1975 NBA Finals - Can the Warriors Dodge the Bullets?

The Washington Bullets, with the NBA's best record, take on an unlikely finalist, the Golden State Warriors

May 26, 2025

INTRODUCTION from The Sports Time Traveler

The Sports Time Traveler has been following the Washington Bullets during the 1974-75 season. The Bullets had a sensational season. They won their 5th consecutive division title. And they tied the defending champion Celtics for the league’s best record, with a sparkling 60 - 22.

No other team in the NBA won more than 48 games in the 1975 season.

Fittingly, the two powerhouses met in the playoffs, where the Bullets unseated the Celtics, last year’s Final’s winner, in 6 games.

The Bullets could lay hold to a claim as the NBA’s best.

But wait, there was still another series to be played.

You see, the Bullets and Celtics were both in the Eastern Conference. The Bullets still had to play the NBA Finals against the winners of the weaker Western Conference.

The Best of the Worst West

The best team in the West, the Golden State Warriors, did not come to the NBA Finals with the typical pedigree of a Western Conference Champion.

The Warriors were a team that was not even expected to make the playoffs at the beginning of the season. After the 1974 season, in which they had a modest record of 44 - 38, they gave away 3 of their 5 leading scorers and got just one promising young player in return.

The Warriors traded their 2nd leading scorer, Cazzie Russell, for a future draft pick.

Even more startling, no shocking, is that the Warriors traded their future Hall of Fame center, Nate Thurmond, who had been 8th in the 1974 MVP voting and had been named to the 2nd team All-NBA Defensive squad. Thurmond was just 33 years old. In return they got a 25-year-old emerging 3rd year center, Clifford Ray, who had a nice year in 1974, averaging 9 points and 12 rebounds. But no one considered Ray to be a replacement for Thurmond’s 13 points / 14 rebounds / 3 blocks per game performance in 1974. In addition, Ray, 2 inches shorter, at 6’9”, was somewhat undersized as an NBA center.

And that’s not all the Warriors lost from the 1974 team. Their 5th leading scorer, Jim Barnett, was picked up in the expansion draft by the new New Orleans Jazz.

And yet, the Warriors went on to have a surprising start to the season. Back on January 12th, they had a record of 27 - 12 and only the Bullets, at 28 - 12, had a better record at that time.

But after that, the Warriors were woeful, finishing out the season limping into the playoffs, winning just 21 of their last 43 games.

The Western Conference Playoffs

In the first round of the playoffs, the Warriors drew the Seattle Supersonics, a 43 - 39 team that had barely made the playoffs. Only a finishing 6-game winning streak had enabled to Sonics to end the season above .500. After 4 games in the series, the Warriors and Sonics were tied at 2 games each after the Sonics had blasted the Warriors 111 - 94 in game 4. But the Warriors got it together and won games 5 and 6 to move on.

In the Western Conference Final, the 47-win Chicago Bulls held a 3 games to 2 lead over the 48-win Golden State Warriors, and game 6 was in Chicago Stadium. The stage was set for the Bulls to reach the NBA Finals for the first time.

But the Bulls collapsed. They lost game 6 when they scored just 12 points in the 4th quarter.

Back in Oakland for game 7, the Bulls were up 45 - 31 in the 2nd quarter. But the Warriors came back and won the game 83 - 79.

Golden State had earned a flimsy golden ticket to the NBA Finals. There they would get to watch… I mean play the Washington Bullets for 4 games, perhaps 5, if the Warriors somehow stole a game.

Unseld and Hayes in the Big Dance

No one was giving the Warriors a chance, and for good reason. The Bullets were simply a great team. They had no holes in their roster. They had a perfectly balanced starting 5, anchored by perhaps the best center - power forward combo in history - Unseld and Hayes.

Here were the Bullets starters:

Wes Unseld, C - 28-years-old, Unseld had been the league MVP as a rookie in 1969, the only player besides Wilt Chamberlain to do that. He was also the NBA’s leading rebounder in 1975. But he was most well-known for a part of his repertoire that was unique to him - the outlet pass. He threw outlet passes like no one before or since. This season he was 9th in the MVP voting.

