JULIUS ERVING SIXERS JERSEY SERIES

But thanks to the trio of Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, the Lakers were able to flip the series around and eventually break the hearts of Phoenix by winning the series, 4-3.īut unlike Boston in 1968, the purple and gold team failed to complete the season with a championship as the New York Knicks, spearheaded by Willis Reed and Walt Frazier, edged them out in a hard-fought seven-game NBA Finals matchup. The second 3-1 series deficit comeback happened in the 1969-70 season when the second-seeded Los Angeles Lakers yielded to the fourth-seeded Phoenix Suns in the Western Division Semifinals. There, they outplayed the duo of Elgin Baylor and Jerry West in six games to claim their 10th championship in franchise history. But the team still managed to mount the first-ever 3-1 series comeback in NBA history by winning the next three games and advancing to the NBA Finals. The Celtics won the first game of the series but saw themselves down by 3-1 after dropping the next three games. Then they found themselves in the Eastern Division Finals against the league’s number one team, the Philadelphia 76ers. Led by the trio of John Havlicek, Bill Russell and Sam Jones, Boston has cruised past the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Division Semifinals. 1968 Boston CelticsĪfter an impressive regular season that saw them claim the second seed in the Eastern Conference with a 56-28, the Boston Celtics were one of the title favorites that year. The most recent team to do that was the 2020 Denver Nuggets when they beat the Utah Jazz and the Los Angeles Clippers in the same postseason.Įntering the conference finals, no team has completed a 3-1 series comeback in the 2023 NBA playoffs. And that should never be forgotten.Only 13 teams have defied NBA odds and mounted a comeback to win the series after falling behind three games to one. He remains a transcendent figure, a critical part of the league’s connective tissue. And while his post-basketball life has been marked by misfortune - a son died in 2000 and his marriage of 29 years dissolved in 2003 amid charges of infidelity ( among other things, he was found to be the father of former tennis star Alexandra Stevenson) - his on-court legacy is undiminished. His jersey was retired, and a statue erected. When he retired in 1987, he was honored with a parade through the streets of Philadelphia. Delaware County Daily Times sports columnist Jack McCaffery has always said that when the game was on the line, Erving’s demeanor would change - that it was abundantly clear he knew it was time to get down to business. We win together, we lose together.’ I think that was, to me, his greatest quality.” He knows he can do it, but (when) you’re in a position where you have to do it and you don’t do it, it takes strength of character to say, ‘We’re in this together. That’s easy to do at that level, when the game’s on the line or something’s on the line. Didn’t put anybody down for the mistakes they made.

He worked as hard as anybody, if not harder. He didn’t consider himself better than anybody. That’s what stood out in my mind, I think, the entire time I was with him: He wasn’t arrogant. “Your hear a lot about superstars, (how) they put pressure on younger guys to come up to their level,” Jones told me. When I talked to Jones for the 2014 book 100 Things 76ers Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die, he was no less complimentary. And after it was over, it’s impossible to overstate how many people were happy for him, above everyone else. Then Moses Malone arrived, which lightened Doc’s load but allowed him to save himself for big moments - like those in the clincher. Philadelphia also fell to the Lakers in the ‘80 and ‘82 Finals, and after a Game Six loss in the latter series, Erving wept in the locker room of Los Angeles’ Great Western Forum. That led to the unfortunate “We Owe You One” ad campaign, not to mention repeated heartache. In all Erving notched seven points in the last two minutes and change of that one, a theatrical ending to a title quest that extended back to his first year with the Sixers, when they fell to Portland in the ‘77 Finals. But a personal favorite was his elbow jumper with 24 seconds left in Game Four of the ‘83 Finals (as shown at 1:35 of this video) which provided the Sixers, up three-love in the series, with a three-point lead and a path to victory. Signature Moment(s): His gravity-defying reverse layup in the 1980 Finals deserves mention, as does his rock-the-baby dunk in a 1983 regular-season game (at :26 of this video) that both came against a heavyweight team like the Lakers is certainly no coincidence, as Doc always thrived on a big stage.

Julius erving sixers jersey