Zelmo Beaty: winning game 7 of the 1971 ABA Finals wasn't as big a surprise as the Utah Stars fans' reactions to it - The Game I'll Never Forget

Basketball Digest, May, 2003 by Chuck O'Donell

THE MOST MEMORABLE game of my career came in Utah when we won the ABA title in 1971. But it wasn't so much for what happened during the game. It's always great to win a championship, but I actually think it was the reaction of the fans after we had won the championship that made it so special.

Here's what happened: As soon as we had beat the Kentucky Colonels, the fans were on that floor so fast, the players could not get off. The next thing we knew, they had us hoisted on their shoulders and were carrying us off the floor.

That was my first year in the ABA. I had been with the St. Louis and Atlanta Hawks in the NBA, and actually I'd signed with the ABA a few years earlier, in 1968, but I wasn't eligible to play with them until I sat out a season. That was how the reserve clause worked. I couldn't even practice with the team.

Another weird thing was that I had actually signed with the Los Angeles Stars of the ABA. I never anticipated the team moving to Utah. I actually had a choice. I could have not gone. They said, "We understand you didn't sign a contract to play in Utah." But I had made a commitment and I liked Bill Sharman, who was a great coach. I liked Willie Wise and all the other guys who were on that team. I knew that Utah was going to be a strong ballclub to play with.

In the beginning it was a hard decision to leave the NBA because I was going to a league that had not proven itself. Financially, you really didn't know what was going to happen. I was sort of fed up with the treatment I had received in the Hawks organization. Promises were made, then they went back on them.

So I decided I would take a chance to play basketball some other place. I felt the NBA would always be there and I could come back at any time.

The money that the ABA offered was quite a bit more. Sometimes to improve financially, you have to take a chance. I took that chance and I really enjoyed it. It was a change. The ABA wasn't like the NBA. To me, it was a little bit more exciting and colorful.

The Stars were the first pro team in Utah. It was one of the most enjoyable places I had a chance to play. I think it actually carried over to the Jazz years later on. You see the fans the Jazz have now; they love that ballclub. The same thing happened to the Stars. I think the money situation in the ABA is why the Stars had to leave Utah, but they left a mark there that helped the Jazz.

Both our Utah team and the Colonels were a bit of a surprise. We finished second in our division and so did the Colonels. Kentucky actually upset the Virginia Squires in the playoffs. Virginia had finished first overall with guys like Charlie Scott and Larry Brown, but Kentucky beat them.

The Indiana Pacers-Utah series in the West was a little more of a toss-up. We finished with a 57-27 record, one game behind Indiana. In the playoffs, though, we beat them 108-101 in Game 7 of the Western Division finals in Indiana.

We had a lot of talent on our team. George Stone played a big part in that championship. He was one of the best three-point shooters you could find, he and Glen Combs. Merv "the Magician" Jackson, he was one good college basketball player. Ron Boone. Red Robbins. We started the year off with Donnie Freeman and traded him and Wayne Hightower for Boone and Combs. Both of those guys were keys to the championship.

Sharman had a system of fines and rewards to motivate the players. If your free throw percentage increased, you got money for that. If you got offensive rebounds, you got paid for that. If you got beat on offensive rebounds, you got fined.

We really enjoyed that system because it kept you thinking all the time. It wasn't so much about the money, but the fact was you didn't want your teammates to know you lost $50 because you got beat five times on the free throw line. If I got beat on defense, where the guy went right and he shouldn't have gone right, I was out $50. The system worked. The coach kept all kinds of stats and it was really unorthodox, but it worked. At the end of the year, sometimes you ended up $1,000 in your pocket just because your free throw percentage increased. I don't think that would have happened with, out an incentive.

The series with Kentucky was tough, They had Louie Dampier, Darrell Carrier, and Dan Issel, who was a rookie. As the series went on, both teams held home court. But still we felt that we ranked the better team. We lost a few games that were real close--a four-point overtime loss in Game 4 and a three-point loss in Game 6.

We won Game 7, 131-121. Issel had 41 points, just an exceptional night. I had 36 points and 16 rebounds, and to the best of my recollection, the wasn't that close. I think at the end of the game, Sharman took the starting lineup out and decided he was going to let the reserves play out the game. Then Kentucky closed back to single digits and Sharman put the starters back in. He didn't want to risk it. So the starters were on the floor when the game ended.

Then, all of a sudden, we found ourselves hoisted on the shoulders of the fans. It just happened so fast, it was unbelievable. All of sudden you realize you're sitting on the shoulders of these fans. And the entire floor--if you look at the photographs--was filled with people. And you wonder: How did they get there so fast? It was amazing. We were just not able to get off the floor, and they swept us up.