Back from the Dead Read online

  We ran Kareem’s Lakers out of their gym in the first game, finding a big lead early and never looking back. They couldn’t do anything against our team’s speed, had real trouble even advancing the ball up the court, and had no answer for Maurice.

  Jack Ramsay’s strategy for defending Kareem was brilliant. Pressure the advance of the ball full court, make them use the shot clock in setting up, and ultimately shade them to the right side of the floor, forcing Kareem to come across to the ball, and then if he did take his baseline skyhook, their floor balance was at their weakest. My job was to turn Kareem away from the skyhook, and generally Bobby Gross would come as a help defender after Kareem got into his move, going to his right-shoulder and left-hand options.

  Real changes came about for our team with the addition of Johnny Davis. Teamed with Lionel, he gave us the fastest backcourt in the history of the game. Offensively, all we had to do was throw the ball up the court and Lionel and Johnny would always get to it first. Defensively, the other team could not get the ball up the court because of Lionel’s and Johnny’s in-your-face, lockdown tenacity. The Count from our UCLA press came back into play with our great and tireless fans. The injuries to Lucius Allen and Don Chaney only exacerbated the Lakers’ problems.

  Game 2, still in Los Angeles, was better for them, and not as good for us. Great teams have set rotations, but when a guy is having a big game, you never take him out, running the risk that he might cool off on his own. And that was Lionel that day in L.A. He was on his way to a 40-point day, but late in the third quarter he stumbled into foul trouble and Dr. Jack finally had to take him out. When Lionel went to our bench, he had been the best player in the game to that point, doing everything.

  Without him, we were now on the ropes and fading fast. But then Herm Gilliam rotated in and immediately started playing like a man possessed. He stole every pass, picked off every dribble, got every rebound, and made every shot.

  We went from being down and out to being in complete control, all because of Herm’s brilliance. And it all happened so fast. WHAM! Even though Lionel came back to finish with 31 points and an NBA-record 8 steals, we would not have won that game—and who knows about the series—had it not been for Herm Gilliam that day. And that’s what’s so wonderfully fun about being on a team in a game like basketball—you don’t ever know where that extra boost is going to come from. We loved Herm. He was the oldest guy on our team, with the most experience, and his classically beautiful game was invaluable.

  After winning the first two games in this best-of-seven series in L.A., we knew we had it. We were heading back to Portland, and nothing was going to stop us.

  As our run for the roses that spring was becoming obvious to all, the Blazermaniacs took it to a whole new level. Not only were they overfilling the Coliseum and the Paramount Theatre every night, but they started to come to the airport to send us off and then to meet us on our return.

  Bill Schonely, our beloved TV and radio man, and really the heart and soul of the entire franchise, would announce on the air what our travel schedule would be. And sure enough, huge and ever-growing throngs of fans would show up at the airport. The numbers were staggering. Tens of thousands of people would be there to see us. There was no security at the airports in those days. It probably didn’t cost anything to park—I can’t remember if the airport parking lot was even paved. And everybody came. Each trip, there were more and more people. It was incredible. We had real trouble even getting on and off the plane. I have never seen anything like it. And it made us better and bigger than we actually were.

  The final two games in Portland against Kareem were fun, and tough, and as always against Kareem, you had to be at your best at every moment. The Lakers ended up playing like great champions, but they just didn’t have enough to do anything other than come close. In the closing minutes of the fourth and final game, an exasperated and thoroughly defeated and deflated Prez Ford, ever so tired of the beat-down that had just taken place, finally just wound up and threw the ball at Maurice Lucas. Big Luke just looked sadly and quizzically at Ford, and then the refs. I think the refs threw poor Don out. Who can remember; the game was over and our fans were well into their party. We took both games and moved on.

  * * *

  We faced Philadelphia for the championship, although we had to wait a seeming eternity for them to dispatch Houston and our ex-teammate Moses Malone in the Eastern Finals. While you have no control over your opponents, we knew that Philly was eventually going to get there. They were good. Real good. And we were looking forward to it.