Elvin Hayes, PF - At 29, Hayes was in his prime. The man they called “the Big E” had been an All-Star every year and this season he was 3rd in MVP voting. He was a scoring machine with a patented turn around fallaway jumper that was unblockable, unstoppable and demoralizing to opponents.

Here is a link to a highlights video of the Big E’s turnaround fallaway jump shot:

Elvin Hayes Turnaround Fallaway Jumper

Phil Chenier, SG - At 24, Chenier had his best year so far in 1975, earning him 2nd team All-NBA status and 8th place in the MVP voting. He not only averaged 22 points a game, but he was among the league leaders in steals with 2.3 per game.

Kevin Porter, PG - The 24-year-old 3rd year point guard had a breakout season. He led the NBA in assists and was 9th in steals, while shooting nearly 50% from the floor and scoring 12 points per game.

Mike Riordan, SF - The 29-year-old was a key sub on the 1970 Knicks Championship team. 3 years ago, he was traded to the Bullets, where he became a dependable starter at small forward. Riordan scored 15 points per game on nearly 50% shooting. But he also brought a tenacity to the floor and a penchant for aggressive defense that spawned the nickname “Iron Mike.”

The Lone Marksman

The Warriors on the other hand, had just one star player, forward Rick Barry. Barry was a sensational outside shooter, and he had a great season, scoring 30 points a game, and leading the league in free throw percentage at 91% with his patented underhand technique.

But Barry had no supporting cast. The other starters could all be categorized as journeymen type players. Although small forward Jamaal Wilkes, the team’s 2nd leading scorer at 14 points per game, did win the Rookie-of-the Year award.

The NBA “Formals”

After the Bullets beat the Celtics, many sportswriters felt the true NBA champion for 1975 had already been crowned. This year’s edition of the NBA Finals could have been re-named the NBA “Formals,” since the Finals was going to be a mere formality, a celebration, not a meaningful competition for the Bullets.

Even Frank Blackman of the San Francisco Examiner agreed that the Warriors were no match for the Bullets. On the morning of May 18th, prior to game 1, he started his Finals preview article with this, “Although no one has bothered to commission a Harris or Gallup poll, the general consensus is that the Golden State Warriors have little chance of surviving the Washington Bullets. Impressed by Washington’s decisive six-game victory over the defending champion Boston Celtics and awed by the talent the Bullets’ possess, nearly everybody questioned in an informal survey voted thumbs down on the possibility of the Warriors becoming the new National Basketball Association champions.”

When even the hometown sportswriters say there is no chance, your chances are truly bleak.

Celtics’ coach Tom Heinsohn was also bullish on the Bullets. He told Peter Vecsey in the New York Daily News, “The Bullets had the moxie to choke off every rally we attempted. It augurs well for the next round.”

Peter Vecsey himself, a shrewd and savvy basketball analyst, went with a radical pick, that was partially made in jest based on his last line. He wrote, “Our Pick: Warriors in seven. Barry and bench will prevail. But don’t expect me to put any money on it.”

And now here are my reports on the 1975 NBA FINALS. As always, the bylines have the date I read the newspaper archives during my sports time travel journey:

GAME 1 - Capital Centre, Landover, MD - May 19, 1975

Yesterday in game 1, the Bullets came out fast, just as expected.

Watch the clip in the link below at the 28:10 mark on the tape as Wes Unseld makes one of the most spectacular outlet passes I’ve ever seen. Unseld throws the ball three-quarters of the court in a perfectly timed bomb to point guard Kevin Porter who catches the ball in stride for an easy lay up. Terry Bradshaw or Rogers Staubach couldn’t have thrown a better strike.

Wes Unseld Spectacular Outlet Pass Leads to an Easy Basket

The basket put the Bullets up 27 - 15 near the end of the 1st quarter.

