SWC75
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February
“These fellows are in a slump”
The “Zollners” showed the Nats why they had the league’s best record on 2/3/55 in Fort Wayne. They were missing two of their key players, George Yardley and Andy Phillip, but easily handled the Nats, 85-104 anyway. Schayes, still hobbled with his leg injury, scored only 5 points while Earl Lloyd was shut out. Billy Kenville led the Nats with 18 points. The Pistons broke away from a 28-28 tie to take a 50-40 halftime lead and then scored the first seven points of the second half. The Nats never got within 8 after that. The home team put 6 men in double figures and made a phenominal 36 of 38 free throws. The Pistons were now riding high at 32-18, (they had already played a couple of February games), compared to the National’s lusterless 25-22 record. There seemed to be little doubt as to who the league’s best team was.
But the bottom had not yet been reached: it was in Boston the next night as Red Auerbach was able to light up one of his victory cigars while looking at a scoreboard that said his Celtics had handled the Nats, 88-114. 10,274 fans saw the blow out, 2-3 times what the Nats were drawing. Billy Kenville and Red Rocha had 21 points each but it wasn’t nearly enough. The record fell to 25-23, including 16 losses in the last 27 games. Cervi told Biasone “We’re gone. These fellows are in a slump and we can’t shake it. On top of that we’re tired. He told friends that this was “His worst year in basketball.”
At this point, the team held a meeting before the next day’s game in Rochester. Cervi’s summary of the encounter was that the team had decided to concentrate of defense. “Let’s get together and play both ends of the court and let the shots fall where they may. Don’t look for one man but rather for the easy shot. David Ramsey wrote: “Cervi, a pessimist by nature, worked best under adversity. Then, his players listened to his ‘voice of doom’. Then he could push them and mold them into the team he wanted. The Nats became almost exactly what he wanted during the winter of 1954-55. They would finish second to last in the league in scoring and shooting percentage but as a unit they were one of the better defensive teams in the history of the NBA. From here on, the Nats would close out the regular season on an 18-6 run, playing the style and quality of ball that would make them champions.
“Let’s play together at both ends of the court”
It began with a 94-88 victory over the Royals. Cervi used only 6 men most of the way, not using Farley or Tucker at all and Kenville for only a few minutes early one- he didn’t score. This may have been an indication of who Cervi felt he could count on, although Kenville had been playing well recently. The six guys he used were all in double figures, led by Paul Seymour with 22 points. The Nats used an 11-0 run to overcome a 27-31 deficit and led the rest of the way, by as many as 13 points.
The next night, (2/6), the Nats beat the Knicks, 77-75. Schayes had another off night with only 8 points but Johnny Kerr, who was getting more playing time with Simmons out, had 24 and George King 21. 6-11 220 Ray Felix scored to make it 73-76 late in the fame. After a free throw by King, Felix bobbled the ball and batted it into the air. Crazily, it went right through the hoop with 27 seconds left. The Nats used up the entire 24 second clock before Seymour missed. The Knicks got the ball to Felix for a buzzer shot but he missed.
The Nats were now a game ahead of the second place Celtics and the next two games were against them in New York and Boston. Syracuse won, 115-88 in New York, almost exactly reversing the score of 2/4. But Red Auerbach was missing three key players, “Easy” Ed McCauley, Bill Sharman and Frank Ramsey. Bob Cousy scored 24 and 6-7 Jack Nichols, (the Celtic’s power forward before they got Tom Heinsohn), scored 22 but Schayes had 27 while Seymour and King scored 19 each.
The Celtics got revenge the next night in Boston with a 94-104 win. McCauley was back but scored only 9 points and Sharman and Ramsey were still out. But Cousy scored 33 and Don Barksdale 22 to lead the home team to victory. The Nats had six men in double figures but none had more than George King’s 19. The Celtics made 34 of 37 free throws. Still, the Nats lead in the standings, 28-24 vs. 27-25.
“All those backslappers”
The Nats returned home to win a rare victory over the Lakers, 85-81. After a 25-16 first period they had only four baskets in each of the 2nd and 3rd periods. An Earl Lloyd basket broke an 81-81 tie and Schayes, who had 21, scored with three seconds left to clinch it. Johnny Kerr led the team with 22, but could not stop big Clyde Lovellette from scoring 26. It was “Wally Osterkorn Night” and the scrappy forward was given some $3,000 in cash, $1000.00 from the club and $2,000 from the fans and friends, as well as sundry gifts and a $100.00 savings bond. That meant a lot in those days. Osterkorn later told Neil Isaacs, in his book, “Vintage NBA”, that when he retired after this season “All those backslappers when I was playing didn’t know me after I was through playing. He wound up working construction, laying sidewalks and covering pipes with asbestos. But his playing career wasn’t quite over.
