Arnie risen: after almost cruising to an NBA finals sweep, the Rochester Royals found themselves in a fight for their lives in a historic Game 7 vs. the New York Knicks - The Game I'll Never Forget

Basketball Digest, May, 2002

THE NBA WAS JUST LEARNING to crawl back in the 1950s. This was long before Air and Showtime were on prime-time TV. Long before $100 million contracts and 6'10" point guards and slam-dunk contests and triple-doubles and Gary Glitter.

Back then, we didn't play in these grandiose concrete cathedrals they have these days. Many of our games were held in cramped high school gyms and armories. And there weren't teams housed in every major city in North America. Back then, small towns such as Toledo, Oshkosh, Wis., and Sheboygan, Mich. were the cradles of basketball.

And then there was a pretty upstate New York Shangri-La called Rochester. That's where I played, proudly wearing the Royals jersey. We didn't play in one of these multimillion-dollar stadiums named for an office supply store or an airline. We played in the Edgerton Park Sports Arena, a wood-framed building that held 4,000 people. The city owned it and let its firemen use it most of the time to house equipment and carry out exercises. There were bleacher seats going all the way up on each side. There was nothing at the ends of the arena but a row of chairs underneath the baskets. There was an entrance lobby that opened into the place.

Usually, you could find us every March or April doing battle with the Minneapolis Lakers. They were our main rivals. It's too bad we were both in the Western Division, because we were usually the best two teams and one of us would be eliminated without being able to get to the NBA Finals.

The Lakers almost always won because their big frontcourt of George Mikan, Vern Mikkelsen, and Jim Pollard were able to control our good, talented small players. But eventually the Royals brought me, Arnie Johnson, and Jack Coleman in to give them some strength inside,

And in the 1951 playoffs, we turned the tables on the Lakers. With Mikan slowed by a broken ankle, we beat the Lakers and won the fight to go to the NBA Finals.

We were big favorites in the Finals. The New York Knicks had some nice players, such as Sweetwater Clifton, Max Zaslofsky, Harry Gallatin, Ernie Vandeweghe, and Dick and Al McGuire, and there was a lot of hype about the upstate team meeting the team from the city. But they were no match for paper. Everyone thought that because we had finally gotten past the Lakers, this was our year to win it all.

In the first three games, it seemed that it was indeed our time. We won the first two in front of our loud, enthusiastic fans, taking Game 1 by 27 points and Game 2 by 15. When the series switched to New York City and the 69th Regiment Armory, we didn't let up. It was a closer game, but we ended up winning Game 3 by seven.

Our small players were having a field day. Bob Davies was the forerunner of the point guard leading the fast break. He's also given credit for originating the no-look pass and the behind-the-back dribble. Bobby Wanzer was another gifted guard who had a nice shot. They both eventually would be added to the Hall of Fame.

And so would .our third guard who came off the bench, Red Holzman, although he was remembered for coaching the Knicks to a couple of rifles later on. Under our coach and owner, Les Harrison, we always gave a good, hard effort, and we had a nice team chemistry.

Up 3-0 in the series, everything seemed perfect. There were a lot of smiles on peoples' faces as they walked along the theaters and restaurants in downtown Rochester, which was a nice, rustic town I loved playing in. Their team was on its way to sweeping the Knicks.

Or were we? New York coach Joe Lapchick made a few roster changes and they paid off. The Knicks won Game 4 to stay alive. We didn't really worry, because we were going back to Rochester for Game 5. But the Knicks weren't going away. They rallied from a 10-point deficit in the third period to win, and they won Game 6 back at the Armory.

No one could believe we had just blown a 3-0 lead in the series. I'm sure we started to question our own confidence and abilities. We kept asking ourselves, "Where did that lead go?" That's only natural. I wasn't happy with our team. We had won the first three games playing one style, and then some of the players decided they were going to play another style. Luckily, we had one last chance not to let this thing slip away from us.

Game 7--the game I'll never forget--was played back in Rochester. We broke out of the gate fast, trying to regain the momentum of the series, but by the third quarter, the Knicks had caught up. I couldn't figure out how it come to this, but we were in a fight for our lives.

One of the keys was that we kept taking the game to them, and the Knicks got in some foul trouble. Late in the game, they were left with Gallatin as their only starting forward. I took advantage, completing a three-point play to give the Royals a 75-74 lead. The Knicks tied the score, but then Davies drew a foul and made both free throws. That was the ballgame, because according to the rules at the lime, the teams faced a jump ball after foul shots in the final two minutes. Since they only had Gallatin left, we knew we were going to win the tap. It went to Holzman, who ran the clock down. At the end, Coleman made a basket to put the final nail in the coffin.