It’s not a stretch to say the 2024 NBA title is the Boston Celtics’ to lose. Up 2-0 on the Mavericks as the NBA Finals shift to Dallas for Wednesday’s Game 3, Boston is in a position from which teams historically have a 28-5 record — meaning they win the championship about 85% of the time. And if you factor in how good the Celtics have been all season long, those odds should probably be even higher.
But even a 28-5 record means there is a handful of cautionary tales that should warn Boston against counting its rings too early. And one of those five losses hits home for Philly fans in particular — because it belongs to the star-studded 76ers squad that blew a 2-0 lead to the Portland Trail Blazers in the 1977 NBA Finals.
Led by Julius Erving, the ‘77 Sixers won 50 games during the regular season and went into the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. On top of the 27.3 points per game provided by a prime Dr. J. in the playoffs, they got 22.4 a night from 25-year-old guard Doug Collins — who had put the finishing touches on his second consecutive All-Star campaign — plus additional contributions from ex-ABA MVP George McGinnis, explosive combo guard Lloyd “World B.” Free, solid point man Henry Bibby, former All-Star forward Steve Mix, and the tandem of Caldwell Jones and a young Darryl “Chocolate Thunder” Dawkins at center.
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In short, this team had some names, and it could play some serious ball, too. In the first round of the playoffs, Philly knocked off the defending champion Celtics — a team with four Hall of Famers itself — in a back-and-forth seven-game series in which every game except for two was decided by single digits. In the conference finals against future Sixers legend Moses Malone and the Houston Rockets (who spent most of the ‘70s in the East), Erving soared with 28.3 points per game and the Sixers built a 3-1 lead before closing out Game 6 in Houston.
Waiting for them in the NBA Finals? The West’s No. 3-seeded Portland Trail Blazers — and their big, redheaded, multitalented center Bill Walton.
At just 24, Walton was runner-up to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the MVP voting that season; he then helped Portland sweep Kareem and the Lakers in the West finals. Philadelphia knew it needed to be wary of Walton’s all-around impact for a team that had led the league in point differential during the regular season. But still, the Sixers were betting favorites (-160) going into the Finals because of their overall star power and veteran experience, as compared with a Blazers roster that was tied for the youngest in the NBA.
That seemed to be proved in the first two games of the series, both of which were taken by the Sixers at the Spectrum. Everything was clicking for Philly: Erving and Collins combined for an efficient 55 points per game, Bibby was running the offense with 12.5 points and 7.0 assists, and Jones was hitting the glass for an average of 12.5 boards. Just as importantly, the Sixers defense was short-circuiting Portland’s offensive flow, forcing Walton to primarily be a scorer (22.5 points) rather than playing the high-post passing hub role in which he usually thrived.
With Walton averaging just 2.5 assists through the first two games of the series, Portland was held to its worst offensive outing of the entire 1976-77 season in Game 2′s 107-89 loss, which put the Blazers in an 0-2 hole not unlike what the Mavs are facing right now. With their season hanging in the balance, Dr. Jack Ramsay — who had coached the Sixers earlier in the decade but could never escape the shadow of the 1967 championship powerhouse led by predecessor Alex Hannum — needed his Blazers to regroup.
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Starting with its homestand in Games 3 and 4, Portland renewed its focus on the selfless ball movement that had come to define an offense built by longtime Ramsay assistant Jack McKinney (who would later help Paul Westhead craft the Lakers’ “Showtime” offense).
Walton averaged 6.5 assists over the remainder of the series, to go with 19.5 rebounds and 16.5 points, as four other Blazers — Bob Gross, Maurice Lucas, Johnny Davis, and Lionel Hollins — averaged at least 12 points while handling more of the scoring load. The Blazers went from averaging 86.1 points per 100 possessions with a 46.7% true shooting rate in Games 1-2 to 104.5 points per 100 and 54.9% true shooting in Games 3-6, overwhelming the Sixers defense with their efficiency and execution.
And at the other end of the court, the Blazers changed how they approached defending the freewheeling, one-on-one style of the Philly offense. As David Halberstam notes in his book about the 1970s Blazers, The Breaks of the Game, Ramsay shifted from asking Gross to force Erving to his left — which made it harder for Walton to slide over in help defense — and instead had Gross funnel Erving to his right. Despite Dr. J. being a natural right-hander, this change actually improved Walton’s angle to the ball to help, making Erving’s life more difficult on his many drives to the basket.
It was also clear that Portland’s defense was hell-bent on making Dr. J. beat the Blazers single-handedly at any cost.
“He changed everything we tried to do,” McGinnis said of Walton after the Finals ended.
Four consecutive Portland wins later, Philly could only wonder where its commanding 2-0 lead — and an all-but-assured championship — had gone. It had evaporated in the span of eight days and three cross-country flights that changed the entire trajectory of the 1976-77 season.
Like those ‘77 Sixers, Boston is looking good after two games of the Finals. Like Ramsay and the Blazers, coach Jason Kidd and the Mavs will need to make serious adjustments if they’re going to become the sixth team to overcome a 2-0 deficit and win the title anyway. It’s easier said than done; there’s a reason the vast majority of teams in the Celtics’ position go on to become champions. But a huge comeback can still happen from here — or an epic collapse, if you’re looking at it from Philadelphia’s perspective 47 years ago.