Billy Gabor’s was. He announced his retirement on 2/13, the day after the Nats crushed Milwaukee, 92-66 in the War Memorial on National TV. Frank Selvy was not available due to an illness in the family. It was the first time the Nats had won a national TV game in six tries. The Nats shot a then phenomenal 50% from the field. Seymour again led with 22 points. It was 44-22 at halftime. The Hawks were totally punchless, Bob Pettit being held to 6 points. His fellow Hall-of-Famer, Dolph Schayes had 17.The Nats celebrated Al Cervi’s 38th birthday by making numerous steals and blocked shots and forcing three shot clock violations, which much have warmed the coach’s heart.
The next day the Nats nipped the Royals again, in Rochester, 88-87. Schayes, Seymour and Johnny Kerr each had 20. Cervi stepped out of character, praising Kerr to Jack Slattery: “I can’t say too much about the guy. In my book he’s the rookie of the year in the NBA”. (Bob Pettit would later win that award). The Nats led by as much as 15 points and 86-76 with 2:22 to play when the Royals put on a final rush. Red Rocha who had missed 6 shots from close in that went around and out and actually had to be consoled by Cervi on the bench, hit a difficult hook shot with forty seconds left, none of them on the 24 second clock, to push the margin to 88-84. With four seconds left Art Spoelstra made a free throw and then missed the second. Jack Coleman dunked it in but the Nats held the ball for the last four seconds.
The Nationals then moved on to Toledo where they again beat the Hawks, 82-81, their seventh win in 8 games. Trailing 73-75 with three minutes left, Cervi went to an unusual line-up with four big men, putting the 6-8 Schayes, , 6-9 Rocha and Kerr and Lloyd, (who was only 6-6 but weighed 220) in the game at the same time, with “little Georgie King”. (6-0), as the only guard. He did it because Billy Kenville was sick, (the paper did not explain why Seymour wasn’t in there). Whatever, it worked. All five of those guys scored between 14-17 points. The Nat’s record was starting look better: 32-24, 2 ½ games ahead of the now second place Knicks and 3 ½ games behind Fort Wayne who at 36-21 had cooled off somewhat.
“We’d need a police escort”
It was a grand time at the War Memorial on February 17, 1955, as the Nats blew out the hated Celtics, 107-93 in a game that wasn’t nearly that close. 3,602 fans saw the home team blow out to a 56-37 halftime lead. They didn’t stop there, pushing it out to an amazing 77-45 margin before the Celtics had a too-little-too late comeback to make it respectable. Unlike the Celtic team that the Nats handled in New York, this team was full strength. Cousy had 21, McCauley 18, Sharman 17 and Frank Ramsey had 8. It wasn’t nearly enough. Syracuse had five guys with at least 15 points, led by Schayes with 29. The only thing that marred the game was excessive fouling down the stretch, what Cervi decried as the Celtic “holding tactics”, which he said resulted injuries to both Dolph Schayes and Johnny Kerr. Particularly active was Bob Brannum, who “managed to smash Schayes a couple of times”. Dolph suffered a thigh injury and Kerr hurt his left heal. “If we ever played that kind of game in Boston, we’d need a police escort out of the building”, said Cervi.
Schayes and Kerr didn’t even have time to get treated in Syracuse. Arrangements were made for them to be looked at the YMCA in Philadelphia, where the Warriors awaited the next night. The team wasn’t up to the challenge: the Warriors sent them packing with a 86-110 defeat. This one was 41-62 at the half. Schayes and Kerr were patched up well enough to score 22 points each but Neil Johnston, whom the nationals could never seem to stop, scored 35, 29 in the first half.
