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The Sports Time Traveler
Everyone who knows sports history knows that Wilt Chamberlain, of the old Philadelphia Warriors, scored 100 points in an NBA game in 1962.
Wilt’s 100 point game is among the most iconic records in American sports history because of that round, “1 double zero” figure. And despite the advent of the three- point shot in the NBA, no one has even come within sniffing distance of Wilt’s 100.
But what most sports fans don’t know is that the 2 weeks that encompassed that legendary 100 game were filled with wonders.
The Sports Time Traveler had to experience this first-hand, virtually of course. I’ve been waiting all year for these 2 weeks to be upon us so that I could go back in time, precisely 63 years, to follow them.
Below are my reports.
In this first part, I cover “Week 1” from February 22 - 28, 1962.
NOTE: the bylines are the day after each game when I read the newspaper accounts during my virtual trip.
Syracuse - Thursday, February 22, 1962
It’s late in the 80 game schedule for the 1961-62 season. Here were the standings going into last night’s games:
The Celtics are comfortably in front in the East and the Lakers are going to win the West.
The way the playoffs work here in 1962, is that the division winners will get a bye and they will play the winners of a best of 5 playoff series between the #2 and #3 teams.
Wilt Chamberlain and the Philadelphia Warriors are comfortably in 2nd place in the East right now. It’s a certainty they will play the 3rd place Syracuse Nationals in the first round.
Last night, the Warriors were in Syracuse. Chamberlain arrived in upstate New York averaging 49.8 points per game. But in the first half, the Syracuse Nationals held Wilt to just 13 and opened a 64 - 38 lead.
Dolph Schayes, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, who is just 6 feet 8 inches tall, did a superb job defending 7 foot 1 inch Wilt when the Nats center, Red Kerr, went to the bench late in the 1st quarter. Jack Andrews of the Syracuse Post-Standard described what happened, “Dolph drove Wilt into a frantic state as he circled the giant as though he were a maypole… holding Wilt scoreless for 5 minutes and 55 seconds into the second period.”
It might be the only time all season that Wilt was held scoreless for half a quarter.
The Nationals extended the lead to 109 - 70 after the 3rd quarter during which Wilt only scored another 13 for a total of just 26 points after the 3rd period.
In the meaningless 4th quarter, Wilt scored 20, to raise his total for the game to 46, nearly reaching his average. But the Warriors lost the game 150 - 109. It’s a loss that doesn’t bode well, for they will be playing the Nats in the playoffs in just a few weeks.
By the way, Chamberlain could have scored his average of 50 if he had not missed 9 free throws.
FINAL SCORE
109 Philadelphia Warriors
150 Syracuse National
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
Points: 46
Field Goals: 19 for 33
Free Throws: 8 for 17
Philadelphia - Friday, February 23, 1962
On the Warriors trip from Syracuse back to Philadelphia yesterday morning, weather conditions forced the plane to land in Wilkes-Barre. Once there, they had to take a 120 mile bus ride to Philadelphia. They didn’t arrive at Convention Hall for last night’s game against the St. Louis Hawks until 6pm.
Fortunately, they still had plenty of time because the NBA was holding a doubleheader with the first game pitting the Lakers against the Knicks. The Warriors weren’t schedule to start their game against the Hawks until 9:25pm.
These types of NBA doubleheaders, where 4 teams play in the same arena on a single evening, are common here in 1962. They schedule them to try to increase the number of paying fans. But it didn’t work last night, as the 2 games were played in front of just 3,692 fans in Philadelphia’s Convention Hall.
Perhaps weary from their travel ordeal, the Warriors fell behind 44 - 34 after the 1st quarter.
But with Chamberlain scoring 61 for the game the Warriors came storming back. It’s the 11th time this season and the 3rd time in the past 9 days that Wilt has topped 60. Behind Chamberlain’s scoring, the Warriors won the game easily.
Chamberlain also set an NBA record by attempting 34 free throws, breaking his own record of 31. Although he only made 19 of them. Wilt could have scored 70 if he would have made just 9 of the 15 missed free throws.
Beat writer Jack Kiser noted in the Philadelphia Daily News that Chamberlain took, “quite a bit of kidding afterward because he shot better from the field (21 of 36) than he did from the foul line.” Of course, most of his field goals were “Dipper” dunks.
FINAL SCORE:
121 St. Louis Hawks
139 Philadelphia Warriors
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
Points: 61
Field Goals: 21 for 36
Free Throws: 19 for 34
Philadelphia - Saturday, February 25, 1962
25 year old, 3rd year sensation, Wilt Chamberlain came into last night’s matchup against 28 year old Bill Russell and the Boston Celtics averaging an historic 49.9 points per game for the season.
