Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:31 pm Post subject: AT LAST: The 1969-1979 Bullets
At Last... How the Washington Bullets Finally did what they were supposed to do by winning a title when they weren’t supposed to.
PART ONE OF FIVE
The Zephyrs arrived in Baltimore in 1964 and became the Bullets. The two year old, already former-Chicago franchise had spent two years struggling to survive in a city that surprisingly seemed hesitant to embrace pro basketball. In their first season, playing as the Chicago Packers they finished in last place and drew the fewest fans of any NBA team. They jumped to sixth in attendance the next season but were still drawing only 3,300 a game and still not winning games. The ownership group, led by Dave Trager, moved the teamed to Baltimore, Maryland, a city which ten years prior had saw a franchise by the same name fold after winning a title in 1948. Shortly thereafter the team was purchased by another investment group, this one led by Abe Pollin. Attendance jumped in the Bullets first season 33% from the Chicago peak, but it was all down hill from there. And despite some highlights, like an upset of the Hawks in the 1965 playoffs, the team never finished over .500 and in 1967 bottomed out finishing last in the standings and last in attendance, even behind the newest expansion team, the Chicago Bulls.
That’s when things started to turn around for Baltimore, but ironically enough it started with them losing a coin toss which awarded Detroit the number one draft pick. The Pistons took three-time college All-American Jimmy Walker out of Providence and the Bullets were left with Earl Monroe of Division II Winston Salem State University. Monroe had averaged over 42 points per game as a senior the previous season. He picked right up where he left off in the NBA. Monroe won rookie of the year honors averaging 24 points 6 rebounds and 4 assists as the Bullets improved by 16 games to a record of 36-46 and just four games out of the last playoff spot. During the 1968 off-season luck was on their side. Despite finishing with a better record than three teams from the Western Conference, the Bullets were once again involved in the coin toss for the number one pick. This time they won it. They drafted Westley Unseld out of Louisiville and he made an immediate impact.
The Bullets, already a team on the rise were now anchored by the ultimate glue player. A 6’6” tank of a man whose every skill served to make things easier and more enjoyable for his teammates to play the game. He rebounded as well as anyone, he threw the best outlet pass in the game, he covered ball screes and recovered to the basket to impede the rollers path. He was pass first and had the vision and touch to create easy baskets for teammates. Despite his pedestrian scoring average, Wes Unseld won the 1969 Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player Awards. His peers selected him most valuable to his team in a league with Russell, Wilt, West, Baylor and Oscar Roberston still playing. The Bullets had made a gigantic and unexpected leap. They won 57 games; most in the NBA. In the playoffs though, they found no such like on their side. With Gus Johnson out with injury the inside burden against Willis Reed and the Knicks fell onto Unseld who performed valiantly averaging nearly 19 points and 19 rebounds per game for the series. However the Bullets perimeter players struggled. Both Monroe and back court mate Kevin Loughery shot under 40% while taking the majority of the teams shots and the great shooter Jack Marin averaged just 13 points per game. The Knicks swept the series and the Bullets had to accept that they weren’t there yet.