Next stop was New York where the Nats played the second place Knicks, not in Madison Square Garden but at the 69th Regiment Armory. There came the most dramatic ending of the regular season. Reserve Dick Farley took an inbounds pass with 3 seconds left and sank a 30 footer to win the game 80-78. Farley scored 14 points off the bench and Jim Tucker added 10.This was important as Dolph Schayes fouled out with only 12 points. Both teams then traveled to Syracuse to play in the War Memorial on Sunday, 2/20. A crowd of over 7,000, (current capacity is listed as 6,230), saw the Nats crush their nearest pursuers, 104-84, thanks to a 58-40 second half. Schayes led with 28 but Knicks coach Joe Lapchick praised the Syracuse rookies, Kerr, Farley and Tucker, who he pronounced “the finest in the league”. Tucker had 12 points and 10 rebounds. This game also featured the brief comeback of Wally Osterkorn, who managed a basket- the one that got Syracuse to the century mark. These games left the Nats in command of the Eastern Division at 35-25 compared to the Knicks 30-28. There was already talk of a “magic number”, (the season was only 72 games in those days). Perhaps more importantly, the Nats record was approaching that of the Pistons, who had slumped to 37-23. The divisional winner with the best record would have home field advantage in the final and the Pistons had never won a game in Syracuse.
Suddenly a “magic number”
Amid all this optimism the Celtics beat the Nats, 95-97 as part of a Madison Square Garden doubleheader before 15,535 fans, as many as would be seen in the War Memorial in 3-4 games. Bob Cousy made a driving lay-up with 4 seconds left to win the thriller. The Nats had erased an 8 point deficit to tie with 20 seconds left. Johnny Kerr scored a career-high, (to date) 28 points and Schayes added 24 but it wasn’t enough as Cousy scored 23 and McCauley 25.
The Nats got back on track by beating Rochester, 97-83 at home on 2/25. They had an incredible 8 players in double figures, led by Schayes with 17. Les Harrison admitted after the game that he’d stayed with the players who had won the 1951 title a bit too long. It must have warmed Danny Biasone’s heart to see the Nats surpass Harrison’s team, remembering the days when the NBL champion Royals couldn’t even be persuaded to come to Syracuse for an exhibition game.
The Nats ended the month with a 105-77 home destruction of the Warriors. A 29-11 second quarter pushed the Nats to an insurmountable 54-29 halftime lead. Cervi wound up the game with a line-up of Johnny Kerr, Jim Tucker, Wally Osterkorn, Dick Farley and Billy Kenville. Schayes only scored 8 but Paul Seymour led the scoring with 24. The Nats were now 37-26 with 9 games to go, the now second place Celtics five games behind at 31-30, (the magic number was now 6), and the Pistons 40-24.
“These fellows are in a slump”
The “Zollners” showed the Nats why they had the league’s best record on 2/3/55 in Fort Wayne. They were missing two of their key players, George Yardley and Andy Phillip, but easily handled the Nats, 85-104 anyway. Schayes, still hobbled with his leg injury, scored only 5 points while Earl Lloyd was shut out. Billy Kenville led the Nats with 18 points. The Pistons broke away from a 28-28 tie to take a 50-40 halftime lead and then scored the first seven points of the second half. The Nats never got within 8 after that. The home team put 6 men in double figures and made a phenominal 36 of 38 free throws. The Pistons were now riding high at 32-18, (they had already played a couple of February games), compared to the National’s lusterless 25-22 record. There seemed to be little doubt as to who the league’s best team was.
But the bottom had not yet been reached: it was in Boston the next night as Red Auerbach was able to light up one of his victory cigars while looking at a scoreboard that said his Celtics had handled the Nats, 88-114. 10,274 fans saw the blow out, 2-3 times what the Nats were drawing. Billy Kenville and Red Rocha had 21 points each but it wasn’t nearly enough. The record fell to 25-23, including 16 losses in the last 27 games. Cervi told Biasone “We’re gone. These fellows are in a slump and we can’t shake it. On top of that we’re tired. He told friends that this was “His worst year in basketball.”
At this point, the team held a meeting before the next day’s game in Rochester. Cervi’s summary of the encounter was that the team had decided to concentrate of defense. “Let’s get together and play both ends of the court and let the shots fall where they may. Don’t look for one man but rather for the easy shot. David Ramsey wrote: “Cervi, a pessimist by nature, worked best under adversity. Then, his players listened to his ‘voice of doom’. Then he could push them and mold them into the team he wanted. The Nats became almost exactly what he wanted during the winter of 1954-55. They would finish second to last in the league in scoring and shooting percentage but as a unit they were one of the better defensive teams in the history of the NBA. From here on, the Nats would close out the regular season on an 18-6 run, playing the style and quality of ball that would make them champions.
