November 1, 1946: The 1st NBA Game

The 1946-47 New York Knicks

November 1, 1946, 75 years ago: The the 1st NBA game is played, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. (Until 1949, the National Basketball Association was known as the Basketball Association of America, or the BAA.) A crowd of 7,090 -- about half of capacity -- attends, and the New York Knickerbockers beat the Toronto Huskies, 68-66.

For the Knicks, coached by Neil Cohalan, 41, and formerly head coach at Manhattan College:

* Number 6, guard Ossie Schectman, 27, from Kew Gardens, Queens, and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where he was coached by Hall-of-Famer Clair Bee, scored the 1st NBA basket, and ended up with 11 points on the night.

* Number 9, guard Leo Gottlieb, about to turn 26, from The Bronx, never went to college, led all scorers with 14.

* Number 7, forward Stan Stutz, 26, from Worcester, Massachusetts, and the University of Rhode Island, scored 9.

* Number 5, forward Ralph Kaplowitz, 27, from The Bronx, where he was a teammate of Gottlieb at DeWitt Clinton High School, and also played for Hall-of-Famer Howard Cann at New York University, scored 7.

* Number 11, center Jake Weber, 28, from Rushville, Indiana, and Purdue University, scored 6. At 6-foot-6, he was the tallest player on the team.

* Number 12, Hank Rosenstein, 26, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and played for Hall-of-Famer Nat Holman at City College of New York, scored 5.

* Number 15, guard Dick Murphy, 25, from College Point, Queens, and played for Cohalan at Manhattan College, scored 5.

* Number 4, forward Nat Militzok, 23, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Cornell University, scored 5.

* Number 14, forward Tommy Byrnes (not to be confused with Yankee pitcher Tommy Byrne), 23, from The Bronx, another Clinton High graduate but too young to have played with Gottlieb and Kaplowitz, scored 4.

* Number 8, Sidney "Sonny" Hertzberg, 24, from Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a CCNY teammate of Rosenstein, scored 2.

* And guard Bob Mullens, on his 24th birthday, from Staten Island, and Fordham University played but, scored none. In a weird twist of fate, before the season was out, Mullens would be traded to the Huskies. So would Militzok.

So that's 11 players, only 2 of them from outside New York City, 3 of them Irish and the rest Jewish. This would not have been odd for a college team from New York at that time, so it's not odd for the 1st real major league team from The City.

For the Huskies: Ed Sadowski scored 18, George Nostrand 16, Charlie Hoefer 8, Mike McCarron (from Elmhurst, Queens, and Seton Hall) 6, Ray Wertis 6, Dick Fitzgerald 6, his brother Bob Fitzgerald (both from Elmhurst, and Fordham) 4, Harry Miller (from West Orange, New Jersey, and Seton Hall) 1, Frank Fucarino (from Astoria, Queens, and an LIU player) 1, Roy Hurley none, and Hank Biasatti none. (I wonder if anyone attended the game thinking they were actually getting a recent college star, Stanford's Hank Luisetti.)

Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, site of the 1st NBA game

This film purports to be from that first game. Is it? It could be: The teams are the Knicks and the Huskies, and the Huskies are wearing white as home teams tend to do in basketball. However, the Knicks did make 2 more visits that season, winning both, on December 20, 1946 and March 28, 1947, so this film could be from any of those 3 games.

The Knicks are 1 of only 2 charter NBA teams still playing in their current city. The other is the Boston Celtics. These 2 teams have just started their 76th season. The Celtics started their 1st on November 2, 1946, losing to the Providence Steamrollers, 59-53 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

Neither, however, is pro basketball's oldest franchise. The Philadelphia SPHAs were founded in 1917, as the team of the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. They, too, were a charter BAA/NBA team, as the Philadelphia Warriors. They are still playing today, as the Golden State Warriors, having moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962. On November 7, the Warriors made their debut, beating the Pittsburgh Ironmen, 81-75 at the Philadelphia Arena.

The Knicks went 33-27, good enough to make the Playoffs. The Huskies went 22-38, going through 4 head coaches, the last being former New York Yankees 3rd baseman Red Rolfe, who lasted the longest, going 17-27. They missed the Playoffs, and went out of business after just 1 season. The NBA did not return to Toronto until 1995 with the Raptors.

Maple Leaf Gardens, built for the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs in 1931, closed in 1999, the last of the NHL's "Original Six" arenas in use. It has been converted into retail space, like its great rival, the Montreal Forum.

Also missing the Playoffs: The Celtics, who took a few years to get going; the Providence Steamrollers, named for a 1920s football team, and went out of business after the 1948-49 season; the Detroit Falcons, who folded after that 1st season; and the Pittsburgh Ironmen, whose 15-45 record was the worst in the league, and also folded after the 1st season.

The NBA has never returned to Pittsburgh, although the Pipers won the 1st ABA Championship, in 1967-68. The Ironmen's most notable attribute is that their players included Petar Maravich, known as "Press" because he had delivered The Pittsburgh Press newspaper as a boy. If his name sounds familiar, it's because, 20 years later, at Louisiana State, he was the head coach, and his players included his son, Peter Press Maravich, a.k.a. Pistol Pete.

In the 1st Round of the Playoffs, the Knicks defeated the Cleveland Rebels, who folded after that 1st season. The Warriors eliminated the St. Louis Bombers, who lasted through the 1949-50 season.

In the Semifinals, the Warriors eliminated the Knicks. And the Chicago Stags beat the Washington Capitols, whose 49-11 record had been the best in the league. They lasted through the 1950-51 season.

In the Finals, the Warriors beat the Stags, 4 games to 1, clinching the title on April 22, 1947, at the Philadelphia Arena: Warriors 83, Stags 80. Joe Fulks of the Warriors was the league's 1st scoring champion.

As I mentioned, Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the 1st NBA basket. He died on July 30, 2013, at the age of 94. He was the last surviving player from the original Knicks, and, as far as I can tell, the last surviving player from the NBA's 1st season.

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November 1, 1946 was a Friday. Baseball season was over. No football games were played. And no other pro basketball games were played.

The 2 Canadian teams in the National Hockey League, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens, played each other to a 1-1 tie at the Montreal Forum. Gus Bodnar put the Leafs ahead with a power play goal, with 5:22 left in the 1st period. But with 9:55 left in regulation, George Allen (no relation to the Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the same name) tied the game for the Habs.