Our opening round matchup of the East Region features the No. 1 seeded 1972-73 team against the no. 8 seed 1950-51 squad.

Their resume’s look like this:

1972-73: 57-25 regualar season and won the NBA championship

1950-51: 36-30 regular season; lost in NBA Finals

The ’73 team was the last Knicks team to win an NBA championship. They finished third in the Atlantic Division that season before going on a roll in the postseason, knocking off the Baltimore Bullets and Boston Celtics before defeating the Los Angeles Lakers in five games to capture the title.

The ’51 team finished third in the Eastern Division before beating the Boston Celtics and Syracuse Nationals to advance to the NBA Finals, losing there in seven games to the Rochester Royals.

Here’s how the two teams stack up against each other.

1972-73

Coach: Red Holzman

Starters:

C- Willis Reed (11.0 PPG; 8.6 RPG; 1973 Finals MVP)

F- Dave DeBusschere (16.3 PPG; 10.2 RPG)

F- Bill Bradley (16.1 PPG)

G- Earl Monroe (15.5 PPG)

G- Walt Frazier (21.1 PPG; 7.3 RPG; 5.9 APG)

Bench: Phil Jackson; Jerry Lucas; John Gianelli; Dick Barnett; Dean Meminger; Henry Bibby

1950-51

Coach: Joe Lapchick

Starters

Vince Boryla (14.9 PPG)

Harry Gallatin (12.8 PPG; 12.1 RPG)

Max Zaslofsky (12.7 PPG)

Connie Simmons (9.2 PPG; 6.5 RPG)

Dick McGuire (8.4 PPG; 6.3 APG; 5.4 RPG)

Bench: Nathaniuel Clifton; Ernie Vandeweghe; Tex Ritter; Ray Lumpp

My Take: The 1973 team is just a a great team filled with great players who accomplished what hasn’t been accomplished by players wearing Knicks jerseies in almost 40 years.

Their starting five will be tough for any Knicks team to matchup with in this tournament and should go on to win this game fairly easy.

Your Vote: Your vote is the one that counts though, so make sure you vote for the winner in the poll on the right hand side of this page. Voting is open until tomorrow afternoon and the winner will advance to the Sweet 16. DeBusschere is going to be the difference maker in this one as his ability to not only score, but crash the glass will give the ’73 Knicks a big edge.

Up Next: Check back tomorrow to not only see who wins this matchup but also vote on the second game in the East Region, featuring (2) 1994-95 Knicks vs. (7) 1977-78 Knicks.

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Best Season as a Knick- 1973-74- 18.1 PPG, 10.7 Rebounds, .461 FG%, .756 FT%

Dave DeBusschere will always be remembered celebrating as the Knicks won the lottery which led to the selection of Patrick Ewing with the first overall pick in the 1985 draft. DeBusschere was also a terrific player and the final piece of the Knicks’ championship puzzle in the 70s.

The Knicks traded Walt Bellamy and Howard Kornives to the Pistons for DeBusschere. DeBusschere was the perfect fit for the team. He provided an intimidating presence at the power forward position. He was one of the best rebounders and defenders in the league. It was DeBusschere who was forced to defend Wilt Chamberlain in many of the Knick/Lakers match-ups. He was an automatic double-double player, and helped contribute to playing winning team basketball, which included two NBA titles.

His role on the championship teams is what puts him so high on the list. There were others who had longer careers as a Knick, but did not have the same impact as DeBusschere. He actually played longer for Detroit than the Knicks, but so many forget about his days with Pistons. His game excelled to a new level once with the Knicks.

Some can compare the effect he had on the Knicks in the same manner as what Reggie Jackson had on the Yankees, minus the loud mouth and fist fights with Billy Martin. Reggie was “the straw that stirred the drink”, helping lead the Yankees to two World Series titles, and DeBusschere did the same for the Knicks.