Next watch Unseld do it again. This time it’s an unbelievable outlet type bomb on the inbounds pass, again leading to an easy bucket and the Bullets are up by 9 in the 2nd quarter.

Unseld Unbelievable Outlet Pass Again!

Now watch as Rick Barry makes a pair of free throws using his underhand technique:

Rick Barry makes a pair of UNDER HANDED free throws

While he was perfect from the free throw line. Barry was just 4 for 13 from the field in the 1st half. And with the Bullets clicking on all cylinders, Washington was up 54 - 40 at the half and the game appeared to be a laugher as anticipated. It was a total mismatch. The Bullets shot 51% in the 1st half and the Warriors just 36%.

At the beginning of the 3rd quarter the Bullets increased the lead to 56 - 40.

And then things went awry for Washington.

Kevin Porter got into foul trouble. Without Porter running the show, the Warriors jammed the Bullets’ shooters.

In addition, Warriors’ coach Al Attles, decided to go to his bench for extended minutes and have them increase the tempo of the game. The bench players tired out the Bullets’ All-Star starters, who had almost no rest in the game. Hayes played all 48 minutes, while Unseld and Chenier each played 46 minutes.

The result was that the Warriors went on a 31 - 16 run starting early in the 3rd quarter and pulled to within a single point going into the 4th quarter. Al Attles liked what he saw from his bench players, so he left rookie Phil Smith and Charles Dudley in for the 4th quarter.

Early in the 4th quarter, with the Warriors ahead 78 - 76, Phil Smith proved his value on the court. Elvin Hayes got the ball in his spot about 12 feet from the basket and started backing in on the defender and began the motion for his famous turnaround jumper. But Smith came in and blocked it from behind!

You can watch it at this link:

Phil Smith Blocks the Big E's Turnaround Jumper from Behind

Smith who had averaged less than 8 points per game all season, scored 16 in the 2nd half. The Warriors went ahead by 8 at 92 - 84 in the middle of the 4th quarter.

With a minute to go the Bullets got to within 2 points at 97 - 95. Then Rick Barry hit a tough jumper at the top of the key.

That sealed it for the Warriors and they stole game 1, 101 - 95.

Alan Goldstein in the Baltimore Sun opened his article on the game today with this, “It looked like another optical illusion to a capacity Capital Centre crowd.”

How could the Bullets have lost the game?

Rick Barry told a UPI reporter, “We’re not a super basketball team. To win, we have to work. And that’s what we did.”

The Folly of the Ice Follies

After game 1, the series shifted to Oakland for games 2 and 3. This was not the normal NBA Finals schedule. By design, the team with the better record, in this case the Bullets, are supposed to have the first 2 games at home.

But the owners of the Capital Centre had previously rented out the arena to the Ice Follies during the next week.

Now the Warriors had a gift opportunity. With a 1 - 0 series lead, if the Warriors could hold their home court in games 2 and 3, they would be leading 3 - 0, and no team in the NBA had ever come back from a 3 - 0 deficit.

And the Warriors were a team that played superbly at home. In the 1974-75 season, the Warriors were 31 - 10 at home, while just 17 - 24 on the road.

But there was yet another icy twist. The Golden State Warriors also could not play on their home court in Oakland because the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena was also rented out for a week-long ice show. So games 2 and 3 would be played on the Warriors old home court near San Francisco, the Cow Palace, where the Warriors had played until 1971.

Game 2 - Cow Palace near San Francisco - May 21, 1975

Game 2 played out yesterday in similar fashion to game 1. The Bullets pulled ahead by 13 in the 1st half, only to wilt in the 2nd half. In a stretch that began early in the 3rd quarter and extended into the early 4th quarter the Warriors outscored the Bullets 36 - 17. That took them from 11 down at 63 - 52, to 8 up at 88 - 80. From there the Warriors hung on to win by a single point, 92 - 91, when Elvin Hayes missed a potential game-winning shot at the buzzer.