  Jack Ramsay was from Philadelphia. He had grown up there, went to college there at St. Joe’s, met his future wife, Jean, there at a Halloween dance—she mistakenly thought he was wearing a mask. He raised their five children there. He coached at his alma mater, then coached and ran the 76ers himself before moving on to Buffalo and their new franchise.

  But even though Jack had all of his important life’s connections to our next opponent, like Coach Wooden he never brought it up. Never even mentioned it to us. He was there for us, it was not about him, and he was all business.

  Media reports and commentaries had promoted the Philadelphia 76ers all season long as probably the greatest basketball team ever assembled, with the likes of Dr. J, George McGinnis, Doug Collins, Henry Bibby (from our UCLA team), World B. Free, Caldwell Jones, Darryl Dawkins, Steve Mix, Kobe’s dad Joe Bryant, Harvey Catchings, and Mike Dunleavy. They had an excellent coach as well, Gene Shue, who had been a terrific college and NBA player.

  Gene Shue’s specific strategy of having his center Caldwell Jones bring the ball up the court was brilliant for them. So much of our team’s success was our guards’ defensive ability to deny the advance of the ball. That aspect alone was enough to allow us to beat the Lakers. But Philly’s guards were scorers, not setup ball handlers.

  In the opening moments of Game 1, while we were setting our full-court defensive pressure with Lionel and Johnny, Philly’s guards just trotted down the court, and they left Caldwell, at seven feet tall, and my man, to bring it up. Perplexed and confused, I looked over to Jack for some much-needed advice and direction, and he waved me up to try to pressure Caldwell’s dribble.

  It was not pretty. Caldwell gave me a few shimmy shakes, I stumbled, and he went right by me. There was no way that I was going to get low defensively and pressure anybody ninety feet from the hoop—heck, even twenty feet from the hoop. I had not been able to do that since I was fourteen, when I first hurt my knee back at Helix.

  We had to immediately call off our press for the rest of the series, and one of our greatest advantages was now useless. I had never seen Gene Shue so happy. I was terribly embarrassed, and Philadelphia took Game 1.

  There was a four-day gap between the first and second games, but nothing changed on the court, as they pounded us one more time. We could not get anything going at all, and we were demoralized, frustrated, and embarrassed.

  In the closing moments of a game that had long been decided, there was a scrum and scramble for a loose ball that Bobby Gross and Darryl Dawkins both came up with. As the refs came in whistling the play dead and calling for a jump ball, neither Bobby nor Darryl would give it up, and Darryl, the biggest, baddest dude on the court, finally ended up whipping the ball around and slamming Bobby to the hardwood floor. As everyone on the court rushed in to restore order, Bobby popped up and started barking at Darryl, calling him an idiot, jabbing his finger at him, and explaining that it was behavior like this that had earned Darryl the nickname of “Double Dummy Dawkins.”

  Darryl wanted no part of this, so he quickly clenched his fists and wound up to deliver a vicious right cross to Bobby’s little head. I’m not sure if Darryl even knew who Bobby was, or that Bobby was one of the greatest athletes on earth. And so at the same moment Darryl winds up to deliver a knockout punch, his teammate Doug Collins is rushing in to calm things down, and Bobby easily dodges Darryl’s swing, only to have the punch land smack in Collins�
��s jaw, busting open his lip and loosening some teeth.

  As we’re all standing there, not quite sure what to do, Maurice Lucas suddenly realizes that it’s time for him to “take care of this.” He comes in hard, right at Darryl, and WHAM! Big Luke just unloads on the side of Darryl’s head with a punch packing the heat, power, and velocity of a giant meteor crashing to earth.

  All heck breaks loose, and now Luke and Dawkins are going at it. The two titans are now toe-to-toe, fists clenched and raised, and Darryl is closing in on Luke. It’s tense as can be, because most surprising to Darryl, and everyone else but us, Luke is not backing down, and is actually calling him in, as if to say, “Come on, let’s go, big boy.”