“Let’s play together at both ends of the court”
It began with a 94-88 victory over the Royals. Cervi used only 6 men most of the way, not using Farley or Tucker at all and Kenville for only a few minutes early one- he didn’t score. This may have been an indication of who Cervi felt he could count on, although Kenville had been playing well recently. The six guys he used were all in double figures, led by Paul Seymour with 22 points. The Nats used an 11-0 run to overcome a 27-31 deficit and led the rest of the way, by as many as 13 points.
The next night, (2/6), the Nats beat the Knicks, 77-75. Schayes had another off night with only 8 points but Johnny Kerr, who was getting more playing time with Simmons out, had 24 and George King 21. 6-11 220 Ray Felix scored to make it 73-76 late in the fame. After a free throw by King, Felix bobbled the ball and batted it into the air. Crazily, it went right through the hoop with 27 seconds left. The Nats used up the entire 24 second clock before Seymour missed. The Knicks got the ball to Felix for a buzzer shot but he missed.
The Nats were now a game ahead of the second place Celtics and the next two games were against them in New York and Boston. Syracuse won, 115-88 in New York, almost exactly reversing the score of 2/4. But Red Auerbach was missing three key players, “Easy” Ed McCauley, Bill Sharman and Frank Ramsey. Bob Cousy scored 24 and 6-7 Jack Nichols, (the Celtic’s power forward before they got Tom Heinsohn), scored 22 but Schayes had 27 while Seymour and King scored 19 each.
The Celtics got revenge the next night in Boston with a 94-104 win. McCauley was back but scored only 9 points and Sharman and Ramsey were still out. But Cousy scored 33 and Don Barksdale 22 to lead the home team to victory. The Nats had six men in double figures but none had more than George King’s 19. The Celtics made 34 of 37 free throws. Still, the Nats lead in the standings, 28-24 vs. 27-25.
“All those backslappers”
The Nats returned home to win a rare victory over the Lakers, 85-81. After a 25-16 first period they had only four baskets in each of the 2nd and 3rd periods. An Earl Lloyd basket broke an 81-81 tie and Schayes, who had 21, scored with three seconds left to clinch it. Johnny Kerr led the team with 22, but could not stop big Clyde Lovellette from scoring 26. It was “Wally Osterkorn Night” and the scrappy forward was given some $3,000 in cash, $1000.00 from the club and $2,000 from the fans and friends, as well as sundry gifts and a $100.00 savings bond. That meant a lot in those days. Osterkorn later told Neil Isaacs, in his book, “Vintage NBA”, that when he retired after this season “All those backslappers when I was playing didn’t know me after I was through playing. He wound up working construction, laying sidewalks and covering pipes with asbestos. But his playing career wasn’t quite over.
Billy Gabor’s was. He announced his retirement on 2/13, the day after the Nats crushed Milwaukee, 92-66 in the War Memorial on National TV. Frank Selvy was not available due to an illness in the family. It was the first time the Nats had won a national TV game in six tries. The Nats shot a then phenomenal 50% from the field. Seymour again led with 22 points. It was 44-22 at halftime. The Hawks were totally punchless, Bob Pettit being held to 6 points. His fellow Hall-of-Famer, Dolph Schayes had 17.The Nats celebrated Al Cervi’s 38th birthday by making numerous steals and blocked shots and forcing three shot clock violations, which much have warmed the coach’s heart.
The next day the Nats nipped the Royals again, in Rochester, 88-87. Schayes, Seymour and Johnny Kerr each had 20. Cervi stepped out of character, praising Kerr to Jack Slattery: “I can’t say too much about the guy. In my book he’s the rookie of the year in the NBA”. (Bob Pettit would later win that award). The Nats led by as much as 15 points and 86-76 with 2:22 to play when the Royals put on a final rush. Red Rocha who had missed 6 shots from close in that went around and out and actually had to be consoled by Cervi on the bench, hit a difficult hook shot with forty seconds left, none of them on the 24 second clock, to push the margin to 88-84. With four seconds left Art Spoelstra made a free throw and then missed the second. Jack Coleman dunked it in but the Nats held the ball for the last four seconds.
The Nationals then moved on to Toledo where they again beat the Hawks, 82-81, their seventh win in 8 games. Trailing 73-75 with three minutes left, Cervi went to an unusual line-up with four big men, putting the 6-8 Schayes, , 6-9 Rocha and Kerr and Lloyd, (who was only 6-6 but weighed 220) in the game at the same time, with “little Georgie King”. (6-0), as the only guard. He did it because Billy Kenville was sick, (the paper did not explain why Seymour wasn’t in there). Whatever, it worked. All five of those guys scored between 14-17 points. The Nat’s record was starting look better: 32-24, 2 ½ games ahead of the now second place Knicks and 3 ½ games behind Fort Wayne who at 36-21 had cooled off somewhat.