In fairness to Hayes, it was not an easy shot. He had just grabbed a rebound off a miss by Mike Riordan. Hayes was on the baseline, backpedaling for room to shoot and knew he had to get off his shot immediately. “I just didn’t have full control of that last shot,” Hayes told the San Francisco Examiner.

You can see the shot at this link:

Bullets' Elvin Hayes Misses a Potential Game Winner at the Buzzer

The biggest cause of the Bullets’ demise was not the missed shot but the fact that Hayes, their leading scorer, only had 3 points in the entire 2nd half and was held scoreless in the 4th quarter.

On the other side, the Warriors scoring machine, Rick Barry, poured in 36 points on 14 field goals and no misses from the foul line, including the 2 free throws with 23 seconds left that put the Warriors ahead for good.

The Big E, Elvin Hayes, had his worst shooting game of his entire playoff career, connecting on just 3 of 15 from the field for 15 points.

And in another sign of the importance of the home advantage for Golden State, back on January 4th, the Warriors had similarly held Hayes to 3 for 17 shooting in a game in Oakland, which was the only time the Warriors won a game from the Bullets in 4 tries in the regular season.

Bullets’ coach K.C. Jones had this explanation for Hayes’ sub-par scoring performance, “(Hayes) took such pounding because he was being double and triple-teamed.”

THE UNTHINKABLE

The unthinkable had now happened. The Warriors had captured the first 2 games. The Bullets had their backs to the wall. Without the home court advantage they were supposed to rightfully have in game 2, the Bullets not only were behind 2 games to 0, but now they had to play game 3 on the road again and face the prospect of falling into a terminal 3 to 0 deficit.

Game 3 - Cow Palace outside of San Francisco - May 24, 1975

Game 3 yesterday didn’t play out like the first 2 games.

The Warriors got out to an early lead thanks to their super shooter, Rick Barry.

Take a look at Barry on this turnaround jumper while he was being closely guarded:

Rick Barry jumper in the 1st quarter of game 3

Barry scored 19 in the opening quarter, just 2 shy of the entire Bullets’ team, and the Warriors led 26 - 21.

Barry only had 6 in the 2nd quarter and the Bullets cut the lead to just 2 points at halftime.

In the opening minutes of the 3rd quarter the Bullets took the lead at 56 - 54, but then the Warriors scored 9 straight to go up 63 - 56, and they never relinquished the lead again, winning the game 109 - 101.

Most notably, Elvin Hayes, who scored 24 points in the first 3 quarters, did not score in the 4th quarter. While Rick Barry had 38 points, 6 assists and 5 steals for the Warriors.

The Warriors were now up 3 games to none, and the NBA Finals were effectively over.

GAME 4 - Capital Centre, Landover, MD - May 26, 1975

Coming into game 4 back on Washington’s home court, Rick Barry told the AP, “We can’t let up now. We have to keep after them, keep up the pressure.”

It’s defensive pressure, sportswriters concluded, that is at the core of the stunning set of events that have the Golden State Warriors, a team that many thought would not even make the playoffs, now 1 game away from the NBA Title. Rick Cullen, sports editor of the Salisbury, MD Daily Times wrote, “The amazing Warriors have handled the Bullets with ease. They’ve outhustled the Bullets, outrebounded the Bullets… Washington has seemed stunned by the ballhawking Warriors… they’ve stolen passes, forced numerous Washington mistakes… the Warriors have been the aggressors.”

Yesterday’s game turned out to be unlike any of the prior games. Washington’s Mike Riordan was determined not to let the Warriors’ Rick Barry torch the Bullets as he had done the prior 2 games in which he scored a combined 74 points.

With Washington leading 8 - 4 in the early going, Riordan notched up his aggressive defensive style to match that of a Washington Redskins’ linebacker, as he made tackling type move from behind while Barry drove to the basket.

