"Here's what I thought," Red Holzman would say about 20 years later. Those scumbags have returned.
It had been over a year since Holzman had led the Knicks to their first championship in 1970. He was communicating with a Rochester resident.
New York, writer working on a story commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Rochester Royals' lone NBA championship
, which they only managed to win while continually flying between Rochester, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, and Sacramento.
He was referring to the Knicks, the Royals' opponent in the 1951 Finals, who had a dismal regular season record of 36-30 but had defeated Syracuse and Boston.
to reach the NBA Finals for the first time. They then swiftly dropped the first three games of the series by an average of 16 points to Rochester.
The Knicks rallied from a fourth-quarter deficit at Madison Square Garden, but Holzman, the team's point guard, was injured.
Royals from 1945 to 1953, said, "but we let 'em off the hook in Game 4 and then we kept letting 'em off the hook."