Sixers as Good as Advertised

January 30, 1983

Moses, Sixers Cream of NBA Crop at Mid-Season

They were supposed to be months of trial and error, of minor breakdowns and creative adjustment.

It was to be the time in which the new and startlingly odd amalgam of Sixers veterans, rookies and superstars would try to create a formula for winning the National Basketball Association championship trophy, which to this franchise is only one step below the Holy Grail.



Now it is the end of January, midseason on the NBA's regular-season calendar, and suddenly, the formula has been found - weeks (months?) before anyone expected.

The results have been as dramatic and impressive as the Sixers' gaudy, league-leading won-lost record and their league-leading attendance.

"There is no doubt in my mind that they're the best team in basketball," said Milwaukee Bucks coach Don Nelson, whose team is 1-2 against the Sixers this season, making him one of only six coaches to have tasted victory against them.

"They've solved the rebounding problem from last year," said Los Angeles Lakers coach Pat Riley, shrugging his shoulders after suffering two defeats this season to the Philadelphia team that his Lakers beat, 4 games to 2, in last year's championship series.

"Who in hell figures any team is going to be 34-6 in this league?" demanded a frustrated Detroit Pistons coach Scotty Robertson, whose team has gone down four straight times to the Sixers this season.

"This is against a tough damn league," Robertson said, "so if you've got that kind of record, you're just a terrific basketball team."

"We're more consistent than I thought we'd be at this time," said Sixers coach Billy Cunnngham, who because of the team's success will be the Eastern Conference All-Star coach on Feb. 13.

"We got it meshed quicker than anybody thought we would, including us," said Sixers general manager Pat Williams. "We were stroking by opening night in New York."

"We're good enough to win it all," said Sixers owner Harold Katz. "I think in flashes, we've proven that we're a great team. Are we better than good? Yes, I think so. Sometimes, it can be a super team."

"We have the potential," said team captain Julius Erving, "to be among the great teams in NBA history."

Obviously, something has gone very, very right.

"The hero, and there's only one hero, is Harold Katz," said Williams.

"I'd have been terrified of suggesting the moves he made. But he had the guts, and the vision to do it. It was Harold Katz who pulled the trigger.

"You know, he can be very conservative at times, but at other times he's a gambler.

"The acquisition of Moses Malone has had a staggering impact. Our worst weakness of last year - rebounding - has become our strength.

"To watch Moses work, to see him do it night in and night out, is a privilege."

"I had no doubt in my mind," said Katz, "that the day I signed Moses Malone made this team better. I felt strongly that he'd make us a super team.

"I know what he'll do every night. At Moses' worst, I know I'll get 10 rebounds and 16 points from him. In Darryl Dawkins, you never knew what you were going to get.

"Now that there's consistency in the middle, well, let's just say I knew it would make us better."

And yet, if Katz is the hero of this season so far, as Williams says, then Malone himself is, at worst, only one rung below. You don't have to be a hotshot basketball analyst to see that much.

At mid-season (the Sixers completed their 41st game with a 116-99 victory at Chicago on Tuesday), Malone had amassed 240 offensive rebounds - more than the total of 232 offensive rebounds than Dawkins and Caldwell Jones grabbed in all of the 1981-82 regular season.

Malone had scored 981 points, which was 453 more than Dawkins scored in all of the '81-82 regular season and 346 more than Jones scored all of last season.

And yet could anyone really have forseen the total impact of this guy?

When he stands up straight, which is not often, Malone is only 6-feet, 10-inches tall.

He has bulk, but in the weeks since training camp, he has dropped some of that and become more sleek.

He is not a great leaper. He has none of the sizzling flash that Dawkins could show at times.

Moreover, Malone doesn't really take on the persona of an enforcer.

He has a wit as dry as autumn leaves, and the loosening effect his considerable humor has on his teammates has been every bit as profound as Dawkins' used to be.

It is not something he shows a great deal in public, but it is there.

On the night of Saturday, Nov. 6, however, all his humor, all that laughter, were left behind in the team's very loose and very "ready" Spectrum locker room.

The Boston Celtics were in town. First big encounter of the year. The Celtics all were old hands. Bird. Parish. McHale. Henderson. Maxwell. Robey. The regulars. Dangerous.

The Sixers were new, featuring a kid, Marc Iavaroni, at power forward, with a kid, Russ Schoene, on the bench. Steve Mix, Lionel Hollins, Dawkins and C. Jones were out of there, courtesy of the trading strings Katz pulled in the preceding months.

The big difference, however, was that Malone was in a Sixers uniform and was standing in the middle - slouching a little, his upper lip protruding and forming the keystone for a truly intimidating scowl, his eyes staring straight ahead and his forehead furrowed in concentration.

That night, in his first real test as a Sixer (no game tests a Sixer like one with the Celtics, and vice-versa), Malone showed this city and his teammates - and the rest of the NBA, for that matter - exactly why he is worth the $13.2 million Katz promised to pay him over the next six years.

