A Look at the 1967 NBA Champions
A New Direction
Going into the 1966-67 season the Sixers had made a big coaching change by firing franchise leading scorer Dolph Schayes and replacing him with Alex Hannum. Schayes was a 12 time All-Star while playing for the Syracuse Nationals, but had lost to Boston in the playoffs in both 1965 and 1966 despite a franchise record 55 wins in the latter. Hannum on the other hand was the last coach to beat the Celtics in the playoffs as the coach of the 1958 St. Louis Hawks. The problem was that since ’58 the Celtics had rattled off 8 consecutive championships under Red Auerbach and Bill Russell.
The Sixers were in just their 4th year in Philadelphia since moving from Syracuse and had just marginal success. Wilt Chamberlain had made the move with the Philadelphia Warriors to San Fransisco in 1962-63 but made his way back home to Philly mid-way through the 1964-65 season. Wilt joined former All-Stars Hal Greer, Chet Walker, Luke Jackson, and Larry Costello and averaged 33.5 points and 24.6 rebounds in 1965-66.
A New Wilt
The coaching change brought about a new Wilt. In his first 6 seasons in the league Wilt dominated the league averaging 39.6 points, 24.8 rebounds all on 51.1% shooting from the floor. Hannum wanted the Sixers to play more ‘Celtics ball’ meaning more ball movement and less isolations with the big guy. Wilt’s 24.1 points per game was the lowest PPG since entering the league and in fact, it was the first time he didn’t lead the league in scoring, but the less shots improved his FG% from that career 51.1% to a whopping 68.3%.
The Sixers rolled through the regular season with a record of 68-13 which is still a franchise record and the 4th best regular season in NBA history. Their 46-4 start is still the best 50 game start ever. Wilt posted a line of 24.1 points, 24.2 rebounds, and a career high 7.8 assists and came away with his 3rd MVP trophy. He was helped by future Hall of Famer Hal Greer who added 22.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.8 assists himself and big men Luke Jackson and Chet Walker who combined for 31.3 points and 17 rebounds a game. The other standout was second year forward Billy “The Kangaroo Kid” Cunningham who averaged 18.5 points off the bench.
The First Round
The playoffs started with a matchup against the Cincinnati Royals and Oscar Robertson. The Big O was an established star in the league having been the only player ever to average a triple double for an entire season in 1961-62. Of course, 1966-67 was no down year either as he averaged 30.5 points, 10.7 assists, and 6.2 rebounds all while leading the Royals to a 39-42 season. After a 120-116 victory over the Royals in Game 1 in Convention Hall - now the home of the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine building on UPenn’s campus - the series went back to Cincinnati where the series was tied 1-1 despite 37 from Wilt and 28 from Greer. The Sixers took the next two in convincing fashion including a 112-94 victory in Game 4 to close the series at 3-1.
Down go the Celtics
Six days later the hated Boston Celtics rolled into West Philly after taking down the Knicks in their first round series. The Celtics had also won in 4 games and were coming off a 51 point performance by Sam Jones in the final game. Hal Greer was the hero of Game 1 scoring 39 points and the Sixers won 127-113. Game 2 in Boston was a closer affair with the Sixers just sneaking out a 107-102 victory in overtime. Convention Hall was jumping again in Game 3 as Hal Greer put in another 30 points to offset John Havilcek’s 33. Greer was 12-14 from the free throw line and the Sixers came away with a 115-104 victory. The Celtics bounced back in Game 4 with a 121-117 win in The Garden behind big games from Sam Jones and John Havlicek. However, Game 5 would prove to be the last game of the season for the Celtics as Hal Greer buried them with 32 points in the 140-116 drubbing.
The Sixers avenged the previous two years by retiring the Celtics in just 5 games. For the first time since 1958 somebody other than the Celtics was going going to be a champion.
The Finals
The day after the Sixers advanced to the Finals the San Fransisco Warriors closed out the St. Louis Hawks behind 41 points from Rick Barry. Barry was the one to take the scoring title from Wilt that year as he averaged 35.6 points a game in just his second year. 1966-67 was his first taste of the playoffs and he averaged 34.5 through the first two series against the Hawks and Lakers. The Warriors second best player was center Nate Thurmond who served as Wilt’s protege while the two were teammates in San Fransisco. Thurmond ranked second in rebounds and blocks and added 19 points a game.
The series had a little extra narrative considering that Wilt had spent two and a half seasons in San Fransisco and Hannum coached there from 1963-66.
The scoring continued for Barry as he dropped 37 points in Game 1, but the Sixers prevailed 141-135 in overtime. For the Sixers it was Hal Greer again with 32 points and guard Wali Jones adding 30 of his own that helped propel the Sixers. Wilt struggled and only finished with 16 points. Game 2 in Philadelphia was hardly a contest as the Sixers ran away with a 126-95 win on the back of another 30 point Greer performance. Billy Cunningham came off the bench and scored a playoff high 28 points.
The series headed out West to the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena where the Warriors took Game 3. Rick Barry blew up for 55 points and guard Jim King added a season high 28 points. With the series at 2-1 going into Game 4 the Sixers needed Greer to bounce back from his below average 21 point performance the previous game. Thankfully he did as he scored 38 points in the 122-108 beat down of the Warriors on their home court. Rick Barry didn’t go down without a fight though as he scored a ridiculous 43 points on just 17 shots.
As the series returned to Convention Hall the Sixers had a comfortable 3-1 series lead. Behind another 36 points from Barry the Warriors took game 5 117-109. Thurmond added 17 points of his own while they held Greer and Wilt to just 20 points a piece with Greer fouling out. The Warriors outscored the Sixers 33-13 in the final frame and stayed alive for at least one more game.
On April 24th 1967 the Finals went back to San Fransisco for a nail bitter in Game 6. The Warriors held Greer to a series low 15 points and Rick barry went off for yet another 44 points. Wali Jones again played the hero with his 27 points and Wilt added 24 of his own. Philadelphia was down 97-102 going into the 4th quarter but came away with a 125-122 victory. The win marked the franchises 2nd championship and made Hannum the first coach to ever win a championship with two different teams. Overall the series featured 6 Hall of Famers (Barry, Thurmond for SF and Chamberlain, Greer, Cunningham, and Walker for Philly).
Post Finals
Hannum went on to win another title in the ABA with the Oakland Oaks after just two season in Philly where he won 68 and 62 games and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998.
Wilt played just one more year in Philly before being traded to the Lakers where he’d go on to win a title in 1971-72 with Jerry West, Elgin Baylor, and Pat Riley. He’d retire a Laker with the most points ever before Kareem got there a few years later.
Hal Greer retired a Sixer in 1972-73 after 15 seasons with the franchise in both Syracuse and Philly. To this day he is still the Sixers all-time leading scorer with 21,586 career points which is good enough for 37th overall in the history of the NBA. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1982.
Billy Cunningham played several more years for the Sixers before hopping the the ABA for two years but ultimately returning to the Sixers for his last two seasons. In 1977-78 he took over the coaching duties for the Sixers and led them to two Finals in 1980, 1982, and 1983 where they won the title for the first time since 1967. He finished with a 454-196 (.698) record in his 8 seasons as head coach and had a record of 66-39 (.629) in the playoffs. His .698 winning percentage is good enough for 2nd all-time behind only Phil Jackson. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame as a player in 1986.
The Sixers would make the playoffs for the next 4 seasons under Hannum and Dr. Jack Ramsay, but by 1972-73 they had bottomed out to the worst record in NBA history at 9-73. They’d draft Doug Collins first overall in the 1973 draft and signed Julius “Dr. J” Erving prior to the 1976-77 season.
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