1975 NBA Finals
The 1975 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the 1974–75 NBA season of the National Basketball Association. The Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors played against the Eastern Conference champion Washington Bullets for the championship. The series was played under a best-of-seven format. The underdog Warriors won in four games, sweeping the heavily-favored Bullets to take the title. Warriors small forward Rick Barry was named as the series MVP.
The Warriors' home games were played at the Cow Palace in Daly City due to scheduling conflicts at their normal home court of Oakland Arena during the week of May 19–26. In addition, an odd scheduling format had to be used because Golden State could not secure the Cow Palace for Memorial Day Weekend. A Sports Illustrated article about the series reported that Washington, which held home court advantage, was given the option of a 1-2-2-1-1 scheduling format due to Golden State's problems or, if they wished, opening on the road and then having Games 2, 3, and 4 at home. Washington opted for the 1-2-2-1-1 format not out of a sense of fairness, but because they wanted to open the series at home.
The series is notable as it was the first championship game or series in any of the four North American major professional sports leagues to feature two African American head coaches or managers, as Al Attles coached the Warriors and K. C. Jones coached the Bullets. On a lesser note, it was the first time that the NBA ever scheduled a game to be played in the month of June. The first June game to actually be played was Game 4 of the following year's finals.
Background
Golden State Warriors
The Golden State Warriors last made the NBA Finals in, when they were still in San Francisco. In the years since, they moved to Oakland, briefly lost Rick Barry to the American Basketball Association, and named Warriors great Al Attles as head coach. Before the start of the 1974–75 season they traded future Hall of Famer Nate Thurmond to the Chicago Bulls for young center Clifford Ray. They also drafted Jamaal Wilkes, then known as Keith Wilkes, out of UCLA. With Barry as the offensive leader, and with Attles using a team approach to coaching, the Warriors managed to finish the season atop the Western Conference with 48 wins. In the playoffs, they defeated the Seattle SuperSonics in six games, then eliminated Thurmond and the Bulls in seven games to advance to the Finals.Washington Bullets
The Washington Bullets were in their second season in the Washington Metropolitan Area, having moved from Baltimore prior to the 1973–74 season. The Bullets, led by Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes, and coached by K. C. Jones, won 60 games that season, then overcame the Buffalo Braves and the defending champion Boston Celtics in seven and six games, respectively. The Bullets franchise headed to their second NBA Finals appearance, the last of which was a sweep by the Milwaukee Bucks in.Road to the Finals
Regular season series
Washington won the regular season series 3–1.Series Summary
Golden State wins the series, 4-0.This was the first time in NBA Finals history in which the team who did not have home court advantage swept the series. This has happened only one time since, in 1995, when the Houston Rockets swept the Orlando Magic.
Game 1
Opting to open the series at home, the Bullets built a 14-point lead at the half over the Warriors at the Capital Centre. The Warriors began to storm back, with Phil Smith coming off the bench to score 20 points in 31 minutes of playing time, as Golden State took the first game, 101–95.Game 2
Instead of their familiar Oakland Coliseum Arena, the Warriors were forced to play their first two scheduled home games of the series at the nearby Cow Palace. The Bullets jumped to an early 13-point lead, but Golden State battled back, led by 36 points from Rick Barry, to take a 92–91 lead in the closing seconds. Washington got the ball back with six seconds left but missed two shots and now were down 2–0.Game 3
Rick Barry poured in 38 points and backup center George Johnson had 10 points and nine rebounds off the bench to help the Warriors to a key Game 3 109–101 win.Two major factors enabling the Warriors to take an insurmountable lead were the defensive play of the seemingly undersized Jamaal Wilkes on Bullets' power forward Elvin Hayes and the play of the Warrior bench. In three games, Hayes had only 29 points and the Warriors' bench players had outscored the Bullets' reserves 115-53.
Game 4
Back at home, the Bullets seemed to be on their way to staving off an unexpected sweep by the underdog Warriors, leading by 14 points early on. Bullets forward Mike Riordan was assigned to guard Barry, who had killed the Bullets in the series up to that point by averaging 35 points a game. Riordan played Barry very physically, arousing the ire of Warriors' coach Al Attles. Midway through the first quarter, Barry went on a drive to the basket and was fouled hard from behind by Riordan. Barry reacted with a shove, but Attles bolted onto the court and initiated a fight of his own with Riordan, thereby protecting his star player from an ejection and getting ejected himself. The remainder of the game was directed by assistant coach Joe Roberts.The Bullets controlled the game and led most of the way, leading by as many as eight in the fourth quarter at 90-82 after a Riordan drive and layup where he injured his ankle. Bullets coach K.C. Jones pulled Riordan and sent in little-used Dick Gibbs, with Nick Weatherspoon mired in a shooting slump. Barry and Hayes exchanged baskets, keeping the Bullets up by eight at 92-84. After a Jamaal Wilkes basket, Kevin Porter missed a pair of free throws and Butch Beard hit a jumper to cut the Bullet lead to four at 92-88. Porter then threw away an easy pass on the Bullets' next trip, and Wilkes canned a jumper to cut it to two at 92-90. Porter missed a layup, and then Wilkes hit a rebound basket to tie the score. Hayes, who had only 15 points, then hit one of two to give the lead back to the Bullets. Beard answered with a drive and basket to give the Warriors a 94-93 lead. Unseld then threw away an easy bounce pass to give the ball back to the Warriors with 1:26 left. With 1:08 left, Barry put up a jumper and missed, and Hayes hit a wide-open Gibbs with an outlet pass, but Gibbs blew the layup. The Warriors turned the ball over on a 24-second violation with 33 seconds left, but the Bullets gave it back to them after a timeout when Unseld fumbled an inbounds pass into the backcourt. Beard then hit one of two, then one of three to give the Warriors their final margin.
Aftermath
The Washington Bullets would re-appear in the NBA Finals in 1978 and 1979 against the Seattle SuperSonics, with a series win in seven games and a series loss in five games respectively.The Golden State Warriors would only win their next championship 40 years later in 2015 against the Cleveland Cavaliers in six games, ending the longest drought between championships in NBA history. They would make four more Finals appearances after that and won the championship in and.