For 56 minutes of playing time, Malone worked, the sweat dripping off him by the bucketful. He growled and grimaced, suffered blows and dealt them out.

Fifty-six minutes in a double-overtime game that lasted 58 minutes.

The Sixers won, 119-115, and at the end of it, Malone actually seemed to be getting stronger. He wasn't, of course. It's just that he wasn't wearing down like everyone else.

He scored 28 points in that game. He hauled down 19 rebounds. He shot 10 for 14 from the foul line and 9 for 17 from the field. He blocked three shots and lured three Boston centers into committing a combined 12 personal fouls.

And that wasn't even one of his top five games of the early season.

"It sure as hell doesn't surprise me," said Detroit's Robertson, who helped Del Harris coach Malone in Houston for a year.

"All the things people are saying about him now, about how he works hard in practice and doesn't clash with Dr. J (Erving), about how much he wanted to win, all those things don't surprise me at all. I had him in Houston. I know this man."

In what has become his standard locker-room analysis, Malone, over and over, night after night, has been saying, "All I want to do is to win. I love to win. Nothing is more fun than winning. All of them you can."

Malone is certainly helping the Sixers to do just that, but it's not just because he's given the team that long-sought consistency in the middle.

His performances have had a ripple effect throughout the team.

Erving, for instance, is not carrying all the burden now. Dr. J has been unleashed, and he is responding with a truly wonderful season - a season in which he scored 44 points once and has shown streaks of brilliance in all phases of his game.

"It's funny," Erving said one night in San Antonio, hours after the Sixers had escaped with a tense, two-point victory over the Spurs.

"Tonight, I felt like I could watch the game.

"I was there, on the floor, but I wasn't really involved in it for a lot of the time. I was running up and down, not getting winded, feeling good, watching the other people play.

"I had a very good time."

It was an important lesson.

"They all have developed a better understanding of how to play with Moses," Cunningham said.

Not only Erving, but guard Maurice Cheeks, too.

Cheeks suddenly is finding his way all the way to the basket.

With each game, there are fewer last-minute ditchouts. They've been replaced with death-defying drives all the way in, and Cheeks is finishing them with razzmatazz layups, reverse layups, impossible layups.

That's why Cheeks' assists are down from a year ago and his scoring is up. With Malone drawing the defense out, Cheeks now can penetrate all the way.

And if Cheeks' shot doesn't drop, well, there's always Malone to vacuum up the rebound and put it back in.

Andrew Toney has been helped, too.

The Sixers' long-range gunner, Toney no longer is pressed regularly to win games by himself from long range.

Relaxed, more confident, Toney's scoring average last week crept over the 20-points-a-game mark for the first time this season - more than five points a game higher than he averaged in the regular season last year.

All of them - Bobby Jones, Clint Richardson, Earl Cureton and the rest - have benefited from Malone's presence.

They've also benefited from the arrival of Iavaroni.

"In all honesty," said Detroit's Robertson, "I'd have said at the beginning of the season that the Sixers were going to have a depth problem. I was not at all sure how they'd be with Iavaroni. I can't say they're better than I thought they'd be, because I knew they'd be damn good.

"But with Iavaroni, they've got depth. Their depth has been a surprise to me," Robertson added. "Before, the Sixers had veteran depth. But they've still got depth, even though it is rookie depth.

"And that is what is somewhat surprising, to me."

Robertson is not alone.

Iavaroni, simply, is doing more in his rookie year at power forward than anyone thought he would do. He has conquered early foul problems. And he even has plays run for him, on occasion.

The other front-line rookie, Russ Schoene, has not fared so well.

Though Schoene had a strong start, he has faltered in the last two months, and for the first time, is not seeing any game action whatsoever.

Instead, Cunningham has been using Cureton as a power forward, when he isn't relieving Malone.

The results have been surprisingly good.

Still, is it enough?

"We're good enough to win it all with this group, but I still want another big forward," Katz said.

Should the Sixers find that forward (they are carrying 11 players on a 12-man roster), then they will have all the pieces of the puzzle fitted, well before the playoffs begin in the spring.

But would they be unstoppable?

Nobody knows for sure. There still is work to be done in the second half of the season.

"We will improve as we go along," Cunningham said. "We'll improve our execution offensively, and defensivly, we still have to learn to get back better, to stop other teams' break.

"We have to be more consistent with things like turnovers, too. But there are already things we're getting better at, like defensing the pick and roll. It's in stopping the man coming off the screen on the low post.

"That's hurt us. It hurt us against Kansas City (a win) and it hurt us against Portland (a loss). There have been so many games where we didn't react well."

And so the Sixers head into the second half of the season with those goals in mind.

When you think about it, they are not tough ones to achieve. They can be met, with work and patience and hard practice.

They are the kinds of things that will require little experimentation and creativity.

And in the end?

"I don't know where we'll end up exactly," Cunningham said. "I think we're a very good team right now. And I also feel that this team has the best potential than any team that's been in Philadelphia in quite a while."