Daily News | Before Sixers-Celtics, World B. Free wants you to know he was the Sixers’ first ‘Boston Strangler’
World B. Free watched the Boston Celtics on TV in high school and college, marveling at the mystique of their players and the aura of their arena. For a kid in Brooklyn, the Celtics were kings.
The ‘77 Sixers had Julius Erving, Doug Collins, Henry Bibby, and George McGinnis. But they also had Free, a 23-year-old guard who came off the bench two years after entering the league as a second-round pick from an NAIA school in North Carolina. He was a key piece of the team’s Bomb Squad — the crew of bench players who bought into their roles — and always seemed to save his best damage for Boston.“Toney had his day but I knew I was the original Boston Strangler,” Free said.
“It was Game 6 in Boston. Fourth quarter,” Free said, recalling a game the Sixers lost by five. “I just wasn’t missing any shots. I was really dogging them out. They were booing me but they were yay-ing me at the same time because they never really saw a performance like that. The way I was coming at them, I came at them streetball way. I wasn’t setting a pick and running to this spot and that spot.”Free averaged 21.
The series returned to Philadelphia for the seventh game but Free said there was no panic in the locker room. Dr. J was always cool. Darryl Dawkins and Joe Bryant — two fellow Bomb Squaders — were “hyped up.” Erving and Bibby told Free before the game to play his style and not worry if he misses his first shots. The Celtics had only ever lost one Game 7 but the Sixers were ready and so was the crowd.
As the final seconds ticked off, Free had the ball in his hands. He dribbled in front of his team’s bench and started to dance, saying afterwards in the locker room that “I wanted to boogaloo” after the way the Celtics — “Boston was taking us kind of softly,” Free said — talked about the Sixers.
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