1968 EDF: Wilt chokes away another championship

[Psileas]

It would have been interesting to see if he knew. Oh well. Another part of that question would be.....and what did that free Russell up to do?

I think anyone familiar with that series and those two teams knows the Sixers were easily the better team. As badly hobbled as they were, they only lost by four points in seven games. That shows just how powerful that Sixer team was. In fifty years of following the NBA they're the best team I've ever seen.

I know the answer, but won't reveal it, I'll let someone like Stan Love, who remembers, ehm, "details" from all of Wilt's games.

[Deuce Bigalow]

Ah did we expect anything less? More excuses and essays trying to cover up for Wilt only winning two.

[Deuce Bigalow]

You want choke jobs...

KAJ, Kobe, and Bird are probably the all-time leaders among the GOAT candidates...

And Hakeem couldn't even past the first round of the playoffs in over half of his 15 post-seasons. And most of those first round losses were blowouts, too.

KAJ 6
Kobe 5
Bird 3

Wilt 2
Hakeem 2

Ouch

[LAZERUSS]

Ah did we expect anything less? More excuses and essays trying to cover up for Wilt only winning two.

He doesn't need "excuses."

He was the only guy capable of beating a healthy Russell-led dynasty, and in fact, nearly beat them four more times, as well. And was never outplayed by Russell in any.

And using your logic, he was at least the equal of KAJ, whom he beat 1-1 in H2H playoff series, and actually held a 3-1 edge in getting to the Finals in their four years in the league together. Hell, KAJ took his 60-22 team down in flames against the 47-35 Warriors in first round of the '73 playoffs, while Chamberlain led his 60-22 Lakers to a 4-1 series blowout of that same Warrior team. He also took his 46-36 Lakers to a game seven against the 60-22 Knicks in the '70 Finals....the same NY team that trashed KAJ's 56-26 Bucks 4-1 in the ECF's. And don't give me any stats. Obviously it is just about rings and winning.

[CavaliersFTW]

I know the answer, but won't reveal it, I'll let someone like Stan Love, who remembers, ehm, "details" from all of Wilt's games.

another of ISH's masquerade gimmicks

[Deuce Bigalow]

He doesn't need "excuses."

He was the only guy capable of beating a healthy Russell-led dynasty, and in fact, nearly beat them four more times, as well. And was never outplayed by Russell in any.

And using your logic, he was at least the equal of KAJ, whom he beat 1-1 in H2H playoff series, and actually held a 3-1 edge in getting to the Finals in their four years in the league together. Hell, KAJ took his 60-22 team down in flames against the 47-35 Warriors in first round of the '73 playoffs, while Chamberlain led his 60-22 Lakers to a 4-1 series blowout of that same Warrior team. He also took his 46-36 Lakers to a game seven against the 60-22 Knicks in the '70 Finals....the same NY team that trashed KAJ's Bucks 4-1 in the ECF's. And don't give me any stats. Obviously it is just about rings and winning.

He beat Russell ONE time. And he had another chance to beat him in 1969 but we know how that turned out. Bob Pettit beat Russell also and "ALMOST" like you like to put it beat him more times too. Funny how it took Kareem two seasons to match all of Wilt's winning in his first 12.

[Owl]

1968 EDF: Wilt chokes away another championship

An interesting starting point. Wilt Chamberlain was so good that whatever his team was they "owned" the NBA title and it was theirs to lose.

1968 Sixers had a 3-1 series lead over the Celtics after winning 3 games in a row. Led by Chamberlain, they managed to lose the next 3 games in a row, costing them the series and a potential repeat championship.

Odd that "1968 Sixers" collectively built up the series lead, but Wilt, who "chokes away another championship" "led them" to the losses.

Here are Wilt's stats in games 6 and 7.

1968 EDF vs Boston

Game 6 (L 106-114)

20 points
6-21 FG
8-23 FT

Game 7 (L 96-100)

14 points
4-9 FG
6-15 FT

Combined 10-30 FG and 14-38 FT in games 6 and 7.

