Looking Back, It's Easy to Remember

"The world championship was his for the taking. If he made two free throws, or even one, the Bullets would be winners.

"Aiming so deliberately, you wonder if he'll shoot at all, he then seems to squeeze the ball from his hands as if extracting juice from a lemon. And there he was, the championship at hand."

Has it been 30 years since former Post columnist Dave Kindred wrote those words about the free throws Wes Unseld made with 12 seconds left to ensure Washington's 105-99 victory at Seattle in Game 7 for its only NBA championship?

Thirty years ago.

It was a time when the NBA gave you three free throws to make two, and Unseld was at three consecutive misses when Kindred wrote, "Unseld rose again, seeming to freeze at the top of the motion, frozen in the dream. But this one was good and you knew the Bullets had won."

Thirty years ago.

"I knew you'd make those last two free throws," I told Unseld in a telephone conversation Wednesday.

"I'm glad you thought that," Unseld said, "because I didn't think I'd make 'em. But I convinced myself I would do something else to keep us from losing that game.

"After I made the first one, [Bullets Coach Dick] Motta called timeout. I thanked him for icing me."

Unseld made the next free throw, Bobby Dandridge finished the game with a dunk and the Bullets -- Wes, Elvin, Kupchak, Grevey, Bobby D., Tom Henderson, CJ and the rest -- went romping gleefully into their dressing room, Unseld into the arms of the team's owner, Abe Pollin.

Thirty years ago.

Unseld, 62, is retired with new knees and hips after a lifetime of working for Pollin as a player (one of the 50 greatest in NBA history), coach and general manager. Pollin, 84, has had health problems for several years and needs a wheelchair to get around. But he's in his 44th year of owning and running an NBA team that's made the playoffs four straight seasons, in an arena he built 10 years ago with his own money that changed Washington forever.