Not Denver's first time: David Thompson, Dan Issel, 1976 Nuggets recall journey to ABA Finals (2024)

When the Nuggets wrapped up a trip to their first NBA Finals with a last-second win over the Los Angeles Lakers, former star guard David Thompson couldn’t contain his excitement while watching at his home in Charlotte, N.C.

“I jumped up off my bed,’’ said Thompson, who was known as “Skywalker” for his incredible leaping ability. “It wasn’t a 44-inch vertical, but it was the highest I’d jumped in years.’’

Former Nuggets star center Dan Issel watched last Monday’s 113-111 win over the Lakers to complete a 4-0 sweep in the Western Conference finals from his home in Highlands Ranch alongside his wife, Cheri.

“We sat there and we yelled at the screen and cheered on the Nuggets,’’ Issel said of when Jamal Murray tied up LeBron James to secure the win. “It was terrific.”

Longtime Denver center Byron Beck looked on from his home in Kennewick, Wash., along with his wife Leslie. The family dog, Sissy, a 7-year-old Shih Tzu, didn’t know what was going on when the final buzzer sounded.

“We scared our dog half to death we were yelling so loud,’’ Beck said. “She got confused.”

What do Thompson, Issel and Beck share in common? All were on the only previous Denver team to play in a pro basketball final. It was in 1976, and the Nuggets lost 4-2 in the American Basketball Association Finals to the New York Nets.

The final game in ABA history was especially painful for Denver fans. The Nuggets surged to a 22-point lead in the third quarter at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y. But the Nets, behind superstar forward Julius “Dr. J” Erving, stormed back to win 112-106 and wrap up the series.

The Nuggets and Nets later that year joined the Indiana Pacers and San Antonio Spurs as four teams to enter the NBA after the ABA disbanded. It has taken 47 years, but the Nuggets finally are back in another title series.

“At last, we made it,’’ said Issel, a Hall of Famer who played with the Nuggets during their final ABA season and through 1985 in the NBA and later had two stints coaching the team. “There have been some lean years. But this is obviously the best Nuggets team ever. I think they have a great chance to win it.”

The Nuggets will play either Miami or Boston when the NBA Finals get underway Thursday. The series is tied 3-3 after the Celtics defeated the Heat 104-103 in Saturday night's Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals at Miami.

“It’s awesome,’’ Thompson, who played for the Nuggets from 1975-82 and is also in the Hall of Fame. “I’ve been thinking about all the fans who supported the team throughout the years. We had other teams that made it to the conference finals (in 1978, 1985, 2009 and 2020) but couldn’t get over the hump. I’m so proud of this team to be able to finally do it and hopefully they finish it out, unlike what we did in 1976.”

The 1975-76 Nuggets were loaded. In addition to Thompson and Issel, they had a future Hall of Famer in forward Bobby Jones, a defensive specialist, and a future Hall of Fame coach in Larry Brown. They had star guard Ralph Simpson, who averaged over 20 points in six ABA seasons. The point guard was the heady Chuck Williams, a Boulder native and former Colorado Buffaloes star.

The Nuggets had valuable reserves in Beck and rookie center Marvin Webster. Beck was the only player to be with Denver throughout its entire 1967-76 ABA tenure and played one additional season for the Nuggets in the NBA. Webster was known as “The Human Eraser” due to his ability to block shots.

The ABA that season was falling apart. Three teams had folded, and it was down to a seven-team league in one division. The All-Star Game was held in Denver at brand-new McNichols Sports Arena, and it was decided to have the Nuggets face stars from the other six teams. The Nuggets won 144-138 during a night that also featured Erving outdueling Thompson in a legendary halftime slam-dunk contest.

Thompson had led North Carolina State to the 1974 NCAA title and in 1975 stunningly chose to instead join the Nuggets after being the No. 1 overall pick by Atlanta in the NBA draft. As soon as he signed, the Nuggets sold 5,000 season tickets.

The Nuggets, with Thompson averaging 26.0 points and being named ABA Rookie of the Year, finished the season 60-24, five games ahead of the 55-29 Nets. They were a confident bunch entering the playoffs.

“We did have the best team in the ABA,’’ said Issel, who averaged 23.0 points and 11.0 rebounds that season.

Nevertheless, the Nuggets had quite a battle on their hands to open the four-team playoffs against the defending ABA champion Kentucky Colonels. They finally won the semifinal series 4-3, which was quite satisfying to Issel since he had been traded by the Colonels after the previous season.

The Nets also needed seven games to knock off the Spurs 4-3 in the other semifinal. So that set the stage for Erving and company to come to McNichols for Game 1 of the finals on May 1, 1976.

“We had record-setting crowds every game then,’’ Thompson said. “They ended up putting extra seats in. The fans were great.’’