Two disappointing performances from Chamberlain (by his standards) for sure. But rather than evaluating impact over a series, you're taking two games; rather than posting full stats for Wilt you just post shooting ones, ignoring his 34 rebounds in game seven and rather than posting those stats in context of his teammates performance (shooting substantially worse than Wilt, despite less defensive attention) you post them out of context.

From 1968-1970 Wilt Chamberlain lost 3 straight game 7s. In 1968 blowing a 3-1 series lead over the Celtics, in 1969 blowing a 2-0 and 3-2 series to Boston in the Finals, and in 1970 losing to the New York Knicks in the Finals.

False, the bolded (actually bolded by yourself) is simply untrue. Even if Wilt Chamberlain were singularly responsible for deciding games himself, "he" would have to be credited with the 4-3 (Lakers) series victory over the Phoenix Suns in 1970.

edited to properly format quotes.

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

Wilt was a very special player truly the Lebron of his time.

[stanlove1111]

And obviously you didn't do any research on that series did you? Wilt was being treated for numerous ailments, including a strained hamstring behind his knee, a partial tear of the right calf (a similar injury that Reed suffered in the '70 Finals...and he was basically worthless after it), a bum toe, and arthritis in both knees...

.

I always get a kick out the arthritis in both knees story Wilt fans always throw out there. Here is a guy who was running marathons in his 50s but his knees were so shot at 30 years that he could barely play basketball anymore. He didn't feel the need to wear braces on his shot knees from 71-73 either...Good stuff. That's right up there with the story that he never recovered from the 1969-70 injury. They love to add to these things to add to the Wilt legend.

[LAZERUSS]

I always get a kick out the arthritis in both knees story Wilt fans always throw out there. Here is a guy who was running marathons in his 50s but his knees were so shot at 30 years that he could barely play basketball anymore. He didn't feel the need to wear braces on his shot knees from 71-73 either...Good stuff. That's right up there with the story that he never recovered from the 1969-70 injury. They love to add to these things to add to the Wilt legend.

Here again just unresearched opinions...

Wilt, himself, claimed to have felt MUCH better in his 71-72 season, than he had in his 70-71 (and obviously his post-surgery 69-70 season.) Of course, one only need watch game seven of the '70 Finals, and game five of the '72 Finals, both of which are on YouTube, to see it for yourself.

[Deuce Bigalow]

Wilt was a very special player truly the Lebron of his time.

[dankok8]

And obviously you didn't do any research on that series did you? Wilt was being treated for numerous ailments, including a strained hamstring behind his knee, a partial tear of the right calf (a similar injury that Reed suffered in the '70 Finals...and he was basically worthless after it), a bum toe, and arthritis in both knees...all of which had him NOTICEABLY LIMPING in that series. In fact, Russell commented later that a "Lessor man would not have played"...which of course meant, NO ONE else would have been playing.

Of course, your boy Kareem missed CHUNKS of two different seasons with a broken hand, and yet Chamberlain dominated game five of the '72 Finals with one hand badly sprained, and the other FRACTURED. Oh, and Kareem missed the clinching game six of the '80 Finals with a sprained ankle. Unfortunately for Wilt, he didn't have a Magic to lead his teams in his absence.

As for the comment that he touched the ball a handful of times in game seven was absolutely correct. During the course of the regular season the ball would go into Chamberlain about 15 times per quarter. In the second half of game seven, he TOUCHED the ball on the offensive end SEVEN times, and only twice in the 4th quarter, and both of those were offensive rebounds.

It was not up to Wilt to demand the ball, either. As great a coach as Hannum was, he blew it. I found it interesting that in an early season game in '67, against Thurmond, in a first half in which Chamberlain took a couple of shots, Hannum asked his teammates to go into Wilt in the second half. The result? Chamberlain torched a helpless Nate for 24 second half points, en route to yet another triple double. And yet, in their biggest game of the '68 season, he didn't say a word. And again, had Chamberlain demanded the ball, can you imagine the backlash he would have received? The man was undeservedly labeled as selfish early in his career. And in '68 he had led the league in assists. Had he suddenly started throwing up shots, the media would have had a field day.

