Before Sixers-Celtics, World B. Free wants you to know he was the Sixers’ first ‘Boston Strangler’

World B. Free watched the Boston Celtics on TV in high school and college, marveling at the mystique of their players and the aura of their arena. For a kid in Brooklyn, the Celtics were kings.

So it’s easy to imagine how Free felt in the Spectrum locker room after finishing the game of his life to carry the 76ers past Boston in Game 7 of the 1977 Eastern Conference semifinals. And it’s even easier to imagine how he felt when two of the luminaries he watched on TV — Jo Jo White and John Havlicek — started walking toward his stall.

“They were still in uniform,” Free said. “They said ‘You have some boosters on you, young fella. You can get up there. You weren’t intimidated by us. You keep going and you’re going to be something else in this game. You’ll make your own name one day.’

“That put me in another space in time. That let me know that I made it.”

As the next chapter of the Sixers-Celtics rivalry began Monday, Free’s performance more than 45 years ago is a reminder of the importance of every player, not just the starting five. And how a Sixers-Celtics series can make a career.

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The ‘77 Sixers had Julius Erving, Doug Collins, Henry Bibby, and George McGinnis. But they also had Free, a 23-year-old guard who came off the bench two years after entering the league as a second-round pick from Guilford College, an NAIA school in North Carolina. He was a key piece of the team’s Bomb Squad — the crew of bench players who bought into their roles — and always seemed to save his best damage for Boston.

Before Andrew Toney was best known as the Boston Strangler, that nickname belonged to Free.

“Toney had his day, but I knew I was the original Boston Strangler,” Free said. “I’m older than Toney.”

In Free’s rookie season, the Sixers reached the playoffs for the first time in five years but were bounced in the first round. And then they added Dr. J. A good team, Free said, became a great team. They won 50 games, finished atop the Atlantic Division, enjoyed a first-round bye, and faced the Celtics in the conference semifinals.

The Celtics were as much physical as they were talented, causing a seven-game series to feel like a brawl. But the Sixers’ original Boston Strangler — a nickname inspired by a 1968 movie starring Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda based on a real-life serial killer — was ready.

“It was Game 6 in Boston. Fourth quarter,” Free said, recalling a game the Sixers lost by five. “I just wasn’t missing any shots. I was really dogging them out. They were booing me but they were yay-ing me at the same time because they never really saw a performance like that. The way I was coming at them, I came at them street ball way. I wasn’t setting a pick and running to this spot and that spot.”

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Free scored 21.2 points per game in his 13-year career against Boston, nearly a point higher than his career average. Free, who legally changed his first name from Lloyd to World in 1981, dropped 36 points on them earlier that season and scored 29 the next season at the Boston Garden.

Toney, a likely Hall of Famer before foot injuries derailed his career, became the Boston Strangler after scoring 34 points at the Garden in Game 7 of the 1982 Eastern Conference finals. Five years earlier, Free had Boston’s number and that nickname.

“I had a little fire in me because if you beat Boston …,” Free said. “I’ll tell you the truth, Boston knew I always had a good thing for them and was trying to beat them. Dennis Johnson was a great defensive player and he was with Seattle. When I got traded from the Clippers back to the East to Cleveland [in 1982], Dennis Johnson was all of a sudden on the Celtics. Boston picked him up to make sure I wasn’t going to have a great night.”

The series in ‘77 returned to Philadelphia for the seventh game, but Free said there was no panic in the locker room. Dr. J was always cool. Darryl Dawkins and Joe Bryant — two fellow Bomb Squaders — were “hyped up.” Erving and Bibby told Free before the game to play his style and not worry if he missed his first shots. The Celtics had only ever lost one Game 7, but the Sixers were ready and so was the crowd.

“The Spectrum was unbelievable,” Free said. “At that time, you had cigarette smoke and it looked like we were on stage. You were in the game and you were balling and everyone was drinking and having fun. It was one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever experienced in my life.”

Free came off the bench to score a game-high 27 points in 26 minutes. He missed his first six shots, leaned on what the veterans told him an hour before tip-off, and hit 10 of his next 21 shots.

“Once I started rolling, that was it,” Free said.

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As the final seconds ticked off, Free had the ball in his hands. He dribbled in front of his team’s bench and started to dance, saying afterward in the locker room that “I wanted to boogaloo” after the way the Celtics — “Boston was taking us kind of softly,” Free said — talked about the Sixers.

The clock expired, fans rushed the court and climbed on the nets as the players sprinted through the tunnels. Soon, two stars who used to come through Free’s TV were walking his way.

“That’s the way the game was,” Free said. “Those guys gave you respect if you did something and it wasn’t a fluke. I was doing it to them all year because I always had good games against Boston. The playoffs, my game was just elevated. God gave me that ability.

“I never really felt the pressure the way the pressure was. I won the championship in high school. I won it in college. I came into the pro ranks and thought we’d get another one. I never felt any pressure. I always wanted that last shot because I knew I had that God-given ability. I knew I could get to where I needed to — plus I had a 44-inch vertical leap off the ground.”