1973 NBA Playoffs, Game 5-(Bullets-Knicks) (Knicks Radio Network, John Sterling PBP)

-My first ever basketball upload goes back to the Knicks last championship season from 1973 as they close out the first round of the NBA playoffs by beating the Baltimore Bullets at Madison Square Garden.

-There is no misprint regarding the PBP. While Marv Albert was always the radio voice of the Knicks in this era, his broadcasts were only heard on the NYC flagship station, WNBC. Outside the NYC market (and this recording comes from WABY-Albany, NY), the Knicks had a radio network on other stations which was called by a totally separate broadcast crew (why this was the case I have no idea, but it also apparently was true in the late 60s for the NY Giants and Jets in their broadcasts outside NYC). Joe Hassell was the host and color man on these broadcasts while PBP between 1970 and 1974 was done by familiar New York voices from other teams including Jim Gordon, Spencer Ross and Frank Messer. And in 1973-74 that also included John Sterling, who at that point in time was hosting his WMCA Radio talk show and had done PBP for the defunct New York Raiders of the WHA. The basketball work on these Knicks games undoubtedly helped him get the job calling the New York Nets the following year.

-In order to hear how Marv would have called the game, we would need to find an actual WNBC recording. Absent that, here is the alternate "Knicks network" version called by the future voice of the Yankees.