The bottom line...Wilt couldn't score without the ball. The fact that he only TOUCHED the ball a total of seven times in the second half is all you need to know.

BTW, while Wilt went 4-9 from the floor in that game, his teammates had these stat lines, Greer 8-25 from the field; Wali Jones (who was also playing injured) 8-22; Walker, 8-22; Jackson (also playing injured) 7-17; and Guokas, 2-10. Oh, and Chamberlain, as always, led everyone in rebounding, with 34.

And, for the series, a hobbled Chamberlain, even with those two poor games in six and seven, still averaged 22 ppg, 25 rpg, 7 apg, and shot .487 from the field (one of only two times in his eight post-season series against Russell in which he shot less than .500 BTW...and in a post-season NBA that still only shot .446.)

Furthermore, the Sixers were without HOFer Billy Cunningham that entire series. Factor in that in game five, and leading the series 3-1, and only trailing by two points at the time, both Wali Jones and Luke Jackson suffered leg injuries, and were basically worthless the last two games, as well as Chamberlain playing with his assorted injuries, and it was actually quite amazing that the Sixers only lost a game seven by four points.

Clearly, had the Sixers been healthy in that post-season, and it would have been a repeat of the '67 EDF's, when they destroyed the Celtics, 4-1.

But again, that was Wilt "the Choker" for you. Only Chamberlain would get ripped in a series in which he averaged 22 ppg, led both teams in rebounding and assists, and still easily outplayed Russell in every facet of the game. A Wilt who PLAYED every minute of that series with multiple injuries.

Wilt shot a combined 10-30 (33.3%) from the field and 14-38 (36.8%) from the line in the last 2 games. Bill Russell definitely outplayed Wilt in those final two games and played him at least to a draw in Game 2 and Game 4.

Cunningham's injury is kind of inconsequential because the Sixers took a 3-1 lead without him. The Sixers including Wilt did suffer injuries but Wilt was capable of playing better. How about Game 1 and 5 where he was pretty good? He just dropped the ball in those last two games man. And yes I agree it's not all Wilt 'choking' Russell was also amazingly good.

I will help him out...

Russell put Embry on the hobbled Chamberlain, and the 260 lb Embry did a very solid job against Chamberlain. Russell had pretty much been beaten to a pulp by Wilt to that point, and he "conceded" that he couldn't contain him.

Having said, though, (and I won't bother looking up his numbers before the 63-64 season), here were the Chamberlain-Embry H2H's (granted, Embry was probably not playing a lot of minutes in at least some of them)

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=embrywa01

Clearly, a prime/peak Chamberlain was just trashing ALL of his peers.

Of course, in this particular series, Wilt was playing at far less than 100%, but PLAYING none-the-less (every minute of that series.)

The reason Wayne Embry was defending Wilt was so that Russell could defend Chet Walker who was killing the Celtics. See below.

http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/p...mber/rus0int-1

Was this the 1968 series?

Bill Russell: 1968.

They had gotten up three to one. And the next three games, two of them would be in Philadelphia. So everybody says, "They can't win three games in a row," and I told my team, I says, "We don't have to win three games in a row. We just got to win the next one, then we worry about the next one. If we talk about winning three games, well, that's got nothing to do with anything. All we got to do is win the next one." So we get down to the last game, and we've gotten a two point lead and this is no three point shots, okay? So they fouled me deliberately because I'm the worst free throw shooter on the floor. And I just got to make one free throw and it's over because it's like eight or nine seconds to go in the game. So I get up and I shoot the first one, I clank it. I missed the hell out of it. So I'm sitting there getting ready to shoot the next one. Sam Jones walks up to me and says something to me, then walks away. I shoot, I make the free throw, we win the game. So everybody says, "What did Sam say? Did he tell you how important, how big a shot this was?" No. All Sam said to me was, "Do you know why you missed that free throw?" Why? "You did not flex your knees on the shot. When you flex your knees you're a good free throw shooter. When you don't flex your knees you don't shoot good. So just flex your knees and don't worry about it." Now that's the kind of guy Sam was. On his shots, everything was programmed, so he was not thinking about the importance of the shot, all he was thinking about was how to make the shot.

