Background
The Portland Trail Blazers franchise entered the NBA as an expansion team in 1970, along with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Buffalo Braves. Like all expansion teams, the Trail Blazers struggled, but in 1974, hope was along the way.
Bill Walton was drafted first overall by the Trail Blazers in the 1974 NBA Draft. The Trail Blazers, though still missing the playoffs, continued to add key pieces, such as Dave Twardzik, Lloyd Neal, Lionel Hollins, and Maurice Lucas. In 1976, Jack Ramsay was hired as head coach, and with a healthy Walton, Portland made the playoffs for the first time in the 1976–77 season, winning 49 games. The Blazers would defeat the Chicago Bulls in three games and the Denver Nuggets in six games, and then swept the top-seeded Los Angeles Lakers in the conference finals.
The Philadelphia 76ers made it back to the playoffs in 1976, after missing the previous four years, which included a league-worst nine wins in the 1972–73 season. They acquired former ABA All-Star Julius Erving, late of the New York Nets, in the offseason. The 76ers won 50 games the next season, something they hadn't achieved since 1969. In the playoffs, they defeated the defending champion Boston Celtics in a tough seven-game series, and then advanced to the finals for the first time since 1968 by ousting the Houston Rockets in six games.
Read more about this topic: 1977 NBA Finals
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)