SAN ANTONIO — We are all caught up in some serious Knicks mania in New York, and just about anyone who wears even a swath of orange or blue clothing is well aware of the sacred number — 53 — emblematic of the last time we celebrated an NBA championship in our fair city.
It should never be forgotten, however, that there have been two pro basketball championships in the intervening years, both of them by the Nets, both of them in the ABA. If you haven’t yet, you should treat yourself to the wonderful story the Post’s Paul Forrester wrote last week on the ’76 Nets, which last month celebrated their 50th anniversary as last champion on the ABA.
I was at the clincher that year as an 8-year-old, there with my dad, screaming ourselves hoarse at the Nassau Coliseum as Julius Erving and the lads roared back to beat David Thompson and the Nuggets, 112-106. And I remember as soon as I left the building, I asked my father, “When do we get to play the NBA champs?”
And my father gave me a look of sweet sadness similar to the one he’d offer 13 months later, when he told me Tom Seaver had been traded.