1969-70 went much the same way. The Bullets won 50 games, this time though the Knicks won 60 games on their way to the World Championship and again dispatched the Bullets in the opening round. However unlike 1969, the Bullets, with Johnson healthy gave the Knicks all they could handle. Seven grueling games came to a close and despite nearly 30 points per game from Monroe, over 23 rebounds a night from Unseld and a combined 36 points and 18 rebounds per game from forwards Johnson and Marin, the Bullets season was again through. Continuing the trend of misleading regular seasons, Baltimore slipped to 42-40 in 1970-71 and then had it’s strongest postseason showing to date. The pushed a 47-win 76ers team to seven games in the opening round and in game seven on the road pounded Philadelphia with a 43 point second quarter and rolled to a 128-120 upset win. Fred Carter and Earl Monroe scored 10 each in the second quarter leading the rally but the Bullets front line owned the day. Unseld was his usual sturdy self with 16 points and 22 rebounds. Gus Johnson did a bit of everything scoring 19 points grabbing 18 rebounds and dishing off 8 assists and Jack Marin had a career day scoring 33 points and pulling down 16 rebounds. Now it was time for the Knicks: Another seven game series and another deciding game in Madison Square Garden. A back and forth game all the way with neither team giving anything easy. The Knicks would build a four point half time lead. But the Bullets shot out of the gates in the third quarter and scored the first six points on their way to a 30-point quarter and a five point lead heading into the fourth. New York got 26 points from Dick Barnett including a jumper with just under three minutes to go giving them a 88-87 lead. But Earl Monroe, who matched Barnett’s total with 26 points of his own, matched his jumper on the next possession and put Baltimore ahead for good. Baltimore had fallen down 0-2 to the defending Champions, the Knicks who had eliminated them from two straight playoffs and had won game seven on the road, 93-91. They were going to the NBA Finals. Unfortunately there waiting for them were the 66-win Milwaukee Bucks. Milwaukee had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Robertson and an unsung wing player named Bob Dandridge. They were systematic, calculated, percise, unstoppable. They beat Baltimore in four straight by an average of 12 points per game just as they had done to everyone else all season. The Bullets season again ended they knew that much. Few would have predicted it would be the last playoffs that core of players spent together.
Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:33 pm Post subject: Part Two
The 1971-72 season started with two big moves. First the Bullets traded their two point guards Kevin Loughery and Fred Carter for veteran all-star guard Archie Clark. They envisioned Clark being the missing piece playing alongside Monroe with rookie Phil Chenier backing them up. However, the second move was Earl Monroe demanding a trade. Contract talks between Monroe’s representatives and representatives of owner Abe Pollin had resulted in a very ugly feud which led to Monroe being suspended questioning the teams loyalty, then Pollin saying he would not trade him, before finally sending him to New York for reserves Dave Stallworth and Mike Riordan in November. The revamped Bullets would also have to move on largely without Gus Johnson whose injuries had now becoming too much. He missed most of the season and when he did play was very much limited. At 33, it would be his final season in Baltimore. The Bullets struggled and won just 38 games, but that was enough to win the lowly central division. Archie Clark had a career year averaging 25 points and 8 assists and Wes Unseld finished second in the league in rebounding for the third year in a row. In the playoffs, who else would be waiting but New York. For a fourth straight season the two teams would show down and now after the Monroe trade, the bad blood was really boiling over. They split the first two games with the home team winning each and in game three the host Bullets got 35 points from Archie Clark, nineteen 12 rebounds and 9 assists from Unseld and a key blocked shot with 26 seconds left by John Tresvant on Earl Monroe’s shot to preserve a 104-103 victory. Monroe had torched the Bullets for 28 points, but the final block sealed the Baltimore win and a 2-1 series lead. However that would be the Bullets last moment of glory in this series as New York would take the next three including a devastating 106-82 win at Baltimore in game five, breaking a streak of seven straight home wins for the Bullets versus the Knicks in the postseason and breaking the teams will.
During the 1972 off-season, Gene Shue, the coach for the Bullets since the 1967 season decided they needed to make a trade to stop the slide of wins which had gone from 57 to 50 to 42 to 38. They found Houston, unhappy with it’s star Elvin Hayes a willing partner. Jack Marin coming off a career year and his first all-star selection was swapped straight up for Hayes. As good as Marin was and as much of a problem as Hayes could be, this was still a one-sided trade. Hayes had been a individual star, among the league leaders in points and rebounds every year, Marin was not that nor did anyone expect him to be. In fairness Houston seemed no worse off in 1972-73, as they won just one fewer game then the previous season, but Washington regrouped nicely with a 52-win season and another division title, their fourth in five seasons. Hayes and Unseld were an outstanding duo inside and both made the all-star team and forward Mike Riordan had a career year averaging 18-5-5. In the back court Phil Chenier took a big step and with Archie Clark missing time, rookie Kevin Porter began to see regular action and contribute. As the playoffs came around, somehow Baltimore would be facing New York, yet again, for the fifth straight year. The Knicks got the jump on the Bullets once again. In game one Monroe and Walt Frazier torched the Bullets for a combined 48 points, in game two Monroe continues to punish his former team this time with 32 points and Frazier added 29 in a 123-103 drubbing. The Knicks all but sealed the deal in game three with a balanced attack, five players with at least 16 points and a 103-96 victory despite 36 points from Elvin Hayes, who had struggled in the first two games. New York would go on to win the series in five games and once again turn out the lights on the Bulets season.