The ending of Game 1 wasn’t great for the fans. Erving, who scored 45 points, hit an 18-foot jumper from the right side over Jones at the buzzer for a 120-118 Nets win.

“He drove to the baseline and just stopped and faded away,” recalled Jones, who played for the Nuggets from 1974-78 and later won an NBA title with Philadelphia in 1983 as Erving’s teammate. “I felt like I was an inch away from blocking it but he just made a better offensive play than I made a defensive play. It was big for them.”

Beck called it a “dagger,’’ and the Nuggets never really recovered from it. They did win Game 2 127-121 at home but lost Games 3 and 4 in New York by scores of 117-111 and 121-112. Denver did close the series deficit to 3-2 with a 118-110 win at home to send it back to New York for Game 6 on May 13.

After the Nuggets took their 22-point lead that night, they started feeling pretty good.

“Absolutely,’’ Issel said. “We thought if we could get Game 7 back to Denver, we’d have a great chance.”

But then everything went sideways. The Nuggets began to turn the ball over and get into foul trouble. The Nets cut the deficit to 92-78 at the end of the third quarter.

The Nets then outscored the Nuggets 34-14 in the fourth quarter. By the final minutes, Issel and Jones both had fouled out.

“We just didn’t get many breaks or many calls,’’ Jones said. “I remember guarding Julius and he was on the wing and he actually stepped on my foot and grabbed my arm and pulled me into him when he drove by me, and the foul was on me.”

Erving led the Nets with 31 points. But he got plenty of help, especially late in the game, from guard “Super” John Williamson, who had 28 points and was said by Issel to have “manhandled our guards” with his physical play.

“They got hot and they won the game,’’ said Thompson, who scored 42 points. “We were so disappointed. We had a great year but we didn’t get the biggest prize, and that was winning the championship. We should have won it but we didn’t get it done.”

Issel called the loss “awful.”

“I’m thinking that we were in complete control of the game and were going to win it,’’ he said. “It was terribly disappointing because we all believed we were the better team.”

Beck still hasn’t gotten over losing the series.

“It doesn’t go away when things like that happen,’’ he said.

The series produced quite a duel between Erving, who averaged 37.7 points and 14.2 points in the six games, and Thompson, who averaged 28.3 points. But Dr. J ended up hoisting the trophy at the end.

“He operated on us,’’ Beck said.

“He was at his best in that series, and we couldn’t stop him,’’ Thompson said. “Doc was Doc. He was great. But we all put on show for those fans. There were spectacular plays. There were high-flying dunks. There were alley-oops.”

Thompson said he was in a “blur” for awhile due to the disappointment of losing the series. But he felt a lot better by August when the NBA absorbed the four ABA teams in a merger.

The Nuggets didn’t waste any time in becoming one of the NBA’s better teams, and by 1978 were in the Western Conference finals with homecourt advantage against the Seattle SuperSonics. Alas, it was same story as two years earlier.

With future Hall of Famers Thompson, Issel and Jones still the core of the team, the Nuggets dropped Game 2 at McNichols to lose homecourt advantage and then again fell behind 3-1. And they again lost 4-2.

Only Issel remained when the Nuggets returned to the Western finals in 1985. But with the center having slowed down in what would be his final season, Denver didn’t stand a chance against the eventual champion Lakers, losing 4-1.

The Nuggets didn’t make it to the conference finals again until 2009. And they once again faced a Lakers team that went on to win the title, losing 4-2.

With the Nuggets again among the NBA elite, Thompson and Issel have remained in close contact with the team. Thompson is hoping to make it to Denver for a Finals game and Issel has tickets for the Nuggets’ first home game in the series.

When center Nikola Jokic in 2019 joined Thompson as the only other Nuggets player to be named to the All-NBA first team, “Skywalker” came to Denver to present him with the honor. And during Jokic’s first of two MVP-winning seasons in 2020-21, he presented Thompson with an autographed jersey, which is now on display in the trophy room at his Charlotte home.

“He’s amazing,’’ Thompson said of Jokic. “He’s my favorite player to watch. Every time they come to Charlotte, I go watch the game. I’ve met him a few times and he’s been real nice. When I first met him, he said to me, ‘You were Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan.’”

Issel has met Jokic on several occasions, and he said they usually talk about racehorses since both are invested in that business. When it comes to basketball, Issel is in awe of Jokic, whose bid to win a third straight MVP came up short when he recently finished second in the voting to Philadelphia center Joel Embiid.

“He should have won the MVP again,’’ Issel said. “Those who voted for Joel Embiid are looking kind of silly right now. … Nikola Jokic is easily the best Nugget that there has been and before it’s over Jamal Murray might be the second best.”

Now that the Nuggets are finally on the NBA’s big stage, Thompson said they need to take advantage of it.

“I just hope they finish the job because you never know when you’re going to get back,’’ he said.