the Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers (both teams finished with a 62–20 record). 1986 was the last year that CBS aired an NBA playoff game on tape delay. The network's final delayed playoff broadcast was Game 3 (on May 16) of the playoff series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets. The game aired at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time after having a 9:30 p.m. tip. Preemptions Due to the NBA's lack of widespread popularity nationwide in the 1970s and early 1980s, the network tinkered with the league's schedule. However, individual CBS affiliates did as much tinkering, with many outright refusing to air NBA programming during much of CBS' partnership with the league. WCPO in Cincinnati, a CBS affiliate during the NBA on CBS era, did not carry many regular season games in the 1970s, deciding to run movies and other programming instead. The city had lost the Cincinnati Royals when they moved to Kansas City and Omaha in 1972; Cincinnati has not had an NBA team since. As an ABC affiliate post-1996, WCPO has carried that network's regular season (and playoffs) since ABC and ESPN gained broadcast rights to the NBA in 2002. Other markets which hardly aired NBA games during the early half the of CBS era included Baltimore and, infamously, Atlanta (which had, and still has, a team). All through the 1980s when CBS broadcast NBA basketball games on Sunday afternoons, those games were pretty much a no-show in the Carolinas. WBTV in Charlotte, WFMY in Greensboro, WTVD (now an ABC owned-and-operated station) in Raleigh, and WBTW in Florence refused to show any of the games. They instead opted for old movies, and off-net repeats mostly. WLTX in Columbia did air a full schedule of NBA games and low-powered indie Ch. 62 in Fayetteville did take the games in lieu of WTVD (other indies in the state didn't bother with them though). Ironically, toward the end of the NBA's partnership with CBS, the Charlotte Hornets would make their debut, citing the sport's popularity in the Carolinas as a reason for expansion. The ABC-owned or affiliated stations (WMAR, WCPO, and WTVD) now cleared all sports programming, including the NBA, in their partnership with the network. Scheduling history overview 1976 The 1976 NBA Finals had three straight off days between the Sunday afternoon opener and Game 2 the following Thursday night due to CBS' concern with low ratings for