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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 2273455, member: 289"] [I]All of a sudden, it’s not there[/I] That loss to Cincinnati, (the seventh game 127-131 in OT in the War Memorial), not only ended the Syracuse Nationals season, it ended the Syracuse Nationals history, after 17 years in which they’d had 11 winning records and never missed the playoffs. The era of small cities and small arenas was coming to an end and a city like Philadelphia wasn’t going to be without a franchise for long. Danny Biasone sold the team to some Philadelphia investors and they became the Philadelphia76ers for the 1963-64 season. The quotes below are from my series “Syracuse Wins World Series”. After winning the title in 1955, they’d fallen to a tie for last place at 35-37, beaten the Knicks in a one game playoff and then had the pleasure of eliminating the Celtics in the last pre-Russell year. But they couldn’t beat the eventual champion Warriors. The next year they rallied somewhat to 38-34 and finished second, just 6 games behind the Celtics, who only had Russell for the second half of the season. They swept the Warriors in a two game series, then got swept in three games by the hated Celtics. In 1958 they were again second to the Celtics with a 41-31 record, 8 games back. But the Warriors beat them in a best of 3 series. The 1958-59 team was hugely inconsistent- they had a 7 game winnings streak followed by a 7 game losing streak- and also snake bit. Their Pythagorean rating- the projected wins and losses according to their overall point differential- was second in the league at 45-27 but they wound up 35-37, meaning they dropped a lot of close games. They strengthened themselves by acquiring George Yardley, who had led the league in scoring the previous year, to give the team more firepower. This created the team, with Yardley, Dolph Schayes, Johnny Kerr, Larry Costello and a young Hal Greer, that most players and observers of that era felt was the strongest Nationals line-up. They looked it in the playoffs, sweeping the Knicks and coming as close as you could get to knocking off the Russell Celtics in the Eastern finals. “The high water mark for the Nats was their series in the Eastern finals vs. the Celtics in 1959. The Nats had blown them out in the last game of the regular season at the War Memorial, 141-118. After sweeping the Knicks the Nationals took on the Celtics in perhaps the greatest series in NBA history. The Celtics won the first, big time, 109-131 at the Boston Garden. The teams then had a cozy joint flight to Syracuse where Schayes, (34 pts), and Yardley, (27) led the Nats to a 120-118 win. They both went right at Russell the whole game. Then they went back to Boston, Schayes feeling under the weather with a stomach virus and got blown out again 111-133. Again the Nationals answered with a 119-107 win at the War Memorial with Schayes scoring 28 and Costello outscoring Cousy, 26-13. A third Garden blow-out, 108-129 was followed by another Nats win in Syracuse, 133-121. Schayes, despite a toe injury, scored 39 points, grabbed 12 rebounds and passed for 8 assists. This set the stage for what Johnny Most called “the most perfectly played basketball game I’ve ever seen”. Red Auerbach said it was “the greatest game I have ever been a part of.” Tommy Heinsohn called it the best basketball game he’d ever played in. At one point Most got so excited his dentures fell out and nearly went over the rail of the press deck before he managed to retrieve them. Back in the Garden where the Celtics had won three games by a total of 65 points, they moved to a 12-19 lead. The Nats had a 30-10 run to make it 43-29, (ironically their regular season record in their championship year). The visitors pushed it to 58-42 and still led 83-73 midway through the third quarter. At this point the Nationals began to grow tired and the Celtics came back to tie it at 90. They took the lead at 94-95 and pushed that to 108-115. But Syracuse rallied with ten straight points to make it 118-115. The Celtics rallied themselves to take a 120-121 lead with 2:40 left; Cousy scoring after Russell stole the ball from Schayes, who swore he was fouled across the arms. A three point play by Russell made it 120-124. But then Yardley drew Russell’s 6th foul but could make only one free throw, then missed a shot after Kerr got the rebound. Cousy hit a jumper at the 24 second buzzer with 46 seconds left. A Schayes lay-up made it 123-126. Hal Greer then made a steal with 40 seconds left. Expecting Russell to block his shot- and forgetting he was out of the game- he blew a lay-up. Sam Jones grabbed the rebound but stepped out of bounds. But the refs didn’t see it- or wouldn’t call it. There were 25 seconds