Word: play-off
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...around the world. Reflecting the popularity of soccer outside the U.S., the game had been beamed to ten countries. Though only a few years ago, soccer attendance in the U.S. seldom exceeded a few thousand, during the just completed N.A.S.L. season, soccer fans flocked to the turnstiles. In their play-off game against the Fort Lauderdale Strikers last month at Giants Stadium in the New Jersey Meadowlands, for example, the Cosmos drew a whopping 77,691. The New York team averaged 34,142 for its 13 home games this season, and the also-ran Minnesota Kicks drew an amazing...
...other accomplishment-leading the Cosmos to a title-was no small task either. After a four-month, 26-game schedule, the Cosmos made the play-offs along with eleven other teams in a wide-open battle for the championship. All four division races had been close, and the Cosmos were rated a slight favorite, more on the basis of potential than proven ability (they had finished second to the Fort Lauderdale Strikers in the Eastern Division). The New Yorkers kicked and clawed their way through four play-off rounds en route to the championship...
...Change. Now, at last, the patience of the long-suffering Portland fans has been rewarded. Led by a reborn Bill Walton, the Blazers this season finished second in the N.B.A.'s Pacific division and made a four-game sweep of the first-place Los Angeles Lakers in the play-off semifinals, earning the right to meet the favored Philadelphia 76ers for the championship in a best-of-seven series beginning this week. Portland's sound team play should match up well against the freewheeling superstar style of the Julius Ervingand George McGinnis-led 76ers...
...them operate under the jurisdiction of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, which has an annual budget of nearly $1 million. The 16 teams that make it to the Des Moines finals must fight their way through a grueling, complex schedule, playing as many as seven play-off games. It is a journey that in some Iowa families has been made by two and three generations of players. Says Guard Chris Jenison, 18, of the Belmond Broncoettes: "I've lived all my life just to get here...
...best of times. The Detroit Pistons, lackluster for so long, were only 3½ games behind Denver in the National Basketball Association's Midwest Division, comfortably coasting toward a play-off berth and their first winning season in three years. Last week they had won 33 games and lost 24 and with a third of the schedule remaining were just three games short of last season's victory total. It was also the worst of times. Pistons players were at Coach Herb Brown's throat, and at one point a player actually attacked him. Locker-room arguments...