Imagine if these guys all were young at the same time and played together. Wait, but since Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing both played center, you can only pick one of 'em. Ay, there's the rub. (Source: Yardbarker.com)

Right now ESPN.com has a great little thing where for each team in the league you can vote on who their greatest player was for each position.  For the Knicks, do you go Patrick Ewing or Willis Reed at center?  You gotta go Walt Frazier at point, and sorry, Bill Bradley, but Bernard King was unstoppable at small forward.  Shooting guard I’m inclined to go with Earl The Pearl, but I’ve never seen Richie Guerin play, so maybe he has a case?  And if the team is playing with today’s three point line and we’re thinking who’d mesh best together, maybe instead the two should be Allan Houston to stretch out the other team’s defense and keep ‘em honest.  At power forward, for some reason they list David Lee, even though he pretty much just played center.  I’m not picking him, of course, just pointing out that it’s odd that he’s in this category.  Probably you should go with Dave DeDebusschere, although I grew up worshiping at the altar of Charles Oakley, and particularly if you chose Ewing over Reed, then you need an enforcer.

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In a lottery lacking surprise,
DeBusschere drafted “The Franchise”.
But the team was a shame
Losing game after game
And from the cellar they never could rise.

Al Bianchi assembled “the Bomb Squad”
Mark Jackson, J. New, and the Hot Rod.
Traded Cartwright for Oak,
But MacLeod was a joke,
And the roster, though good, remained flawed.

Grunfeld put together some winners
Reaching the finals when league talent got thinner.
He perfected the craft
Of dodging the draft
But his teams needed “Offense for Beginners”.

Ed Tapscot was GM for a day
With a roster on the verge of decay
Instead of drafting Artest
Took the player he thought best:
A Frenchman who stayed in Marseilles.

Scott Layden had the master solution:
Trading Ewing to begin the devolution
Getting Longley and Rice,
Swapping Camby for ‘Dice
And then brilliantly maxing out Houston.

And who could forget our Isiah
At one time, a Hall of Fame playah
But as an exec
Proved an utter train wreck:
A perverted, capped-out franchise slayah.

So now there’s a savior named Donnie
Who, to undo all Isiah’d done wrong, he
Traded all of our picks
‘Till Three Thousand and Six
But still wins if he gets us LeBronie!

After scouring the internet, I was amazed at the dearth of material on Dick McGuire.  Here was one of the greats, and the only footage I could find of him playing bball was on MSG’s memorial for him.  In an age where every moment is recorded of people who are famous simply for being famous (like Paris Hilton or Jon&Kate), it’s sad that the exploits of a true pioneer will likely fade away into nothingness eventually.  How many websites do we need devoted to David Hasselhoff?  It’s up to us to keep our history alive.  How many great films, great books, great songs have been lost?  Someone recently said to me that the reason most books from before 1900 haven’t stood the test of time is because they weren’t that great.  I have a hard time believing that.  Yes, they may not have been Shakespeare, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have books that if they came out today would be considered one of the top 50 books of the year.  It’s also not just about whether things from the past are as “good” as things in the present, it’s about understanding how things have evolved.

For instance, one silent film which was considered a shocker at the time it came out was the original “The Great Train Robbery.”  If you watch it today, well, probably the recent “Taking Of Pelham One Two Three” is more suspenseful to our modern sensibilities.  However, the key to appreciating “The Great Train Robbery” is understanding why it was a shocker.  It wasn’t about the plot.  It was about a shot that they showed at the very beginning, and then the exact same shot shown at the very end.  It’s completely unremarkable to you and me.  It’s just a guy looking at us (ie.the camera) and shooting his gun.  The thing is that up until that point, they’d never had a person look right at the camera before, so when he shot that gun, the audience was literally instinctively afraid that he was shooting at them.  They ducked to the side.  In a sense, it was to them what the first 3-D films were to our times.  That’s incredible.

Similarly, while doing a bit of research on McGuire, naturally a lot of things came up about his contemporary dribbling maestro, Bob Cousy.  There’s an anecdote on him that reminds me of Michael Jordan’s famous improvised shot against the Lakers.  The one where he went up in the air for a right-handed lay-in, then seeing Sam Perkins preparing to block it, mid-air MJ switched the ball to his left hand and flipped it in.  Here’s the description of Cousy in a 1949 college game from an old Sports Illustrated article:

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