“We’d need a police escort”
It was a grand time at the War Memorial on February 17, 1955, as the Nats blew out the hated Celtics, 107-93 in a game that wasn’t nearly that close. 3,602 fans saw the home team blow out to a 56-37 halftime lead. They didn’t stop there, pushing it out to an amazing 77-45 margin before the Celtics had a too-little-too late comeback to make it respectable. Unlike the Celtic team that the Nats handled in New York, this team was full strength. Cousy had 21, McCauley 18, Sharman 17 and Frank Ramsey had 8. It wasn’t nearly enough. Syracuse had five guys with at least 15 points, led by Schayes with 29. The only thing that marred the game was excessive fouling down the stretch, what Cervi decried as the Celtic “holding tactics”, which he said resulted injuries to both Dolph Schayes and Johnny Kerr. Particularly active was Bob Brannum, who “managed to smash Schayes a couple of times”. Dolph suffered a thigh injury and Kerr hurt his left heal. “If we ever played that kind of game in Boston, we’d need a police escort out of the building”, said Cervi.
Schayes and Kerr didn’t even have time to get treated in Syracuse. Arrangements were made for them to be looked at the YMCA in Philadelphia, where the Warriors awaited the next night. The team wasn’t up to the challenge: the Warriors sent them packing with a 86-110 defeat. This one was 41-62 at the half. Schayes and Kerr were patched up well enough to score 22 points each but Neil Johnston, whom the nationals could never seem to stop, scored 35, 29 in the first half.
Next stop was New York where the Nats played the second place Knicks, not in Madison Square Garden but at the 69th Regiment Armory. There came the most dramatic ending of the regular season. Reserve Dick Farley took an inbounds pass with 3 seconds left and sank a 30 footer to win the game 80-78. Farley scored 14 points off the bench and Jim Tucker added 10.This was important as Dolph Schayes fouled out with only 12 points. Both teams then traveled to Syracuse to play in the War Memorial on Sunday, 2/20. A crowd of over 7,000, (current capacity is listed as 6,230), saw the Nats crush their nearest pursuers, 104-84, thanks to a 58-40 second half. Schayes led with 28 but Knicks coach Joe Lapchick praised the Syracuse rookies, Kerr, Farley and Tucker, who he pronounced “the finest in the league”. Tucker had 12 points and 10 rebounds. This game also featured the brief comeback of Wally Osterkorn, who managed a basket- the one that got Syracuse to the century mark. These games left the Nats in command of the Eastern Division at 35-25 compared to the Knicks 30-28. There was already talk of a “magic number”, (the season was only 72 games in those days). Perhaps more importantly, the Nats record was approaching that of the Pistons, who had slumped to 37-23. The divisional winner with the best record would have home field advantage in the final and the Pistons had never won a game in Syracuse.
Suddenly a “magic number”
Amid all this optimism the Celtics beat the Nats, 95-97 as part of a Madison Square Garden doubleheader before 15,535 fans, as many as would be seen in the War Memorial in 3-4 games. Bob Cousy made a driving lay-up with 4 seconds left to win the thriller. The Nats had erased an 8 point deficit to tie with 20 seconds left. Johnny Kerr scored a career-high, (to date) 28 points and Schayes added 24 but it wasn’t enough as Cousy scored 23 and McCauley 25.
The Nats got back on track by beating Rochester, 97-83 at home on 2/25. They had an incredible 8 players in double figures, led by Schayes with 17. Les Harrison admitted after the game that he’d stayed with the players who had won the 1951 title a bit too long. It must have warmed Danny Biasone’s heart to see the Nats surpass Harrison’s team, remembering the days when the NBL champion Royals couldn’t even be persuaded to come to Syracuse for an exhibition game.
The Nats ended the month with a 105-77 home destruction of the Warriors. A 29-11 second quarter pushed the Nats to an insurmountable 54-29 halftime lead. Cervi wound up the game with a line-up of Johnny Kerr, Jim Tucker, Wally Osterkorn, Dick Farley and Billy Kenville. Schayes only scored 8 but Paul Seymour led the scoring with 24. The Nats were now 37-26 with 9 games to go, the now second place Celtics five games behind at 31-30, (the magic number was now 6), and the Pistons 40-24.
