Remembering an epic game between Pete Maravich and Bill Walton
It was the first victory in New Orleans Jazz history
Teams looked to the future in the NBA draft on Wednesday and Thursday, thus enabling the Stephen A. Smiths and the Woj bombs of the world to gasbag their way through speculation about how the five Frenchmen and Bronny-LeBron might fare in the 2024-25 season and beyond.
Chaos! Madness! I’m not paying attention to the post-draft noise and nonsense from ESPN, NBA TV, sports talk radio, podcasts, blogs and tweets (I refuse to write X’s).
I’m nostalgic for the distant past, such as the time Bill Walton and the Portland Trail Blazers came to New Orleans. No, it wasn’t to see the Grateful Dead at the Warehouse on Tchoupitoulas. It was to play Pete Maravich and the expansion Jazz at the Municipal Auditorium, the historic Treme arena just north of the French Quarter.
I associate Walton, who passed away on May 27 at the age of 71, and the late Pistol Pete, who would have celebrated his 77th birthday on June 22, with an epic regular-season game that will mark its 50th anniversary later this year.
The Jazz lost 11 in a row to start their inaugural season before the first victory in franchise history, and I was there.
Maravich hit a jump shot for the winning basket as the Jazz beat Walton and the Blazers 102-101 on Nov. 10, 1974, a Sunday night.
Walton, the NBA's No. 1 draft pick, led the Blazers with 25 points, 16 rebounds, three blocked shots and three assists. That was among the best stat lines of his rookie season, which was injury-shortened, an unfortunate sign of what was to come in his professional career.
It was a surprise the Jazz survived Walton's all-around game. It could have been 12 consecutive defeats, but Maravich kept that from happening. He played 46 minutes and finished with 30 points, 12 assists, 11 rebounds and four steals.
In a 2006 interview on “The Hot List,” an ESPNews weekday show that ran from 2004 to 2009, Walton recalled the game and described Maravich’s winning shot.
The Sunday afternoon of Nov. 10, 1974, I saw the powerhouse Miami Dolphins beat the hapless Saints 21-0 at Tulane Stadium.
It was no surprise.
Bob Griese threw three touchdown passes, all in the first half. Griese’s TDs: 12, 3 and 2 yards. No need to go deep. His passing yards: 93, a paltry number by today’s NFL standards. A humorous post in 2016 on a Dolphins message board said, “Griese CALLED HIS OWN PLAYS! Griese didn't even let Griese throw!”
Miami’s superpowers were its defense and its rushing attack.
In the video below, you can see all three Griese TDs, the fearsome running of the Dolphins’ Benny Malone and the frustration of Archie Manning over what he thought was a Saints touchdown.
The defeat was one of the many terrible Saints efforts since their first season in 1967, with decades more of feeble attempts to come, and though the Jazz thriller offered a glimmer of hope and a promise of future triumphs, they lost 22 of their next 25 games.
Forgettable to this day: 23-59, the Jazz’s record in the 1974-75 season.
Memorable to this day: 102-101, the Jazz’s very first victory.