Russell did a phenomenal defensive job on Chamberlain. Wilt had just 15 points after the first 3 quarters, at which time the Celtics led 85 - 60.
Wilt scored another 11 after the game was out of reach in the 4th quarter to end up with 26. John Dell of the Philadelphia Inquirer noted that Wilt’s 26 points for the game included, “eight garbage points in the waning minutes after the Celtics had run away from the Warriors.”
Wilt’s only other sub 30 point game this season also came against Russell and the Celtics back on November 3rd when he had just 28. In every one of the other 70 games this season, Wilt had scored at least 30. Against the Celtics, Wilt is averaging 42.7. Against the rest of the league, he’s averaging 50.8.
Dell was quick to give Bill Russell the credit for shutting down Wilt. Dell called Russell, “Wilt’s Twin,” in a subheading. In the article he wrote, “The main reason for Wilt’s trouble was Bill Russell, who stuck to him like a siamese twin.”
Wilt was also his own nemesis, shooting just 4 for 13 on free throws including a stretch of 7 straight misses.
The Celtics victory improved their record to an Eastern Division leading 51 - 18. While the Warriors at 44 - 28 are virtually assured of 2nd place with just 8 games left in their season.
FINAL SCORE:
109 Boston Celtics
86 Philadelphia Warriors
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
Points: 26
Field Goals: 11 for 24
Free Throws: 4 for 13
Philadelphia - Sunday, February 26, 1962
Just one night after Wilt was held to a season low of 26 points, the Warriors played their 5th game in 6 nights. Their opponent, the New York Knicks, were playing their 3rd game in 3 nights.
NBA schedules can be quite brutal on the players here in 1962.
Wilt Chamberlain, who plays all 48 minutes of every game, no matter how many games in a row they play, appeared to lack energy at the beginning of the second half according to Jack Kiser of the Philadelphia Daily News. As a result, the Knicks outscored the Warriors 42 - 26 in the quarter to open up a big lead at 115 - 96.
At that point in the game Chamberlain had “only” scored 39 points. However, both Knicks centers had fouled out guarding Chamberlain by the end of the 3rd quarter. Jack Kiser wrote that in the 4th quarter the Knicks were, “forced to employ Cleveland Buckner, a lean 6-9er, against the Big Dipper.”
With an enormous size advantage, Chamberlain proceeded to score 28 points in the final quarter, “mostly from point-blank range… in the meaningless fourth quarter,” according to Kiser.
It was not enough to close the gap and the Knicks won it by 14.
Wilt had scored 67 points in the game, his 3rd highest game of the season to date. He did it with stellar shooting, 25 for 38 from the field. That was his best shooting percentage in any game in which he has taken 30+ field goal attempts. And Wilt nearly always takes more than 30 shots.
Even more surprising was that Wilt nailed 17 of 22 free throws. That was his 5th best game of the year at the charity stripe percentage-wise, where Wilt is just barely above 60% on the season so far.
What took the Warriors down was the rest of the team, which only shot 25 for 73 from the field.
But there can be no doubt that Wilt being tired in the 3rd quarter also hurt the team. Kiser wrote that Wilt, “failed to cross the mid-court line on defense no less than 12 times in the second half. He appeared very tired, but McGuire (the Warriors’ coach) says there is no immediate plan of changing his 48-minutes-a-game routine.”
Kiser also quoted coach Frank McGuire about the team strategy that requires Wilt to play at this super human level, “I told everybody before the season started that Wilt had to do his very best in everything for us to win. By the very best I mean playing both ends of the court, getting 30 or so rebounds and 50 points. It takes that much of a super-human effort on his part to cover up our other weaknesses.”
FINAL SCORE:
149 New York Knicks
135 Philadelphia Warriors
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
Points: 67
Field Goals: 25 for 38
Free Throws: 17 for 22
Where’s Wilt?
There is no question during any game of Where’s Wilt. He’s always on the court. Always.
Well, almost always.
Wilt has played every single minute of every game this season with one exception. In a game in Los Angeles on January 3rd, he was ejected with 8 minutes remaining. Wilt protested a call by referee Norm Drucker. Drucker called a technical on Wilt. When Chamberlain continued to argue, Drucker called the 2nd T which resulted in the automatic ejection. Wilt continued to argue even after being ejected and was hit with 2 more technical fouls. The Warriors ended up losing the game by 1 point.
