The 1967 NBA World Championship Series was the championship series of the 1966–67National Basketball Association (NBA) season, and it was the conclusion of the 1967 NBA Playoffs. The best-of-seven series was played between the Western Division champion San Francisco Warriors and the Eastern Division champion Philadelphia 76ers. This was the first championship series in 11 years without the Boston Celtics, who were defeated in the Division Finals by Philadelphia, the first time since 1958 and the only time in the 1960s that the Boston Celtics did not win the NBA Finals. It matched two teams who had each relocated in the decade, as the Warriors had moved from Philadelphia to San Francisco in 1962 and the 76ers had been relocated from Syracuse, New York to replace the void left by the Warriors. Wilt Chamberlain had been the star of the Warriors since joining the team in 1959 (which included an MVP Award) but was traded to the 76ers in the middle of the 1965 season.
Under first-year head coach Alex Hannum (who had been fired by the Warriors the previous season) and an approach to have Chamberlain focus more on defense rather than scoring (which resulted in a shooting percentage of 68.3%), Philadelphia dominated the regular season with a 68–13 record, the most regular season wins in NBA history at the time as Chamberlain won his third MVP award. While they did win in six games, it was a tight affair that saw numerous records set (most notably by Rick Barry, who scored the second most amount of points by a player in a Finals at the time) as Game 1 required overtime and the decisive Game 6 saw the 76ers rally back from a six-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win the championship.[1][2] With the win, Alex Hannum (who had led the St. Louis Hawks to the NBA title in 1958) became the first coach to win a championship with two different franchises, a mark that has since been matched by just two other head coaches in NBA history.
Scoring a postseason career-high 55 points on 48 attempts, Rick Barry tied the record set by Wilt Chamberlain in the 1962 playoffs for field goal attempts in one postseason game.[4]
The two teams combined for 84 points in the first quarter, which set a new postseason record. It was matched in the 1994 playoffs and 2003 but has not been surpassed.[5] The 76ers were trailing 106-102 early in the fourth quarter before Matt Guokas, a bench player for a majority of the season, took a quick pass off a rebound to throw in a 20-foot shot and quickly getting the ball again on a break and taking on Nate Thurmond when driving to the rim for a layup that tied the game along with knocking him out of the game when he crashed into the basket support. Chamberlain later exclaimed, "Gook! Gook! The rook showed us how!" In the final quarter, Chamberlain recorded eight rebounds and six blocks. The Warriors were trailing 123–122 with under 20 seconds remaining. An attempted pick and roll by Barry and Thurmond against Chamberlain saw a defensive struggle as Barry could not get a clean shot off when Chamberlain shifted his focus to Thurmond on an attempted pass, and a jump ball was forced on the rebound. Philadelphia scored a two-point shot to close out the scoring.[6]