  Fans, including Darryl’s brothers, all dressed in patent leather suits with matching hats, are now surging onto the court, all rushing to get to Maurice, who continues to hold his ground against all comers.

  When everybody finally realized that Maurice was very serious, they quickly dropped their fists and looked sheepishly around for the refs to come in and stop this whole bit of nonsense immediately.

  The refs were able to restore order and banish Darryl to the locker room, where he took out his frustrations on the toilets, stalls, and lockers. Imagine how strong Darryl was that he was able to pull and yank toilet fixtures and bathroom stalls off the floor and walls with his bare hands. Meanwhile, we were down by an incalculable margin on the court and quietly finished the game as quickly as we could and limped shamefully out of there.

  In the wild aftermath, there was a lot of talk, all of it from Philadelphia. “This series is over!” Dr. J proclaimed. “We know their plays better than they do.” Dawkins was still incensed that he had not gotten to Maurice, although it must be pointed out that Maurice was there for him and not going anywhere.

  On our end, Jack Ramsay had his finest moment when he solemnly gathered our dejected, dispirited, disheartened, discouraged squad together and told us, “We’ll be fine. Our problems are our own. Guys, we have not played our game in this series. And once we get to playing our game, everything will turn out just fine. Please don’t listen to, believe, or respond to the junk that we’re hearing from the other side. It’s all nonsense. We’re going home, where we don’t lose; our fans will be ready, and the schedule picks up to where we will now have regularly spaced games, no more of this only two games in over two weeks. We’re going to find our rhythm, pace, and fast-break game, and it will all be good. Now let’s pick ourselves up and get going.”

  When we got back to Portland, the incredible outpouring of love and support from our fans did whatever Jack didn’t accomplish with his prophetic words. At the Portland airport, there seemed to be at least twice as many people as could fit in our arena. They were everywhere. There were so many people there as fans that the airport was not functional. They were yelling, screaming, singing, dancing, partying, waving signs, all fired up as can be, and we had just lost both games. They wanted Philadelphia. They wanted Dr. J. And they really wanted Darryl Dawkins.

  Our house and neighborhood in northwest Portland was like a Grateful Dead tour stop; everybody just kept coming, camping in the streets, offering to help put the show on. My older brother, Bruce, recently an offensive lineman with the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, had watched the debacle at the end of Game 2 with many of his teammates. A bunch of really big, tough, and mean-looking guys from Dallas had then flown to Portland to make sure that everything would be OK. I had never seen so many guys who had so many scars on their faces, hands, arms—just everywhere; and all of them with no necks, their muscles bulging straight from the lateral edge of their shoulders all the way to their ears.

  They demanded seats directly behind Philly’s bench.

  It was hard to even get to the first game in Portland, there were so many people in the streets.

  What would Darryl Dawkins do?

  The noise in our place was deafening, and the game wasn’t even close to starting yet.

  When the moment came to introduce the players for the game, we couldn’t hear anything, and no one knew when it was their turn to run out onto the court.

  When they got to our team’s turn, the Blazermaniacs turned it up even louder. It was all white noise. It was extremely loud. It was perfect.

  When they announced Maurice Lucas, the fans brought even more. It was incredibly intense.

  But Maurice, instead of trotting out to our free-throw line the way you always do for pregame introductions, broke from our sideline and suddenly sprinted down the length of the court to Philadelphia’s bench, where the 76ers had circled their wagons. Maurice broke through their perimeter and went straight to Darryl Dawkins and got right in his face, and gently put his hand out with a welcome offer to shake.

  Nobody could believe what was going down.

  Maurice had told no one. I’m not sure if he even knew what he was doing. I never asked him.

  The only thing I know is that it worked. Perfectly. Darryl, and the 76ers, melted on the spot. And they never recovered.

  Maurice had a way about him of making everything and everyone else irrelevant. He was the master of defining the terms of the conflict.