NOTE from The Sports Time Traveler
I interrupt this article, to tell you a quick story about referees charging additional technical fouls after a player as already been ejected from the game for their 2nd T.
On November 8, 1978, I was at a New Jersey Nets game with my dad. The Nets were playing the Julius Erving led Philadelphia 76ers. We were sitting front row mid-court at the Rutgers Athletic Center. Nets rookie sensation Bernard King was ejected from the game with 5:50 to go in the 3rd quarter, and the referees called a third technical on King after the ejection. Just like the Warriors game from 1962, the Nets ended up losing a close game directly due to the additional technical foul. In the Nets case they lost in overtime. But unlike the Warriors game in 1962, the Nets protested to the commissioner’s office, making the case that NBA rules don’t allow for an extra technical after a player has already been ejected.
The Nets won the appeal, and the game was replayed on March 23, 1979, from the point of the illegal third technical. My dad and I were also at the replayed game, which took place just prior to a regularly scheduled game in Philadelphia instead of in New Jersey.
We saw in essence the only NBA doubleheader ever to take place in which two teams played against each other twice in the same day.
The Nets lost both games.
And now back to 1962.
St. Louis - Wednesday, February 28, 1962
After a much needed night off, the Warriors were in St. Louis to play the Hawks again.
Wilt scored 27 in the first half and the Warriors opened up at 71 - 57 lead.
But in the 3rd quarter the big scorer was Bob Pettit with 16, giving him a total of 40 for the game, and the Hawks came swooping back into the game with 42 points in the quarter to pull within 7 at 106 - 99 at the end of three.
The Game is Stopped Briefly to Praise Pettit
During the 3rd quarter, Bob Pettit became the 4th player in NBA history to pass the 15,000 point mark. The others in the 15,000 point club are as follows:
DOLPH SCHAYES - the all-time leading scorer who has spent his entire career on the Syracuse Nationals
BOB COUSY - the Boston Celtics great whose ball-handling wizardry is legendary
PAUL ARIZIN - A Warriors teammate of Wilt. Arizin has been in the league since 1951, and has been an all-star every season with the exception of 2 years he missed when he served in the marines during the Korean War.
Chamberlain, who is in just his 3rd season, has already passed the 9,000 point mark and is well on his way to becoming the all-time leading scorer by sometime in the middle of the decade.
Now back to the game.
In the final quarter, the game tightened further. John J. Archibald wrote in the St. Louis, “Several times in the final period the Hawks moved to within 5 points, but always there was Chamberlain to kill off their hopes with his rain of baskets.”
Wilt scored 21 in the 4th quarter. Pettit could only manage 9. And the Warriors walked away with a 10 point win.
Pettit had one of the best games of his career with 49 points.
But Wilt was even better with 65. And on this night, he wasn’t making most of his baskets with Dipper Dunks. Archibald wrote, “Again and again he fired fall-away jump shots that bounced off the backboard and through the netting, sometimes as far as 15 or 20 feet away.”
Coach Frank McGuire told Archibald, “That is a shot that Wilt has worked to develop this season… sometimes he makes as many as three-fourths of his field goal attempts a fair distance from the basket.”
FINAL SCORE
147 Philadelphia Warriors
137 St. Louis Hawks
WILT CHAMBERLAIN
Points: 65
Field Goals: 25 for 43
Free Throws: 15 for 20
Wilt’s Wondrous Week
This was the 3rd time in 4 games and the 5th time in just 2 weeks that the Big Dipper topped 60 points. Wilt’s average is now 50.0 for the season, with 6 games remaining.
If Wilt can average 50 over the final 6 games he will have an average of 50 for the entire season, setting a truly remarkable standard.
In 5 games this week alone, including the 26 point game against Russell, Wilt averaged 53.
If he can keep up the pace for 6 more games he will have that incredible average of 50 for the season.
Jerry Nason of the Boston Globe grasped the magnitude of this potential achievement for Chamberlain. He wrote, “There hasn’t ever been anything close to this since Dr. Naismith knocked the bottoms out of a pair of peach baskets.”
And Nason referred to Chamberlain as, “the most underrated athlete in professional sports.” He asserts this because, “the average reaction to Mr. Chamberlain and his fantastic feats is, ‘aw he’s a great big guy and why shouldn’t he score 50 points per?’…. everybody seems to be reluctant to confess that the big guy is a darn good goer on the court.”
Makes me wonder if there is an NBA record for points scored in a calendar week (or month). My guess is that Wilt would hold most of them.