Before we leave 1968 altogether, can we talk about game seven for a minute? In 1968 you limited your friend Wilt Chamberlain to two shot attempts in the entire second half of game seven.

Bill Russell: That's not true at all. That was a coach's decision. I was the coach, okay? There was an adjustment we had to make.

There was a forward on their team named Chet Walker, and he was hurting us badly, okay? So I had my backup center, it was a guy named Wayne Embry. Now Embry had been in the league seven or eight years, and he played against Wilt all those years. So at half time I said to him, "Wayne, I'm going to try something. It's not new. I want you to guard Wilt. Okay? I have to take care of Chet Walker." And see, when I made that substitution everybody thought it was trying to stay out of foul trouble, something like that, which was to me the best part of that because I made adjustments that they didn't know what I was doing. So they couldn't make a counter adjustment. You see if you make an adjustment, and they know what you're doing, well they can just counter it. But I made an adjustment, they thought it was to get off of Wilt. They didn't know it was to get on Chet. Now Wilt had a game plan, but his game plan was counting on me trying to guard him. When we put Wayne on him, he guarded him a completely different way.

He was used to you guarding him.

Bill Russell: Yes. To me, the pretty part of it was -- I hate to use the word beauty -- is that Wayne had enormous experience guarding him. So it wasn't like you took some guy out of the stands and put him on Wilt. Here's a guy who's been guarding him for years. That adjustment was for Chet Walker, it wasn't for Wilt.

[stanlove1111]

Here again just unresearched opinions...

Wilt, himself, claimed to have felt MUCH better in his 71-72 season, than he had in his 70-71 (and obviously his post-surgery 69-70 season.) Of course, one only need watch game seven of the '70 Finals, and game five of the '72 Finals, both of which are on YouTube, to see it for yourself.

Nothing you posted there has anything to do with what I posted. Read post again.

[Owl]

Wilt shot a combined 10-30 (33.3%) from the field and 14-38 (36.8%) from the line in the last 2 games. Bill Russell definitely outplayed Wilt in those final two games and played him at least to a draw in Game 2 and Game 4.

Cunningham's injury is kind of inconsequential because the Sixers took a 3-1 lead without him. The Sixers including Wilt did suffer injuries but Wilt was capable of playing better. How about Game 1 and 5 where he was pretty good? He just dropped the ball in those last two games man. And yes I agree it's not all Wilt 'choking' Russell was also amazingly good.

Can you explain the link between the Sixers taking a 3-1 lead and Cunningham's absence being unimportant. I don't see it.

With Cunningham the 76ers went 62-20 posting a 7.96 SRS (Boston were 54-28 and 3.87). At with both sides at full strength (this primarily means Cunningham though obviously the 76ers had other injury worries, Boston missed Sanders in game 7) the Warriors would have to be clear cut favourites. That Philly came close is to their credit but I don't see how a 3-1 margin at one point makes Wilt bad.

[dankok8]

Can you explain the link between the Sixers taking a 3-1 lead and Cunningham's absence being unimportant. I don't see it.

With Cunningham the 76ers went 62-20 posting a 7.96 SRS (Boston were 54-28 and 3.87). At with both sides at full strength (this primarily means Cunningham though obviously the 76ers had other injury worries, Boston missed Sanders in game 7) the Warriors would have to be clear cut favourites. That Philly came close is to their credit but I don't see how a 3-1 margin at one point makes Wilt bad.

Not winning after a 3-1 deficit is considered a choke in itself. If one is a truly great player like Wilt was he must have to find a way to close it out somehow. They were one win away from a repeat championship and Wilt didn't show much the fire and killer instinct! I criticize him for playing poorly in Game 6 and 7. Dare I say being unassertive like Lebron in 2011 Finals!

No doubt they would have a better chance with a healthy Cunningham but being up 3-1 at some points suggests they COULD have won without him.