left. Sam Jones hit two free throws. Larry Costello hit a jumper with 6 seconds left. Cousy clinched it with two more foul shots, (125-130), and was carried off the floor by the screaming Boston fans after the buzzer. He shouted “We’re the better team! We’re the better team!” He had 25 points, Frank Ramsey 28, Heinsohn 20, Sam Jones 19 and Russell 18. It was barely enough to beat Schayes’ 35, Yardley’s 32, Kerr’s 23 and Costello’s 20 points. Yardley said “It’s a rotten shame. They’re really not that good”. He knew better. The Celtics then swept Baylor’s Lakers, (they would move to LA and Jerry West would join him in 1960) for the title. The Nats would never come so close again. “That was the zenith, said Schayes. “That was the best team we ever had.” Meanwhile Red Auerbach was puffing on what David Ramsey describes as “a ridiculously long cigar, close to a foot long and fat as a giant’s thumb”. That team finished 45-30 the next year in a stronger league than the 43-29 team of 1955 and a much stronger league than the 51-13 team of 1950. They finished just behind Wilt’s first Warrior team but lost to them 1 game to 2 in the Eastern Semis. Yardley retired at that point, (only to turn up in Saperstein’s ABL the next year). The Nats sagged to 36-41 in 1960-61 but at least got to host the NBA All-Star game in the tiny War Memorial for the only time in their history. “January 17, 1961 was quite a night in Syracuse as, for the only time, this town hosted the NBA All-Star game. The West All-Stars beat the East, 153-131, led by 29 points from Bob Pettit, 23 from Oscar Robertson, 21 from Clyde Lovellette, 15 each from Elgin Baylor and Gene Shue, 14 from “Hot Rod Hundley and 13 from Bailey Howell. The East was led by Bill Russell, of all people, with 24, Dolph Schayes with 21, Paul Arizin with 17, Tom Gola and Hal Greer with 14 each, Wilt Chamberlain with only 12, (but a game high 18 rebounds), and Richie Guerin with 11. Jerry West, Wayne Embry, Cliff Hagan, Walter Dukes, Tom Heinsohn, Bob Cousy, Willie Naulls and Larry Costello also saw action. Oscar Robertson, with 14 assists, was MVP. There were 232 field goal attempts in the game. The West jumped out to a surprising 28-9 lead. Auerbach tried putting Chamberlain and Russell in the same at the same time but it wasn’t enough to come back, although it must have been quite a sight for the 8,016 fans at the War Memorial.” [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_NBA_All-Star_Game"]1961 NBA All-Star Game - Wikipedia[/URL] [MEDIA=youtube]tsJG_7sNo90[/MEDIA] There were a couple more highlights that season. On Christmas Day, 1960, the Nats had one of those games were everything went in. They annihilated the hapless New York Knicks, 162-100, the largest margin of victory in NBA history. If 7-3 Swede Halbrook had scored one more point, every Nat who played in this game – 10 guys- would have been in double figures. The Nationals won every quarter by at least 10 points. It was an unremarkable 39-27 after one quartet, then 78-51 at halftime. The lead reached historical proportions with a 42-17 third quarter which made it 120-68. A 42-32 fourth quarter put an end to the slaughter. [URL="https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/196012250SYR.html"]New York Knicks at Syracuse Nationals Box Score, December 25, 1960 | Basketball-Reference.com[/URL] In the playoffs, the Nationals stunned the Warriors with a 3 game sweep. In Halbrook the Nats had the tallest player in the league, a guy even Chamberlain could look up to. Wilt looked beyond Swede and scored 46 points and grabbed 32 rebounds against his 15/15 but the Swede’s armspan made Wilt miss 20 of 39 shots. Syracuse’s backcourt of Costello and Greer combined for 53 points and four of their teammates reached double figures as the Nats pulled off the win in Philadelphia, 115-107. Back in Syracuse, they held Wilt to 32/14, missing 15 of only 28 shots and won a thriller 115-114. Greer had 26 points, Schayes and Costello 24. The Nats completed the sweep with Halbrook and Kerr holding Wilt to 33/23 but missing 16 of 29 from the field. Paul Arizin scored 30 but there was only one other double figure scorer and Syracuse had twice that many. In a 106-103 win. Swede said afterwards, “I’d rather play Wilt than any other big man in the league. He could be so much better than he is. All he uses is his height. I have locked him up just because I feel I can do it.” There were no miracles in Boston, where the Celtics won in five games. Their margins of victory were 13, 23, 13 and 22 points. The 1961-62 Nationals were 41-39. Wilt got his revenge on Halbrook and the Nats, winning in a five game series. In game 5, he scored 56 points, pulled down 35 rebounds and his team closed out the Nats, 121-104. “The final year in