55 years ago today: The Lakers start their NBA-record 33-game winning streak, days after Elgin Baylor retires

Fifty-five years ago today, on Friday, November 5, 1971, the Los Angeles Lakers beat the Baltimore Bullets 110-106 at the Forum. It looked like an ordinary early-season win for a team that had just lost two in a row. It was the first of 33 straight.

The Lakers did not lose again until January 9, 1972. No NBA team has matched that run in the 54 seasons since, and only one has come within five games of it.

The first game without Baylor

The streak began days after Elgin Baylor retired. The 37-year-old forward had played only two games the season before because of a ruptured Achilles tendon, and nine games into 1971-72 he decided he could no longer play at the level he expected of himself. His last game was a 109-105 home loss to Golden State on October 31 that left the Lakers 6-3.

New coach Bill Sharman moved Jim McMillian, a second-year forward from Columbia, into Baylor’s spot. Sharman had arrived from the ABA’s Utah Stars with a plan built on conditioning and the fast break, and he asked Wilt Chamberlain, then 35, to concentrate on defense, rebounding and quick outlet passes to Jerry West and Gail Goodrich. Sharman is also credited with introducing the morning shootaround, now a fixture of every NBA game day.

In the first game of the new lineup, McMillian scored 22 points with 13 rebounds. Goodrich scored 31, West added 19 points and 6 assists, and Chamberlain took 25 rebounds. Baltimore’s Jack Marin (30) and Archie Clark (28) kept it close to the end, but the Lakers held on by four.

• Start: November 5, 1971, Lakers 110, Baltimore Bullets 106 at the Forum
• Win No. 33: January 7, 1972, Lakers 134, Atlanta Hawks 90 in Atlanta
• End: January 9, 1972, Milwaukee Bucks 120, Lakers 104 in Milwaukee
• Split: 17 wins at home, 16 on the road
• Scoring: 123.3 points a game, with an average winning margin of 16.0 points
• Record: 6-3 before the streak, 39-3 after it

Sixty-four days without a loss

The Lakers won 33 times in 64 days. Only six of the wins came by seven points or fewer, the closest being the four-point opener, and only one game went to overtime, a 126-117 win over Phoenix on December 10. The biggest margin was 44 points, in the final win of the run at Atlanta, when McMillian scored 26, Goodrich 23 and West handed out 13 assists as the Lakers piled up 41 assists.

Along the way they beat the defending champion Bucks 112-105 at the Forum on November 21 and beat Boston three times. The longest streak before it was 20, by Milwaukee the season before and by the Washington Capitols across the 1947-48 and 1948-49 seasons.

50 years ago today, the 1971-72 Lakers did the impossible and won their 33rd straight game. That number still stands as the longest win streak in NBA history 👏 pic.twitter.com/abt5zcV2C0

— Los Angeles Lakers (@Lakers) January 7, 2022

How it ended

The run stopped two days later in Milwaukee. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the league’s reigning MVP, scored 39 points with 20 rebounds, Oscar Robertson added 17 points and 9 assists, and the Bucks outscored the Lakers 69-59 after halftime to win 120-104. West led Los Angeles with 20 points, and Chamberlain played all 48 minutes.

The Lakers did not slow down much. They finished 69-13, the best record in league history at the time, with a 36-5 mark at home and 31-7 on the road. That record stood for 24 years, until the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls went 72-10.

The title that followed

The balance showed in the numbers. Goodrich averaged 25.9 points and West 25.8, with a league-leading 9.7 assists. McMillian averaged 18.8 points, Happy Hairston 13.1 points and 13.1 rebounds, and Chamberlain led the NBA with 19.2 rebounds a game while scoring just 14.8. West was the All-Star Game MVP, and Sharman was named Coach of the Year.

In the playoffs, the Lakers swept Chicago, beat Milwaukee in six games in the Western Conference finals and then beat the New York Knicks in five games in the Finals. Chamberlain was the Finals MVP. It was the franchise’s first championship since moving to Los Angeles in 1960 and the only title of West’s playing career, after seven losses in the Finals. Counting the playoffs, the Lakers won 81 games that season.

Sharman went on to win titles in three leagues as a coach: the ABL, the ABA and the NBA. Baylor, who had played in eight Finals without winning one, retired just before the best stretch his franchise has ever had. The closest anyone has come to the streak since is Golden State’s 28 straight across the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons, and Miami’s 27 in 2012-13 remains the second-longest run inside a single season.