1976-77 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Bill Walton. Walton was named Finals MVP for the champion Trail Blazers, anchoring the team with elite rebounding, passing, and shot-blocking.

Series context

The 1976-77 Finals brought together the star-studded Philadelphia 76ers, led by Julius Erving, George McGinnis, and Doug Collins, against the Portland Trail Blazers, a young franchise in just its seventh season, built around center Bill Walton, forward Maurice Lucas, and coach Jack Ramsay's fast-paced motion offense. Philadelphia jumped out to a 2-0 series lead, winning Game 1 at home 107-101 as Erving opened with a windmill dunk and scored 33 points, and Game 2, 107-89, in a blowout that put Portland on the brink. The turning point of the series came late in Game 2, when a fight broke out between Darryl Dawkins and Bob Gross, with Portland's Maurice Lucas ejected after coming to Gross's defense. The altercation is widely credited with unifying the young Trail Blazers roster. Portland responded by winning four straight games. In Game 3, Lucas extended a conciliatory handshake to Dawkins before tip-off, and the Blazers routed Philadelphia 129-107 behind a huge fourth quarter and back-to-back alley-oop dunks to Walton. Game 4 was even more one-sided, a 130-98 Portland win. Portland won Game 5 in Philadelphia, 110-104, overcoming an early Sixers surge as Walton grabbed a team-record 24 rebounds, and closed out the title in Game 6 at home, 109-107, when Walton secured the defensive rebound after George McGinnis missed a potential series-tying shot in the closing seconds. Walton, playing his first full healthy postseason, was the dominant force throughout, averaging a near triple-double for the series and showcasing his all-around game as a passing, rebounding, shot-blocking center in Ramsay's egalitarian system. The championship was Portland's first and remains the franchise's only NBA title. For Philadelphia, despite a talented roster, the loss extended a pattern of postseason disappointment for a team that would not win a title until 1983. The series is often cited as a triumph of team chemistry and system basketball over a collection of individual stars. Both clubs entered the Finals off strong regular seasons, Philadelphia at 50-32 and Portland at 49-33, with the Sixers first eliminating the defending-champion Celtics in a seven-game Eastern Conference finals and Portland sweeping a Lakers team led by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the conference finals, a result that surprised much of the league given Los Angeles had finished with the West's best record. Game 4's 130-98 final was, at the time, the largest margin of victory in Finals history for a fourth game, and Portland's 59-rebound effort in Game 5 set a franchise Finals record that stood for years afterward. The series also had an awkward ending on national television: CBS, which had wanted to schedule Game 6 for a mid-morning tip-off to make room for golf coverage before the league objected, cut away from the celebration almost immediately after the final buzzer to air the Kemper Open golf tournament, skipping most of the trophy presentation. For Portland, an expansion franchise that had never previously won a playoff series, the title validated Jack Ramsay's egalitarian, ball-movement system and Walton's do-everything style at center, and it remains the only championship in franchise history to date.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 1977 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - Finals MVP Award