  In Game 3 we were back to being the Blazers that Jack Ramsay had dreamed of: the fast break, the ball movement, the speed and quickness advantage, the skill level, and the fantastic pace of getting up and down the floor and just running the other team out of there.

  Everything that Jack had told us would happen after our dismal performance in the games in Philadelphia came true.

  And our fans kept pushing and driving us for more. And we just kept going.

  And while we had so much going for us, with Jack Ramsay, Maurice Lucas, Lionel, and Johnny in the backcourt, and our incredible fans who would not let us quit or get tired, the ultimate success would not have come without Bobby Gross, who by the end had outplayed the incomparable Dr. J.

  Now, Dr. J had the numbers. He had the highlight plays. He had the incredible throwdowns, mostly in my face.

  But you name it, and Bobby Gross did it. He ran, back-cut, passed, rebounded, deflected passes, moved without the ball, spaced the floor, defended, fought through screens, selflessly sacrificed for the good of the team, scored in every way imaginable, anticipated the future, and showed us the way there.

  By the end, Bobby had set an NBA Finals record for field goal percentage in a series—a record that still stands today.

  And his job was never easy. Through that year’s playoff run, the guys he was individually matched up against—in succession—were Chicago’s Scott May, Denver’s David Thompson, L.A.’s Cazzie Russell, and finally Dr. J. All legends. All champions. But we had Bobby Gross. And he outplayed every one of them.

  * * *

  Games 3 and 4 of the Finals were over early. We were back to our game, in our town, in our gym, and there was nothing anybody could do to slow us down.

  Game 5 was what you live for as a player and team. Back in Philadelphia, they thought it would be a different story. But Bob Gross didn’t let up—he was brilliant. We controlled the game from the outset, although they made a faux run late to make the score seem more respectable than it really was.

  As a player, in a big game on the road, you want the other team’s fans to boo, hiss, and be angry. When they turn that ire on their own team, you’ve done your job. Through much of the second half, the Philadelphia fans alternated between yelling and booing at their own players, sitting on their hands in stunned silence, crying in their beer, and eventually walking out early.

  We still needed one more game. We knew this was ours, but we still had to bring it, and our fans were not going to leave anything to chance.

  The scene upon our arrival back in Portland was over the top, even by the standards that our fans had been setting on a game-by-game basis. The entire state of Oregon had come together to be a part of this.

  The final Sunday day game started early, just the way we liked it.

  Get up. Eat. Get going. Let’s play.
r />   And play we did. We had comfortable leads for big parts of the game. And we were fortunate to have just gotten a still-hobbled Dave Twardzik back from his severely sprained ankle from the Denver series. He gave us a spark, but Philadelphia also came to play. For the first time in the series, really, both teams played well at the same time. They closed the gap and had the chance to tie it up on the game’s final possession. But our defense shut them down. And when Johnny Davis grabbed a long ball and ran away with his dribble in the closing seconds, nobody was ever going to catch him.

  The clock ticked down, and the championship was ours. We became the youngest team in the history of the NBA to win the championship. Maurice and I were twenty-four. Lionel and Bobby were twenty-two. Johnny was twenty.

  It was perfect.

  As the buzzer sounded, the Blazermaniacs stormed the court. I stripped off my jersey and threw it into the oncoming crowd. The party was just getting started.

  * * *

  In the four decades since that moment, I have regularly come into contact with people who approach me with a look of pride, awe, and affection. And their quiet, simple words are always eerily the same. “I was there,” they whisper. And that’s all that need be said to solidify the bond of something that was truly special—for all of us.

  The celebration started on the court but quickly moved to the locker room, and I’m not sure if or when it ever ended. We forgot about time.

  I have a wonderful picture in our house, and in my mind, of the moment when NBA commissioner Larry O’Brien presented the championship trophy to our team in a euphoric lovefest. As most of the guys reached out and up to touch our title trophy ball, I instead reached out and placed my hand on Jack Ramsay’s head. I knew where the real prize and enduring treasure was.