Basketball
Happy Birthday to Sarunas Marciulionis. The ‘Lithuanian Legend’ The southpaw shooting guard was a spark off the Warriors bench during those running seasons of the early 90’s; finishing runner up in the 6th Man of the Year award for the ‘91-’92 season. Sarunas is known as the 1st Soviet player in the NBA. He led the Lithuanian National team to a Gold Medal in 1988, and Bronze in both ‘92 & ‘96.
The 1st selection in Miami Heat History. Rony Seikaly
Can you name the 1st Draft Pick in Seattle Supersonics History? He also happened to invent the Alley Oop along with his brother while they attended Oklahoma Baptist University. He finished his career as a member of the Miami Floridians of the ABA.
R.I.P
Supersonics History
On April 28th, 1990 the Boston Celtics routed the New York Knicks in Game 2 of their first round playoff matchup, 157-128. The 157 points is the most points scored by one team in a single playoff game. The 285 combined points between them is tied for 3rd in all time highest scoring playoff contests. The Knicks did get the last laugh though. They would come back to win the next three games to advance to the next round.
The 1985-86 Celtics finished the regular season 40-1 at the Boston Garden. (50-1 including the playoffs)
Can anyone name the only team to beat them at home that season?
Anybody else remember watching this one?? On this Day 25 years ago, Michael Jordan returned to the NBA for his first game in over 17 months away playing Baseball. The Bulls matched up with the Indiana Pacers in an early Sunday afternoon showdown. It became the NBA’s most watched regular season game since 1975. MJ went on to play 43 minutes scoring 19 points along with 6 rebounds, and 6 assists. The Pacers would defeat the Bulls in Overtime 103-96, with Reggie Miller leading the way for Indiana with 28 points.
On this day in 1993 Utah Jazz Center Mark Eaton swatted away two Seattle Supersonics shots during a Jazz 96-89 win over the Sonics in Salt Lake. With the two Blocks Eaton became the 2nd player to reach 3,000 blocks in his career. His 3.5 blocks per game average is the highest in NBA History.
Can anybody name the 1st player to reach 3,000? Let’s remember blocks weren’t an official statistic until the 1973-74 season.
Dudes We Dig !
(0) Orlando Woolridge was the last player to lead the Chicago Bulls in scoring (’83-’84-19ppg) before you know who showed up in town. ‘OboCop’ did still go on to average 23 ppg behind MJ’s 28 in ‘84-’85.
June 23, 1988 - With the 1st selection in the NBA Expansion Draft the Miami Heat select F Arvid Kramer. Huh? Who? Kramer was originally selected out of tiny Augustana University all the way back in 1979 by the Utah Jazz. His last NBA Appearance was in 1980 when he barely broke a sweat in 8 games for the Denver Nuggets. So, why would the Heat spend the 1st selection on Arvid? Well they had a backroom deal in place with the Dallas Mavericks who hoped to hold onto three other unprotected players in the expansion draft. (Bill Wennington, Jim Farmer and Steve Alford) The Heat agreed to select Kramer # 1 in exchange for the Mavericks 1st round pick in 1988. (20th overall) He never played for the Heat.
With the 2nd selection the other newly hatched franchise, the Charlotte Hornets, selected shooting guard Dell Curry who had spent the previous season with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Miami would finish 15-67 while the Hornets fared slightly better at 20-62.
One of the ‘Original Wolves’ -Doug is 3rd on the list of games played for the Minnesota Timberwolves with 609. (‘89-’98) The High Flying Guard was selected by the Wolves in the 2nd round of the 1989 Draft out of Villanova. Happy B-Day Fresh !!
Throwing it back to Issue 1 of The Amazing Blaze Zine and my trip to the West Palm Beach Auditorium to see Manute Bol & the hometown Beachdogs battle Darryl ‘Chocolate Thunder’ Dawkins & The Sioux City Skyforce. R.I.P. Dudes.
The Dallas Mavericks are on a bit of a playoff high these days, but back in the 1997 Season the Mavs reached a new basketball low. In an early April contest of another lost season, Dallas somehow managed to score only 2 points in single quarter . That’s right. Two points!! And those two points happened to come via free throws by Derek Harper. They shot 0-15 from the field in the 3rd Quarter. Amazingly they only lost by seven. 87-80 to the L.A. Lakers.
This is Eddie Arnet Johnson. Today is Eddie’s Birthday. Just don’t confuse him with the other Eddie Johnson. Eddie played 17 seasons in the NBA, and scored the 2nd most points by a player who failed to make an All-Star Team during his career. His 19,202 career points is higher than all but 30 members of the Hall of Fame. He was voted 6th man of the year in 1989 while a member of the Phoenix Suns.
Any Phoenix fans out there that can tell the crowd who the # 30 patch on Eddie’s jersey was in honor of?
Muggsy & Manute
