professional basketball. The 1975–76 network television season (as well as May sweeps) ended after Wednesday, May 26 (with weekend afternoon games not factored into the prime-time ratings). Accordingly, CBS allowed Game 1 to be played on Sunday afternoon, since the ratings would not count, but would not permit Game 2 to be played live in prime time unless the NBA waited until Thursday evening. For Game 3 of the Finals, CBS forced the NBA to start the game in Phoenix at 10:30 a.m. local time (1:30 p.m. Eastern Time) on a Sunday morning. This was done in order to accommodate a golf telecast that afternoon. Many local clergymen were outraged, as attendance at Sunday church services was drastically reduced that day. 1977 By 1977, CBS' NBA schedule was composed of six regionalized telecasts on Sundays. Not only that, the network would air one national game if they felt that match-up itself warranted national coverage. CBS also could stage doubleheaders and switch from a one-sided game to a close one. During this period, the network stopped airing any games during prime time prior to the NBA Finals. Instead, CBS started airing several West Coast games at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time. For most of the early years, the NBA tried to assist CBS by allowing the network to choose any game it wanted to broadcast. But too often, these involved smaller-market teams (such as the Portland Trail Blazers) that were in the playoffs or had won the championship. CBS wanted the NBA to start Game 6 of the Finals at 10:30 local time on Sunday morning to accommodate a golf telecast of the Kemper Open (similar to 1976). This time, the NBA refused and CBS agreed to a noon start in Portland. Despite the fact that this was the Finals' clinching game, CBS cut away from its NBA coverage very quickly after the game ended, skipping the trophy presentation in the Trail Blazers' locker room to instead televise the golf tournament. 1978 By 1978, NBC aired Saturday afternoon college basketball games, while CBS aired NBA doubleheaders on Sunday afternoons, and most independent stations aired local professional and college games. CBS started to fear that their ratings suffered as a result of too many basketball games being aired on television at once. As an experiment of sorts, the network decided to air the first two games of the Conference Finals at 11:30 p.m.