Word: 76ers
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Scratch was the cause of Wilt's itchy feet. Coming up to contract time, he demanded from the Philadelphia 76ers not his usual $250,000 yearly salary but a piece of the team. Philadelphia Owner Irv Kosloff was willing to pay him the salary, but balked at making him a partner, so he traded Wilt to the Los Angeles Lakers, whose owner Jack Kent Cooke did not need a partner either. What Cooke needs is an N.B.A. Championship, so he offered Wilt a five-year contract totaling an estimated $1,500,000. Cooke now owns three superstars: Elgin Baylor...
They were pro basketball's old men, the team the experts wrote off as has-beens after they lost to the Philadelphia 76ers in the National Basketball Association play-offs last year and finished a distant second to the 76ers in the N.B.A.'s Eastern Division this season. Over the long haul, the Boston Celtics might be the most successful team in the history of pro sport, but now they were over the hill. Their coach and center, Bill Russell, was 34. So was Guard Sam Jones. Forward Bailey Howell was 31; Captain John Havlicek was a youngster...
None, apparently. Last month the Celtics spotted Wilt ("The Stilt") Chamberlain and his heavily-favored 76ers a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Eastern Division playoffs, then ran away with three straight games-two of which were played in unfriendly Philadelphia. Last week they capped that performance by trouncing the Western champion Los Angeles Lakers 124-109 on the Lakers' home court, to capture the final playoffs by four games to two, and win their tenth N.B.A. championship in the past twelve years...
...Western team has won the N.B.A. title since 1958, and the Lakers are almost certain to be underdogs against a Boston team that pulled a miracle of its own last week by spotting the Philadelphia 76ers a three-games-to-one lead, bouncing back to win the Eastern Division Playoffs. Pro basketball is a game of momentum, and the Celtics-tired and aging as they may be-have plenty of that. But then so do the Lakers, plus two of pro basketball's deadliest shooters in Elgin Baylor and Jerry West...
John Havlicek and Bailey Howell were the key men for the Celtics, scoring 50 points between them. Howell filled in spectacularly for the injured Satch Sanders, blocking six shots in the second half, including one by Chet Walker that would have brought the '76ers within five points with two minutes left to play...