The big changes leading into the 1973-74 season were not the players, the core remained in tact, while instead the teams name, location and head coach changed. Abe Pollin had moved his team to Washington D.C. and the new Capitol Centre. He re-named them the Capitol Bullets. Gene Shue had quit as coach and his replacement was K.C. Jones the former Celtic great, a players coach. The Bullets won 47 games for the season, not bad as they dealt with Wes Unseld’s nagging injuries that cost the big man some of his mobility and 30 games played. Chenier had become an all-star in his third professional season and led the Bullets with 22 points per game. Hayes, picking up the slack for Unseld on the glass was the leagues top rebounder at over 18 a game. Porter would replace Clark by seasons end as the team younger, faster point guard and Riordan hung on for one more prime season. The result of their efforts was a first round showdown with the Knicks, a sixth consecutive postseason meeting. For the third time of those six, it went to seven games. With New York up just two at the half, Baltimore seemed poised to finally get the monkey off their back. The Knicks though were staunch defensively and held Baltimore to just 30 points in the second half. Elvin Hayes who had averaged 28 per game through the first six of the series was held to 12 points. Wes Unseld, playing through pain did not score. The Knicks won 91-81, the Bullets had no answers for Earl Monroe as he again shined in victory with 30 points.
Going into the 1974-75 playoffs the Bullets had to feel good. They had changed their name again, now just Washington. They had won a franchise record 60 games, matching Boston for the best mark in the NBA. Their core of players were healthy and playing well and they had added two minor but helpful pieces in former all-ABA guard Jimmy Jones and second round draft choice Leonard “Truck” Robinson. The Knicks had been eliminated by Houston before Washington even played a game. They opened the playoffs against the Buffalo Braves and MVP Bob McAdoo. In what could have been a debilitating blow, 35 points from McAdoo and 24 apiece from Garfield Heard and Randy Smith put Buffalo up 1-0 in the series. The Bullets won the next two to take a two one lead but McAdoo was brilliant in game four as Buffalo evened the series. In game five Elvin Hayes went off. After being held to 16 points in the fourth game, the Big E connected on 19-26 shots from field en route to 46 points and a 97-93 win for Washington. The Braves forced a seventh game and got 36 from McAdoo, who averaged 37 a game for the series but were beaten handily, 115-96. Phil Chenier starred with 39 points and Hayes and Kevin Porter added 24 each as Washington survived. In the Eastern finals the 60-win Celtics were awaiting them and most figured Boston, the defending Champs would advance. In game one Washington showed that they’d have something to say about that. The Bullets went from down 12 at the half to three down after three to seven points up with a 10-0 run to start the fourth triggered by Elvin Hayes who finished with 34 and 12 rebounds for the night. They held on to win 100-95 and take the first game in Boston. Back home they kept Rolling, Hayes dominated Celtics center Dave Cowens outscoring him 63-35 through two games and Phil Chenier had another great night with 25. The home court advantage held serve after that and Washington finished off the Celtics in game six behind 13 fourth quarter points from Kevin Porter to seal the series with a 98-92 win. After the game Paul Silas, the much respected Celtics forward said of the Bullets “They’re easily the best team in basketball.”
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