NBA Finals: Top 7 Upsets In NBA Finals History
By Phil Watson
7. Philadelphia Warriors over Chicago Stags, 1947
The old Basketball Association of America had some strange ideas about how to run a postseason. In its inaugural season (and all three years it existed before the merger with the National Basketball League in 1949), the BAA made sure that its two best teams could not meet for the title.
That’s right. In a 10-team league in 1946-47, six of them made the playoffs. The third-place teams in the East and West divisions met in a best-of-three quarterfinal series, as did the second-place teams in each division.
That left the division champions to meet in a best-of-7 semifinal, with the winner going to the Finals to meet whoever emerged from the battle between the surviving second- and third-place squads.
So while the Washington Capitols and their 49-11 record were battling the Chicago Stags, the Philadelphia Warriors were beating the St. Louis Bombers and New York Knicks in two short series.
And the BAA powers-that-be, in their infinite wisdom, gave the lower-seeded team home-court advantage.
But it was still expected the Stags would overpower the Warriors after taking five of the teams’ six meetings during the regular season.
Perhaps it was foreshadowing that the one game Philadelphia won in the regular season was the last meetings between the squads with just three days left on the schedule.
But it might have just been the fact the Warriors had the league’s most prolific scorer, Joe Fulks.
Fulks was the only player in the BAA to average more than 20 points per game—he won the scoring title by a whopping 6.3 points per game margin over runner-up Bob Feerick of Washington.
He led the Warriors with 37 points, 21 in the fourth quarter, and Chicago managed to take a staggering 129 shots and make just 26 (a 20.2 percent rate that Brandon Jennings would be proud of) and Philadelphia took Game 1 at Philadelphia Arena 84-71.
In Game 2 at Philadelphia Arena, center Art Hillhouse scored seven of Philadelphia’s last 10 points and the Warriors had a much more balanced attack, getting 18 points from Howie Dallmar, 16 from Jerry Fleishman, 14 each from Hillhouse and Ralph Kaplowitz and 13 from Fulks in an 85-74 win.
With the scene shifting to Chicago Stadium for Game 3, it was still the Warriors who had the magic touch, with Fulks pouring in 26 points in a 75-72 win that pushed the Stags to the brink of elimination.
Chicago finally rallied for a 74-73 win in Game 4, although they nearly squandered the 65-52 lead they had entering the fourth quarter, getting 20 points from star forward Max Zaslofsky to offset the Warriors duo of George Senesky (24 points) and Fulks (21 points).
With less than a minute to go in Game 5, Dallmar dropped in a set shot to break an 80-80 tie and seal the 83-80 win and the first league title for the Warriors.