Warner Brothers NBA DVDs Trivia Contest, Part II
On November 21, I held a trivia contest that awarded three Warner Brothers DVD sets plus the Greatest Moments in NBA History DVD as prizes. My next trivia contest will award the Detroit Pistons 1989 Championship: Motor City Madness DVD set to the first person who correctly answers the following two part question:
On June 19, 1988, Detroit's Isiah Thomas set the all-time NBA Finals record for points in a quarter (25). Whose record did he break and how many points did that player score?
Also, I will award a Greatest Moments in NBA History DVD to the first person who correctly answers the two part bonus question. Please read the Contest Rules that are listed below the bonus question. Good luck!
Bonus question:
Who set the ABA record for most points in one quarter of a Finals game and how many points did he score?
Contest Rules:
1) Previous winners are ineligible for the prizes that they won before. In other words, "Illest" cannot win either prize because he won all three DVD sets and the Greatest Moments DVD in the previous contest; "Vednam" is ineligible for the Pistons DVD set but is eligible for the Greatest Moments DVD.
2) Answers must be submitted in the "comments" section of this post.
3) To win, your answer must include one of the following: your real name, your email address or the name of your blog/website (I can't mail a DVD to "anonymous").
4) To win a prize you must be the first person who correctly answers both parts of the question; if one person is the first to correctly answer both parts of both questions then that person will win both prizes.
5) One entry per person per question (this eliminates random guessing).
6) Contest winners' names will be announced in the "comments" section of this post and in a separate, new post on 20 Second Timoeut's main page; the contest winners will also be contacted via the email address or website information that they provide.
Note:
All of the DVDs featured in this contest and the previous contest--plus DVDs about the NFL, NHL and college football--can be purchased at the Warner Brothers website:
www.probasketballdvd.com
posted by David Friedman @ 1:44 AM
11 Comments:
Answer for bonus question:
Julius Erving set the ABA record for most points in one quarter of a finals game. He scored 25 points in the 4th quarter of Game 2 of the 1976 finals.
David, this is one of the hardest questions ever: Whose record did Detroit's Isiah Thomas break and how many points did that player score?
I'm not sure if that is the correct answer, but I will try:
On April 16, 1947 (in first game of the 1947 BAA finals) Joe Fulks of Philadelphia Warriors scored 21 points in a single quarter. Of course that was BAA, and in that game Philadelphia Warriors defeated Chicago Stags 84-71.
I have more than 100 books in my basketball collection and more than 250 basketball magazines and I didn't find the answer to your difficult question. Or maybe I did? If it isn't Joe Fulks then I don't have a clue who it is. But at least I tried to answer your difficult question.
NBA record is Bob Pettit with 19 points in 1958.
jsones1017@yahoo.com
Vednam, you must be a big Dr. J and/or ABA fan; you are correct that the Doctor holds the ABA Finals record for points in a quarter with 25. If the NBA merged its record book with the ABA the way that the NFL and AFL record books are merged, then Erving and Thomas would be listed as co-record holders (the NFL considers Joe Namath to be the first player to pass for 4000 yards in a season, a feat that Namath accomplished in the AFL).
Nets#3, you are correct that Joe Fulks held the NBA record for points in a quarter of a Finals game. The NBA included the statistics from the 1947 BAA season in its official records and Fulks held the mark for more than 40 years before Isiah broke it. The fact that Fulks was the official record holder for this mark can be verified by consulting editions of the Sporting News Official NBA Guide that came out prior to 1987-88.
Nets#3, while you did provide a blogger name, when I click on it there is no email address or way for me to contact you. Please post your email address here so that I can contact you and arrange to send the prize to you.
I've always been fascinated by Dr. J's ABA career and its obscure, yet legendary, status.
It's strange how the NBA version of Dr. J seemed like a different player. He was still one of the best in the league, but he seemed to lack the aura and stature that the ABA version possessed.
Many have tried to attribute this to the ABA being an inferior league. Red Auerbach, for instance, once said that the ABA was a "minor league" and in the NBA, Julius Erving was "just another forward" (an exaggeration, of course). By any measure, however, the ABA of the mid 70s was just as good as the NBA (if not better), so that doesn't explain it.
If Erving started out in the NBA and played, say, 10 years at the same level he played while on the New York Nets, I think we'd be talking about him as the best basketball player in history.
The ABA was certainly not a minor league, particularly by the time that Dr. J was dominating; just look at the All-NBA and All-Star teams in the first season after the merger. Dr. J had his 25 point quarter against a Nuggets team coached by a Hall of Famer (Larry Brown) that had two Hall of Fame players (Dan Issel, David Thompson) and one of the greatest defensive forwards of all-time (Bobby Jones).
There is no one, simple explanation for why Doc's NBA numbers don't quite match his ABA production. Age and the condition of his knees played a role (look at the first five years of most players' careers and you will find several of their highest scoring and best rebounding seasons in most cases). The NBA played a slower game at the time than the ABA played, a game less suited to the forays to the hoop that were Doc's strength. Another thing, as Dr. J told me and has told other interviewers, is that the Sixers told him point blank when he arrived that they had a lot of star players and they did not need for him to dominate. The idea was that a team with three 20 ppg scorers would be more balanced and harder to beat than one with a 30 ppg scorer and two 15 ppg scorers. Whether or not that reasoning was correct and whether or not Doc should have agreed with it are questions for another day, but Doc accepted that and never complained that he wasn't getting enough shots. From '80 to '82 the Sixers turned him loose somewhat, after McGinnis was traded and before Moses Malone arrived.
If the Nets had kept Doc when he entered the NBA I suspect that he would have continued to put up ABA-type numbers. His rebounding had already gone down a little but I think that he could have easily scored 27-29 ppg every year into the early 80s. I mean, his scoring went down from '77-'79 and then went back to 26.9 ppg in '80, so we know that age and his knees are not the complete explanation.
I can't imagine Michael Jordan accepting the role that Julius Erving did. That says something about both men but I'll leave it to others to judge exactly what it means. I do know that Julius had the respect of all of his teammates and all of his opponents.
David, here is my email address:
tomislav.pakrac@vz.t-com.hr
I'm your loyal reader from Croatia. I'm sure you remember me. We are contacting on a regular basis.
Tomislav: I wondered if that was you, but when I clicked on the "Nets#3" I could not find any more information.
That's a sweet shot of the Doctor. He was simply poetry in motion and there has never been anyone else like him.
I don't know of any books which thoroughly cover Julius Erving's career, or any of the teams he played on. There are many good accounts in other books though. For example, in David Thompson's autobiography, he goes into great detail about the 1976 ABA finals. I think he says something to the effect of, if anyone ever won a series singlehandedly, then Dr. J did in those finals.
I think that even though Dr. J didn't dominate in the NBA the same way he did in the ABA, he still had a tremendous career. He might even be underrated. I think he accomplished as much (if not more) in his career than Larry Bird, but Bird is almost always considered better. I think this has to do with the lack of spotlight Doc's early career received.
Dr. J has neither written an autobiography nor authorized a biography of his life. Probably the best book about him is Marty Bell's The Legend of Dr. J, which I think is out of print. There were two editions. One only covered the ABA and early 76ers years, the second one went up to the early 80s. There have been several books about Dr. J geared toward juveniles: one by Bill Gutman from early in his career and one from a series of biographies about prominent African American achievers. Bill Gutman also did a book that contained mini-biographies of Dr. J, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Moses Malone (early 80s).
Terry Pluto's book Loose Balls contains a lot of info about the ABA Dr. J.
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