stepped in had one of his best scoring seasons of his career at 14.0. Silas and Havlicek were themselves.

That year, there was no ebb and flow but pure consistency. Coach Tom Heinsohn was more relaxed and won more games that year than the year before. However, there was a resentment between Jo Jo White and Paul Westphal concerning starting. Westphal was in his third season and was improving. He felt that he was the better player than JoJo but JoJo could control tempo and knew how to deliver passes to his teammates like Havlicek. The tension between Jo Jo and Paul didn't destroy the team during the season instead it forced the team to really focus. However, it was soon apparent that Paul needed to be with another team to start and Jo Jo was still in his prime and not about to give up his job.

Celtics beat the Rockets 4-1 (no first round playoffs for the top 4 teams then) while the Bullets beat the Buffalo Braves (Los Angeles Clippers) in a tough 7 games series. They had a great team and former Celtic, K.C. Jones as coach . Players such as Elvin Hayes, Wes Unseld, Kevin Porter, Mike Riordan, and Phil Chernier. They had 60 wins as well but struggled occasionally. After reaching the finals in 1971, the Bullets were eliminated by the New York Knicks from 1972-1974 in the Eastern semis. With the 7 game series with the Braves, the outlook look bleak for the Bullets. Likewise, Unseld, recovering from knee surgery from the year before, lead the league in rebounding but averaged under 10 pts for the first time in a full season.

It looked like the Boston Celtics were going to the finals due to experience and a mixture of young and old players. The season series with the Bullets was even but looking back, they didn't match up well in the center and forward position. Hayes was on a shorter Silas who couldn't defend him on the blocks or his turnaround. Cowens though considerably taller and quicker than Unseld on offense had trouble rebounding against a shorter man on defense because Wes would play the high post forcing him to come and guard him due to his passing abilities and occasional offense. If a Bullet put up a shot, Wes would come underneath him for a rebound like he did with all taller players. Dave was not use to a smaller man due to the fact that Dave was a small center himself. Washington had players like Mike Riordan who matched up well with John Havlicek who had trouble defending players who moved to their left. On top of that, Riordan was left-handed. Truck Robinson, Jimmy Jones (injured in Game 4 and out for the playoffs), and Clem Haskins were big guys that could handle the ball and rebound out for the bench. The Boston bench of Stacom, McDonald, Ard, and Finkel couldn't match up with the Bullets bench due to the inexperience, their inability to handle the ball in tight situations, and rebound.

However, the key was role player, Nick Witherspoon (Rick Barry found out that he couldn't go left through his videotape machine that recorded his games)beat the Celtics with those crazy shots which forced to Celtics to play everybody straight up. As well the quickness of G Kevin Porter who made those great assists to Chernier and the big guys hit their shots. As for Westphal, he could guard big guards like Oscar Robertson but small quick guards like Porter gave him trouble from both ends of the floor. Celtics didn't have an answer and Tommy Heinsohn couldn't put the run and jump defense with a guard like Porter or double team due to their lack of height from the guard position.

The final factor was Bullets coach, K.C. Jones was a Celtic who knew Red Auerbach's system that Tom Heinsohn used concerning plays, substitutions, and time management. Likewise, he used a psychological ploy after the Buffalo Braves series where the Bullets looked very lackluster on the road (losing all three in Buffalo), he told everyone that he didn't think his team wasn't good enough to win on the Celtics home floor (Celtics had home court advantage over the Bullets despite sharing 60 wins). Washington beat the Boston on their home floor for game 1 win. From then on, their confidence just grew. They finished the Celtics in 6 games to head to the finals where they were eliminated in 4 straight games by the Golden State Warriors.

Despite the loss, there is a special charisma about the 1975 Eastern Conference. final that I can't put a finger on. Maybe, it is that they didn't fulfill that year despite their huge success with a championship.