Lakernoise

 In today’s media-saturated world, reporters need a big story everyday. That means a lot of stories are hot air about what might have been or what should have been. Yada yada yada. Last season, for example, the Lakers started 14-1 and stories started popping up — TV and radio people started talking about them winning 70 games. They talked about Cleveland, too. The year before, the spotlight focused on the Boston Celtics. None of those teams won 70 – or even came close. But the media sure talked about it, even early in the season. Too early in the season.

So I’ll get in that game, too. The Lakers should have won 70 games and didn’t. The 1971-1972 Lakers, I mean. That was the team that starred Gail Goodrich and Jerry West, who both averaged 25+ points a game. That was the team that went on a 33-game winning streak and then brought home the first championship trophy since the team had moved to California. Elgin Baylor retired five games into the season (for a look at a very young Chick Hearn the day the team announced Baylor’s retirement, look at 1972 Lakers on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PYxhdpdNEI), and the team jelled after Jim McMillan stepped into Elgin’s spot.

Those Lakers flat out dominated other teams: they averaged 121.0 ppg to opponents’ 108.7 ppg. And their schedule was not the wimpy schedule of today: the Lakers played six sets of back-to-back-to-back games(!) that had one travel date in the mix. They lost two of three in the first set at the end of October and then went 15-0 in the rest. Yeah, let’s see one of today’s teams do that. (Blasphemous thought: could the 72-10 Chicago Bulls have won 72 playing 6 sets of back-to-back-to-back games?)

The Lakers came into Cleveland on March 22, 1972 for their last road game of the season with a 67-12 record and an 8-game winning streak. The night before, they had beat the Chicago Bulls by five points. A close game by their standards that summer. But they were bummed out. They had just heard that key back-up swingman Keith Erickson had had knee surgery earlier in the day and would be out eight weeks, taking him out of the Playoffs. Still, a win would tie them with the 1966-1967 Philadelphia 76ers for best regular season record in the NBA with 68 wins.

I was a freshman in college then, home for spring break (which was in Crestline, Ohio then, smack dab in the middle of the state of Ohio) and my father had somehow – well, maybe that’s not the right word for a Cav team that had won only 22 games up to that point – had somehow managed to get sixth-row seats behind one basket. The Lakers trotted onto the court just to our left and I recall looking up at Wilt Chamberlain and thinking “he must be the tallest man in the world!”

Sports coverage has changed dramatically since then. I know this because Wilt walked into the center circle when it was time for the jump and looked down at the Cav center, Rick Roberson, a 6’9” former Laker back-up power forward/center, Wilt’s back-up, in fact, a first-round draft pick two years earlier (15th overall) out of the University of Cincinnati, whom the Cavs had taken in the expansion draft. Wilt laughed – or pretended to laugh. He stepped out of the center circle and tried to push Goodrich, who was generously listed as 6’1” in the guidebook but was called “Stumpy” by teammates who knew better, into the center circle. The crowd loved it. (Who today remembers Wilt’s sense of humor?) Interestingly, neither the Cleveland Plain Dealer nor the Los Angeles Times mentioned Chamberlain’s clowning around. Today that would be an ESPN multiple replay. It would be on YouTube.

Ironically, or maybe because of that public humiliation, Roberson largely outplayed Wilt that night. He finished with a career high (and team high) 29 points that night. He added 14 boards. Wilt wasn’t embarrassed. He had 23 points and 19 boards (but missed six free throws).

The Lakers came out sluggish and the Cavs ran out to an 18-point second quarter lead at 45-27. The 10,819 fans in the sold out Cleveland Arena were loving it. But Goodrich and West, who both tossed in 31 points that night, brought the Lakers back. The game stood 60-all at half-time.

The Lakers outscored the Cavs 22-6 at one point, but could never take the lead. Late in the game Johnny Johnson and Robert “Bingo” Smith took over for the Cavs. Who? Johnson finished with 28, but it was Smith who is etched into my memory. Bingo sported a huge afro that jumped up and down seemingly on its on as he trotted up and down the court. A 6’5” swingman out of the University of Tulsa, Bingo had a solid 11-year career, 9 of those with the Cavs, though he never averaged more than 15.2 ppg for a season. He was a bit like Walt Frazier – not just with the do, but also in the way he seemed to move slowly, almost lazily yet was right there all the time. The Cleveland public address announcer loved him, too.

“Bingo!” he screamed into the mike with every big shot Smith made – and late in the game, they were all big. Bingo finished with 27 points, but the reverberation of the announcer calling his name made me feel like he had 30 or 40 – or more.

“Bingo!”

“Bingo!”

Still, the game was close. The Lakers tied it at 96 and then pulled to within two at 122-120 with 39 seconds left. But Walt Wesley hit a jumper – it was a total team effort for the Cavs – with 14 seconds left to seal the Lakers’ fate.

Laker coach Bill Sharman, not usually a complainer, blamed the refs for several goaltending calls on Wilt that he thought had been bona fide blocks. “It’s a shame,” Sharman said, “to play 80 games and have a shot at the record and not get it, perhaps, because of those calls.” He wanted that record.

“I knew we had a chance when we didn’t fold when they hit us with a hot streak in the third quarter,” Cav coach Bill Fitch (Phil Jackson’s old college coach) told the Cleveland Plain Dealer afterwards.

I had grown up a Laker fan and during the hour and half drive home and in my sleep that night all I could hear or think of was “Bingo!” I’m not clear how I found out I was a Laker fan, but in my mind I have re-created the scene. My father called my brother and me into the dining room in our house in Welch, West Virginia, where I grew up (until the season of that Cav game). We always sat there when he had something important to tell us. I was probably six or seven years old, sometime during West”s rookie season in 1960-1961. “Jerry West is one of the best basketball players in the United States,” I hear him telling us in my scenario. “He is from West Virginia and played at West Virginia University. Now he is with the Los Angeles Lakers. So we are Laker fans.” It almost surely didn’t happen that way, but memory plays curious tricks on the mind. I went home depressed.

The Lakers went home and two days later tied the NBA regular season winning record with a two-point win over Phoenix. Two days after that, they routed Seattle to set a regular season record of 69 wins and 13 losses that would stand for 24 years.

Because I had been home for spring break, I felt the game had occurred earlier in the season. I was stunned when I recently looked at old records and realized it was the Lakers’ last road game and third-to-last game. In fact, it was their last loss. And then the weight of what happened hit me: the Lakers could have won 70 games! Should have won 70! After all, the Cavs were an expansion team. The Cavs had never beaten the Lakers until that point.

The Lakers play 17 of their first 21 games at home next season. Already – before pre-season practice starts! – some people in the media have been predicting a fast start. And though not a game has been played yet, after the Lakers re-signed Lamar Odom, some even started talking about a 70-win season. A warning though: last year’s Lakers were swept – swept! – by the Charlotte Bobcats. There’s always a pebble in the road, like those 1972 Cavs, that can make even the strongest of teams slip and stumble on their way to 70 wins.