Watch it here and then continue to watch the aftermath of the play as a fight breaks out:

In the video of the fight, the man in the beige suit who ran frantically out to take on Riordan was Warriors’ coach Al Attles. This is the only time I’ve ever seen an NBA coach come off the bench and get into a fight with a player. Attles went beserk after Riordan made his tackle move on Rick Barry. Attles came flying off the bench after Riordan. But Bullets’ center Wes Unseld, perhaps the broadest and strongest player in the NBA stepped in. Attles at 8 inches shorter and at least 100 pounds lighter didn’t care. He went full-bore against Unseld.

Perhaps never before or since has a coach demonstrated such bravery in defense of one of his players.

Attles was thrown out of the game.

And quite remarkably, Riordan was not.

With the 2 technical free throws, the Bullets went up 10 - 4. Then on the first play after the melee, the Bullets’ Phil Chenier stole the ball and went in for an uncontested lay up. It was 12 - 4 Bullets.

The Bullets were looking like the team that was supposed to sweep the Warriors.

In this clip, late in the middle of the 1st quarter, you will see yet another one of Unseld’s unbelievable outlet passes:

Another Unbelievable Unseld Outlet Pass

Early in the 2nd quarter, the Bullets increased the advantage to 36 - 22.

And then, as they seemed to do in every game, the Warriors whittled away at the lead. They went ahead 66 - 65 late in the 3rd quarter.

But the Bullets didn’t give up. When Elvin Hayes hit a jumper with 4:44 left in the game, the Bullets were up 92 - 84. But this Warriors team just never gives in. They scored the next 8 points, tying the game when Jamaal Wilkes stole a rebound from Unseld and Hayes and put it in the basket. It was 92 - 92 with 2:12 remaining.

Hayes put the Bullets back up by 1 on a free throw with 1:55 to go, but 10 seconds later, Warrior’s guard Butch Beard connected to give the Warriors the lead at 94 - 93, and the Bullets never got it back. The final score was Warriors 96 - Bullets 95.

The Golden State Warriors were the most unlikely NBA Champions and they had done in an extraordinary 4 game sweep to win the first NBA Title in their franchise history. That’s a history which goes all the way back to the beginnings of the NBA in the late 1940s when the team was based in Philadelphia.

A Field Day for the Sportswriters

The magnitude of the upset, this mind-boggling sweep of the NBA’s best team by a rag tag bunch of Warriors, was the stuff of fairy tales. It provided Bay Area sportswriters with grandest opportunity of their careers to describe, with all the hyperbole they could muster, what this victory meant.

The front page of the sports section in the Berkeley Gazette had this banner headline, “Impossible Dream Fulfilled - Warriors Bulletproof.”

Sports editor Nick Peters began his article with this, “Strike a blow for the underdog, the average guy and the work ethic. What the Golden State Warriors achieved yesterday in capturing the NBA Championship will aptly serve as a lesson to coaches, athletes and fans alike.”

Later in the article he called the victory, “a monumental performance that ranks among the greatest upsets in sports history.”

John Simmonds of the Oakland Tribune penned a banner headline in the sports section, “Cardiac Kids Complete Their Miracle.”

Frank Blackman of the San Francisco Examiner wrote this headline, “Warriors: A Dream Comes True.”

Jim Bainbridge had the front page article in the San Francisco Examiner. His headline read, “Hail to the Conquerors.”

And closer to Hollywood, the headline on page 1 of the sports section in the Los Angeles Times was this headline, “Fantasy to Reality: The Warriors are No. 1”

On the opposite coast, Alan Goldstein of the Baltimore Sun described what it was like inside the Capital Centre at the game’s conclusion, “Al Attles’ miracle workers left a capacity Capital Centre crowd of 19,035 in stunned disbelief by completing the devastation of the Bullets.”

He also quoted the Warriors’ one true star, Rick Barry, “This is the happiest and most rewarding moment of my life. A dream come true.”

John Simmonds quoted Barry saying, “I’ve never been associated with a greater bunch of guys. It’s utopia out there for them.”

And in the AP article, Rick Barry said, “This is a fitting end to a true fantasy story.”

The Sports Time Traveler™

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