Sixers Draw First Blood

 4/19/1980

The silence at the final buzzer said it all. The Philadelphia 76ers had shut up a capacity crowd of 15,320 at Boston Garden by coming back from an eight-point halftime deficit and holding on down the stretch for a 96-93 victory to take away the Celtics' home-court advantage and gain a 1-0 lead in their Eastern Conference final series.

Three big baskets by Darryl Dawkins - who scored 23 points and finally proved he could play in the Boston Garden - and some extraordinary play by Henry Bibby (in addition to the expected heroics submitted by Julius Erving, who got 29) putthis game away for the Sixers, who ran off a 16-2 spurt in the third period to assume control of the ball game, which had belonged to the Celtics for the first 26 minutes.

The Celtics staged a comeback themselves, coming from an 80-72 deficit with 10:28 remaining to tie the game at 81-81 with 8:02 left. But they blew several chances to get that crowd-pleasing go-ahead basket in the next 1:46, and after Bobby Jones broke that tie with a basket, they never really got anything going offensively again, although they did forge ties at 88 and 90, this last with 3:24 remaining.

Dave Cowens was on the bench with five personals at the time, and Dawkins took advantage of his absence to help himself to a dunk, a low turnaround and a corner jumper. Bibby stuck in a corner jumper with 56 seconds to play to make it 96-93, and the Celtics got one last chance when Chris Ford's three- pointer was no good with 13 seconds lft.

An absolutely amazing 45-foot one-hand Ozark Ike toss by Jeff Judkins sailed cleanly through the hoop with 10 seconds left to propel the Celtics into a 52-44 halftime lead and give the fans something to talk about for the entire half, this series and, perhaps, for the rest of their spectating lives.

Judkins' heave was released a hair before the 24-second clock expired, and it gave the Celtics a 52-42 lead. The Sixers managed to chop two points off that margin when Bibby - who kept the visitors in the game with a 10-point second period - sank two free throws on a loose-ball foul called at the buzzer by harried referee Ed Middleton, who pleased neither side with his interpretations.

The Judkins situation came about this way: The Celtics had the ball, and a 49-42 lead, but they were in definite trouble on that particular possession. With five seconds to go on the shot clock, Maurice Cheeks poked the ball away from Tiny Archibald. It rolled toward midcourt, and Judkins was the first man to arrive on the scene. He picked the ball up and flung it while off balance. It never touched a thing as it went cleanly through the cords. Billy Cunningham began a rain dance in protest that the shot had come after the buzzer, but the referees paid him no heed.

That shot just about overshadowed what had been a hard-fought but not completely artistic first half of play. The teams battled with the expected intensity, and there was no denying that each was playing playoff-type defense. But there were long stretches in which the players seemed plainly nervous on offense.

One player who was not nervous, or inefficient, was Erving. The Doctor had 10 first-quarter points and 14 in all before he had to retire to the bench with 5:07 remaining because of foul trouble. He and Bibby, who came in late in the first quarter, and who then played the entire second quarter, were the entire offensive show for the Sixers, who had trouble establishing both their running game and their inside game.

The Celtics forced the offensive action for the first 24 minutes, moving into a quick 4-0 lead on baskets by Ford and Cowens, and relinquishing the lead just for 1:28, from 18-16 to 22-20, Boston. The Celtics got the lead back on a Cedric Maxwell layup, and they took a 25-22 lead into the second period on a three-point inside follow-up by Larry Bird.

The Celtics were able to extend their advantage to as many as 10. They also led twice by 8, and three times by 7. But they blew their chance to create some daylight between themselves and the Philadelphians when they could not take full advantage of a Sixer scoring drought that lasted 4:17, or from 29-29 to 36-29, Boston. It was Bibby, first with a left-baseline stop-and-pop jumper and then with an ill-advised, in-traffic forced invention, who broke the Sixer skein, and who made sure that the Celtics would not pull away.

The key man for the Celtics was Maxwell, whose 14 points included 4 on the offensive boards, and whose inside maneuvering was largely responsible for getting Caldwell Jones in foul trouble. Of great importance was a basket he made with 2:47 left, when he took a nice Bird pass and up-faked CJ before floating underneath the basket for a gorgeous layup. That created Jones' third personal, a figure that was matched by Dawkins and The Doctor himself.

The tension was high, and the coaches were jumping all over the officials from the beginning - not, it should be pointed out, without reason.