Central Division champion Milwaukee Bucks. Nevertheless, Philadelphia easily swept the Atlanta Hawks 2–0 in the first round, then ousted the Bucks in the next round 4–2. In the Eastern Conference finals, the 76ers blew out the Celtics twice at The Spectrum to take a 3–1 lead, only to lose the next two games in a harrowing replay of the 1981 playoffs. But led by Andrew Toney's 34 points, the 76ers exorcised the demons of 1981 by blowing out the Celtics 120–106 in Game 7. As time wound down, the Boston Garden crowd began to chant "Beat L.A.!", encouraging the 76ers to defeat the hated Lakers in the championship round. Road to the Finals Regular season series Both teams split the two meetings, each won by the home team: Series summary Game summaries Game 1 Fresh from holding off the Celtics in the conference finals, the Sixers worked their offense to precision and held a 15-point lead midway through the third quarter 83-68. But, then, the Lakers began to turn it up on defense and the result was many fast breaks. The Lakers went on a 40–9 run over the game's next 11 minutes. Wilkes scored 10, Kareem and McAdoo scored 8 each, Nixon and Cooper scored 7 each, and Nixon had 4 assists during the run, on the way to a 124-117 Game 1 win, thereby stealing the home-court advantage. After the game, Sixers coach Billy Cunningham commented that the Sixers weren't affected that much by the trapping Laker defense, just cold shooting and sloppy play. However, he also questioned whether or not it was a "zone defense", which was illegal at the time. Game 2 In this game, Laker coach Pat Riley took a different defensive approach, assigning Magic Johnson to cover Julius Erving straight-up on defense. While Magic couldn't match the Doctor's athleticism, the move did keep Erving from the offensive boards. In Game 2 that wasn't quite enough, as Erving brought the Sixers back with 24 points and 16 rebounds, mostly defensive. Billy Cunningham used all his centers, Caldwell Jones, Darryl Dawkins and Earl Cureton at different points to guard Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The Sixers got 38 offensive rebounds for 50 second-chance points, while the Lakers only had six offensive boards. The Sixers used that advantage to take a 110–94 win that evened the series. In a balanced scoring attack, Maurice Cheeks had 19 points and eight assists,