Big Time for the Bucks

It was a big moment for the Milwaukee Bucks. Staving off a late rally by the Detroit Pistons, the Bucks registered their 19th victory in a row, to set a new National Basketball Association record for consecutive wins. After his team bounded jubilantly into the locker room. Coach Larry Costello locked the door until everyone had a chance to simmer down. Then he announced grandly: "Let the press in!" In they came--three reporters and a stray autograph hound. "No TV cameras, nothing!" Costello fairly shouted in dismay. "If the Knicks had set this record, the news would be in Tokyo already."

That's the way it is with the Bucks. Even in triumph they seem bugged by the Knicks, whose 1970 mark the Bucks had just broken. All season long, while Milwaukee was rolling toward one of the best records in N.B.A. history (66 wins, 15 losses), the erratic New Yorkers (52 wins, 29 losses) continued to put some kind of double whammy on the Bucks. When the two teams met for the first time this season, Milwaukee was riding a 16-game winning streak. But that was the end of it. The New Yorkers held the league's highest-scoring team to eleven points in the final quarter, their lowest output ever. In their last meeting, the Knicks outscored the Bucks 22-10 in the final eight minutes to win going away. That gave the Knicks four victories over the Bucks in five games this season, and eleven of 15 in the past two years.

Mystical Way. The Knicks may be able to stop Milwaukee, but almost nobody else can. In Center Lew Alcindor and Guard Oscar Robertson, the Bucks have the most potent one-two scoring punch in the game today. Much more aggressive off the boards than in his rookie year, Alcindor is averaging 16 rebounds a game and scoring at a 32-point pace with his derricklike hook shots and whirling dunks. Snared from Cincinnati in a masterful trading coup, Robertson is playing as well as he ever has in his ten-year N.B.A. career. Remarkably unselfish for a superstar, he has sacrificed a bit of his scoring average (19.7 per game) to help set big Lew up for the close-in shot. As the team's record proves, Robertson has been exactly the kind of veteran court general that the youthful Bucks--including starting Forwards Bob Dandridge and Greg Smith and Guard Jon McGlothin--needed to pull the team together.

This week, when the Bucks move into the first round of the N.B.A. playoffs, the only question is whether they can stay together once the pressure hits. And hit it will, especially if they meet the Knicks in the finals. Although the New Yorkers have less rebounding and scoring strength, they have a deeper and more versatile bench--and, like the old Boston Celtics, a relentless, almost mystical way of winning the big ones. If the Bucks can finally shake the Knick bugaboo, Coach Costello will have enough reporters and TV cameras around to fill any locker room.

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