- The Forum, Los Angeles
- Played: 5/4/1980
- Watched: 10/5/2024
- LA 109- PA 102
- Player of the Game:
- Kareem Abdul-Jabar
- Shooting: 14/21
- Free throws: 5/5
- Rebounds: 14
- Assists: 5
- Blocks: 6
- Points: 33
Were it not for an abysmal third quarter by the 76ers, the story of this game might have been other than it was. I mean; just look at it.
If you had held your breath waiting for the first 76er field goal after half time, you would have probably been dead for two minutes before you were allowed to exhale. I may be an amateur enthusiast, but that’s a long stinking time to go scoreless in a basketball game.
I am just getting started on my basketball journey, but after only a single game I can tell you one thing for certain…Kareem Abdul-Jabar is an absolute monster, and I pity all those teams who had to pantomime some kind of plan to deal with him. As I watched this thoroughly engaging first game on my journey through 20 years of NBA finals, I couldn’t help but marvel at how much he dominated the middle of the game on both sides. Even as a non-basketball fan I of course was acquainted with the famous Skyhook, but watching it in real time is something else entirely. The more it happened, the more I asked myself, “what could you even do?”
However, Mr. Abdul-Jabar was a name I already knew. He, Magic Johnson, and the rest of the burgeoning Showtime Lakers burn brightly enough to be seen from far beyond the world of basketball and its fans. What I wasn’t prepared for was all the new names I would learn as I jumped two-footed into the NBA’s golden age.
I, as a matter of course, was immediately drawn to the 76ers owing to my penchant for underdogs. There’s something about a favorite that just doesn’t work for me. The Bills, Boromir, Luigi, Ken, Johnny Cage, Robin, Mary Marvel, ducks Donald & Daffy, and whatever else of the first forgotten second fiddles are inevitably to be first in my heart. In fact even the Kansas City Chiefs, for whom I bore such a friendly torch in the years of Derrick Thomas, Christian Okoye, Dwayne Bowe, Steve DeBerg, and the closing chapters of the saga of Joe Montana, could not survive this personal preference such that I can find no muster support for them in this age of their ascendancy unless it’s against a team for whom I bear some personal enmity(such as the Dallas Cowboys, cursed be their name forever)
So, even knowing that this way lies heartache, I have been drawn like gravity to names like Lionel Hollins, Caldwell Jones, Maurice Cheeks, Bobby Jones, Darryl Dawkins, and the immortal Doctor J.
As a layman and new sojourner in this field, please forgive any failures in terminology or understanding that stem from this first foray into an unfamiliar field, but, in short, I can say I’m rather successfully hooked though simultaneously saddened. I try every year to watch basketball, and for whatever reason nothing has been so engrossing as this 48 minutes of gametime. I can only hope that as I progress it will be due to the ambiance, the environment, the spirit, or some other factor that holds the key to my preference for older contests rather than some unfortunate deterioration in the quality of the game since that point.
On to the game itself. Having no appropriate frame of reference, I will refrain from grading the contest on its merits as I don’t yet feel free to grade them. However, were I to evaluate it solely on its ability to entertain, I would be more than generous.
The first moments that demanded attention happened within a short two minute span, namely a Maurice Cheeks assisted dunk by Bobby Jones and an unrelated Caldwell Jones block both of which introduced me to the wonders of breathlessness of transition plays.
If my support of the 76ers had not been cemented prior, these jump-from-your-seat moments settled the matter.
Not to be out done, and teaching me an important lesson about the world of basketball is the Magic Man himself. I wonder how prevalent is the opinion that NBA leading men dominate the frame for every minute of a televised event. When I turned this game on I certainly fell into assuming I would be watching a Magic Johnson highlight reel. What I found was amazingly more nuanced than that. I went in expecting a first chair violin and what I found was a conductor.
Magic was a rebound away from a triple double, responsible for a full third of his team’s assists, and infinitely more impactful than the box score would suggest. I have watched the above pass innumerable times now, and I still can’t understand how he could see Norm Nixon at the top of the key while dominating the attention of no fewer than four of the 76ers.
And last but not least in the arena of the highlight is Doctor Julius Erving. Based on reputation alone I would assume that a sub .500 night shooting would be disappointing even if he did end up leading his team in scoring. That aside, the Doctor still found moments to shock and awe. Most notably in the above category is the following stunner where he (with his back to the hoop mind you) redirects an incoming pass against the glass and into the waiting net.
With the basketball conversation safely completed, I thought I might turn to the interesting supplementary content that seems to come along with the land of championship basketball. First, the star sightings of the Los Angeles courtside- Walter Mathau and Jack Nicholson
These were interesting enough of course, but I think there’s another fascinating category that should be continued throughout the remainder of this series (as it is likely to remain relevant), and that is…
Bold Cameraman; Beautiful Women
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