Monday is the NBA's 75th anniversary!
And to celebrate the league has scheduled the same game that started it all 75 years ago. Ok, maybe not exactly the same game — the Knicks are playing a team from Toronto but the team from Toronto is now the Raptors. And the game isn't happening in Toronto where it originally happened, it's happening in New York.
Either way, it will be a celebration of 75 great years of NBA or BAA basketball.
Now most of us don't remember the Knicks thrilling 68-66 victory over the Huskies back on Nov. 1, 1946, so we at Sporting News have you covered.
Here are some fast and interesting facts about the first-ever game in the National Basketball Association.
Fast facts on the first game in NBA history
New York Knicks 68, Toronto Huskies 66
Knicks leading scorer: Leo Gottlieb – 14 points on six shots
Huskies leading scorer: Ed Sadowski – 18 points on 8 shots
- This was the first game in NBA history.
- The only statistics recorded for this game were points, field goals made, free throws made, free throw attempts and personal fouls.
- The game was played at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
- Each team had two players score double figures, with Ossie Schectman's 11 points joining Gottlieb for the Knicks and George Nostrand's 16 points joining Sadowski for the Huskies.
- Sadowski – the Huskies' best player and head coach – fouled out of the game.
- Free throw shooting killed the Huskies, going 16-for-29 (55.2%) from the line in a game they lost by two points.
- Sadowski and Nostrand – the Huskies' two leading scorers – combined to go 4-for-13 from the free throw line.
Other general notes about the Huskies' inaugural season:
- This was the one and only season for the Toronto Huskies' franchise.
- After just 10 games, Sadowski was traded from the Huskies to the Cleveland Rebels, also ending his tenure as the first coach in Toronto franchise history. He averaged 16.5 points per game for the season. The following year, he joined the Boston Celtics and averaged a career-high 19.4 points per game.
- The Huskies finished with a 22-38 record in 1946-47, going through four different head coaches.
- Two of the head coaches – Sadowski and Dick Fitzgerald – played for the team.
- After Sadowski was traded, team general manager Lew Hayman – a Canadian Football League icon – took over as head coach for one game.
- Robert Rolfe, a famous baseball player and World Series champion for the New York Yankees at the time, took over as the Huskies head coach thereafter, going 17-27. Once he finished the 1946-47 season with Toronto, he returned to the New York Yankees as a coach.