Syracuse was a surprisingly strong one. Schayes continued to decline at 9.5 ppg but Hannum was beginning to build the team to the peak they would have as the 1966-67 Philadelphia 76’s when they went 68-13 and crushed the Celtics and then the San Francisco Warriors to win the NBA title. Not only was Hal Greer on the team but Chet Walker now joined him. Kerr and Costello were still major players. A kid from North Carolina, not Billy Cunningham but rather Lee Shaffer, put up 18.6 ppg. The team won 48 games, including perhaps the one game you’d most like to see if you had a time machine to see it. Late in the season, (3/10/63), the Warriors, now in San Francisco, came to town with Chamberlain averaging 44 points and 24 rebounds a game. He dwarfed those totals with a remarkable 70 point game only to see his team lose, 163-148 as the Nats put an incredible NINE players in double figures.” (That’s the same number they had in the huge win over the Knicks on Christmas Day, 1960.) “The Nats, as they did in every year of their 17 year existence, made it to the playoffs, losing to the Cincinnati Royals, 2 games to 3 in the first round. Dolph Schayes reached back in the first game to score 17 points with 6 assists in the first half. He was scoreless in the second half but blocked a Robertson lay-up in the final seconds leading to a clinching Hal Greer jumper. The final was 116-111, before only 4,335 fans. Robertson dazzled the Nats with 41 points, 18 rebounds and 12 assists in a 115-133 game two blow-out in Cincinnati. The Royals outrebounded the Nationals, 52-83. Coach Alex Hannum wrote these words from Winston Churchill on the blackboard before game three at the War Memorial: “For when the day comes that we can accept a resounding defeat with indifference, a whole era of our history must be closed.” Hal Greer certainly must have read that. He held Robertson to 16 points and scored 30 of his own. The Syracuse Nationals won the last game they would ever win, 121-117. Robertson’s 29 points led Cincinnati to a 125-118 win in game four. The home team had won every game so far. The last game was in Syracuse again, with the Nats just one game short of another meeting with the Celtics. But, perhaps sensing it might be the last game, 7,418 fans showed up in the War Memorial on March 26, 1963. In this game Robertson dominated Greer, holding him to 16 points while scoring 32 himself, with 19 rebounds and 13 assists. But Lee Shaffer played his career game, scoring 45 points. The Nats tied it in the final minute with baskets by Shaffer and Kerr to make it 114 all. Robertson started one of his classic drives to the basket but slipped on a wet spot. He kept his dribble but his foot was out of bounds. Hannum called a play for Chet Walker but the rookie’s shot rimmed out. The Royals moved out to a 119-127 lead in overtime but the Nats were back within 125-127 with 10 seconds left. Reserve guard Al Bianchi wound up with the ball. He drove into Cincy center Wayne Embry and lost control of it. Embry grabbed it and the buzzer sounded. It was over. Years later, David Ramsey asked Oscar Robertson what he remembered about that series. “I can’t remember a thing”, he said. Tickets went on sale for the 1963-64 season but sales were very slow. There was talk about the franchise moving but there had been talk about that for years. On May 16, 1963, Biasone met with Onondaga County Executive John Mulroy in the basement of the War Memorial. The meeting did not go well. Mulroy wanted an increase in rent for the building. Biasone wanted it cut and a long-term lease signed. They couldn’t agree. Later that night the Nat’s business manager announced the sale of the team to a group from Philadelphia for $500,000, 100 times what Danny paid for it back in 1947. (These days franchises sell for $100 million and up). Johnny Kerr was relaxing at Three Rivers Inn when he heard the news. He ordered another round of beers for his friends. Then he began to cry. Dolph Schayes was scheduled to make a speech in Scranton, Pa. He could barely speak. He would play one year in Philly, averaging 5.6 points per game before retiring as the NBA’s leading career scorer, (he’d also committed the most fouls, something he was also proud of). He wound up coaching the new Philadelphia 76ers, including Wilt Chamberlain, who would soon devour all his records. He was also supervisor of NBA referees for a time, ironic for the league’s all-time fouler, (at least he had an intimate knowledge of who he was supervising). Larry Costello was resting on a beach in Bermuda and didn’t find out until a week later. He hadn’t just been a player for the team. He’d grown up as a fan. “All those memories. Then all of a sudden, it’s not there.“ [/QUOTE]

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