In 1950, the Fort Wayne Pistons and Minneapolis Lakers played the lowest-scoring game in NBA history. The league is responding to this with a big change.
The Pistons almost became the gravediggers of the NBA.
On November 22, 1950, the Fort Wayne Pistons (now Detroit Pistons) and Minneapolis Lakers (now Los Angeles Lakers) played a memorable match. The underdog from Fort Wayne won sensationally in Minneapolis. But it wasn’t the Lakers’ stumble that was historic, but rather the final result – the score was 19:18 (!) after the last attack.
A result that is still the undisputed negative record for an NBA game and almost ensured that the then young league failed.
Skeptical spectators in the early days of the NBA
Just 7,021 spectators found their way into the Minneapolis Auditorium on that cold Wednesday in November. The NBA’s second season was barely a month old and most viewers came to see the new league for themselves. After the rival leagues Basketball Association of America (BAA) and the National Basketball League (NBL) were merged, an established fan base was still miles away.
It was all the more important for those responsible to offer the spectators a spectacle.
With the Minneapolis Lakers, this action should be guaranteed. After all, the franchise managed the feat of winning the championship title in three different leagues in three years. The Lakers were once again the big favorites in the game against the Fort Wayne Pistons. Above all, the 2.08 meter tall center George Mikan was a power behind the baskets.
Mendenhall relies on full control of the ball
Pistons coach Murray Mendenhall was also aware of this. “There is only one Mikan. I’ve been trying to neutralize him for three years, but nothing has worked,” he told dem before the game Minneapolis Star.
But this time he had an idea. “If the opponent doesn’t have the ball, he can’t score. If he doesn’t score, he can’t win!” The Pistons radically implemented this old coaching wisdom from the first possession.
Ralph Johnson, the Pistons point guard, got the first jump ball – but instead of attacking the Lakers’ basket, the Pistons started passing the ball wildly. Second by second, minute by minute, they took away from the music box.
The opposing players, the spectators, the referees – everyone except the Pistons team was increasingly frustrated. The spectators booed and whistled, the Lakers tried to win the ball with fouls and even the referees called on the Pistons to finally play basketball.
The match plan is carried out
But Mendenhall’s team stuck to the match plan – with success. At the break the guests were only 11:13 behind. Mikan was solely responsible for twelve Lakers points. The game seemed to be turning into a nightmare for the NBA.
And things didn’t get any better in the second half either. In the end, the guests triumphed by a narrow margin of 19:18. The Lakers even had the chance to win, but missed the decisive buzzer beater. Superstar Mikan ended up with an almost ridiculous 15 points.
“If this is basketball, I don’t want to be a part of it,” Lakers coach John Kundla whispered into the microphones after the game. Mendenhall replied: “We won, didn’t we?”
There was disagreement in the newspapers about how to evaluate the Pistons’ tactics. Sports journalist Charlie Johnson simply described the game as “a sporting tragedy.” Dick Cullum from Minneapolis Tribune On the other hand, the team defended: “You can’t criticize them for using this tactic. The first task of a team is not to create pointless actions, but to take the competition seriously.”
The NBA is at a crossroads
But the real debacle wasn’t the result or Kundla’s bad mood. The young NBA had presented a damning image to the outside world that had the potential to scare potential fans away in droves. The then NBA President Maurice Podoloff also saw this danger.
Therefore, just two days later, he called together all NBA officials and the referees from the game. Together we should develop measures to make the league more spectator-friendly.
The result was an innovation that would have a significant impact on the NBA to this day – the shot clock. From now on, each team should only have a certain amount of time to attack. In particular, the owner of the Syracuse Nationals, Daniel Biasone, championed this achievement.
After several trials and test runs, the shot clock celebrated its premiere on October 30, 1954, when the Rochester Royals and the Boston Celtics met.
Even today, a shot clock in Syracuse, New York, is a reminder of this rule revolution. The monument also symbolizes the birth of the modern NBA – and how the Pistons almost destroyed it.
