The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

In Bill Simmons' best-selling non-fiction book, "The Book of Basketball", he mentions that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar completely vanished from the climactic game's fourth quarter without any explanation. Simmons wrote that he researched and found two possible explanations: the shooting schedule was far behind, that Kareem had to leave the set and wasn't able to return, or Kareem found out that Julius Winfield Erving II was being paid more than him to appear in this movie and angrily walked off the production.

It was later revealed in 2013 by Julius Erving that Kareem was sitting in Director of Photography Frank Stanley's chair. When Stanley kindly asked Kareem for his seat back, Kareem responded by heaving the chair across the basketball court. That encounter marked the end of Kareem in this movie.

The score before the timeout of the last game was Los Angeles 101, Pittsburgh 91, but when the game resumed, the Pisces made well over ten field goals. Their victory should have been by a double-digit margin.

ABC edited 8 minutes from this film for its 1982 network television premiere.

Featured in Sneak Previews: French Postcards/The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh/The Marriage of Maria Braun/The Rose/Best Boy (1979)