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Fifty years later, Bob Costas can recite the radio call, down to the voice crack.

“Yes! Yes! He made it!” an exuberant Costas said Monday by phone. “No timeouts left! Melchionni heaves it — it’s no good! The Spirits win the series!”

In April of 1975, the legendary broadcaster Costas recently had turned 23. He was the play-by-play (young) man for the Spirits of St. Louis on KMOX. And when Freddie Lewis hit the series-winning jumper, St. Louis improbably knocked off the defending champs of the American Basketball Association.

It’s basketball’s greatest playoff upset — and perhaps you’ve never even heard of it.

Sure, yes, there have been some No. 8 seeds in the National Basketball Association that defeated No. 1 seeds. But in even the most infamous upsets, such as the 2007 Warriors over the Mavericks or the 1994 Nuggets over the SuperSonics, the underdog at least had a winning record.

But in 1975, the Spirits made the ABA playoffs with a 32-52 record. Their first-round opponent, Julius Erving and the New York Nets, were 58-26.

After the ABA’s 84-game season in 1974-75, “We were a dominant team and somewhat destined to win back-to-back,” said the iconic “Dr. J” in “Free Spirits,” an ESPN documentary from 2013.

So the Spirits only were in St. Louis for two seasons. But as Costas explained Monday, they “personified” the ABA, this Wild West of a sports league. The NBA alternative league also had your standard centers, forwards and guards, but the ABA was avant-garde — basketball from a different dimension with its 3-point line, red-white-and-blue ball, shot clock, bright-colored uniforms, crazy team names, wacky in-stadium gimmicks and so many slam dunks that it inspired the first slam dunk contest, won by Erving, naturally, in 1976.

In their orange-and-white uniforms, the Spirits featured big personalities, big egos and big hair. Famously, there was Marvin “Bad News” Barnes, who was erratic and eccentric, yet exceptionally talented. The 6-foot-8 forward averaged 24 points in both his St. Louis seasons, but soon fizzled out and played for five teams in six years. Barnes died in 2014, but said in the 2013 documentary: “I got introduced to drug traffickers (while playing for St. Louis) and got real close to them. ... I was living my fantasy. I always wanted be a gangster or a drug dealer or a pimp, player or hustler.”

He was teammates with James “Fly” Williams, who hailed from New York City and once scored 100 points in an organized street basketball game.

“I was the drug guy,” Williams said in the documentary. “I knew all the dealers and everybody in every city. ... They put my orders through me.”

The Spirits, coached by Bob MacKinnon, also featured future NBA All-Star Maurice Lucas, as well as Steve “Snapper” Jones, Gus Gerard, Joe “Pogo” Caldwell and the veteran guard Lewis.

In March 1975, the Spirits acquired a fellow named Don Adams, “who was kind of a roly-poly 6-6,” Costas said. “And he was kind of prematurely balding. If you didn't know he was a basketball player, you would have thought he was 50 years old. ... Excellent passer, good defense, veteran presence. Didn't put up with any bull.”

And in a late-season game, “Bad News” Barnes got into an altercation with 6-foot-11 Swen Nater — and Adams cold-cocked Nater.

“If it was a cartoon,” Costas said, “there'd be little birdies tweeting around his head.”

It wasn’t incredible, but the Spirits improved and went 8-8 down the stretch with Adams on the team.

But the first-round opponent was the Nets.

St. Louis had played the Nets 11 times that season. St. Louis lost 11 times.

Not only did the Nets have Erving — the 1975 MVP who averaged 27.9 points, 10.9 rebounds and 5.5 assists — but they also had two other players who nearly averaged double-doubles (Larry Kenon and Billy Paultz). And there was guard Bill Melchionni, who previously led the ABA in assists three times.

Sure enough, the defending champs won Game 1.

But in Game 2, St. Louis held “Dr. J” to an inexplicable six points (on 3-for-14 shooting). Barnes scored 37 points, Adams had 17 off the bench and Lucas corralled 21 rebounds in the Spirits’ spirited 115-97 win.

“All of a sudden in St. Louis,” Costas said, “there’s a crowd.”

At the rockin’ St. Louis Arena in Game 3, Erving scored 30 in Game 3, but so did St. Louis' Lewis. The Spirits took a 2-1 lead in the series.

All along, Barnes found it surreal that he was playing against Erving, his favorite player.

“I wanted my idol to take notice of me,” Barnes said in the doc. “I wanted him to see how far I’d come that first year.”

And in Game 4, Barnes blocked seven shots, along with 23 points and 20 boards. St. Louis won again in St. Louis.

It was bonkers.

The 32-52 Spirits were a win away from knocking off the champs.

But the Nets led by 10 points after three quarters in Game 5. The champs had emerged from the ropes, it appeared. But the plucky Spirits put together an epic fourth quarter in New York.

“The Nets were up one point with about 15 seconds to go,” Costas recalled, “and Dr J. dribbles the ball off his leg into the back court for a back-court violation. The Spirits get the ball. So they inbound to Freddie, and no one else touches the ball.”

Lewis worked his defender, the talented Brian Taylor, and finally unleashed the go-ahead shot ("Yes! Yes! "He made it!"). The Spirits led 108-107. And the Nets, without a timeout, needed a Melchionni miracle. His long shot was just that. Melchionni missed. St. Louis won the game and the series. And as a young Post-Dispatch reporter named Rick Hummel wrote from press row: “As far as shots heard ‘round the world go, the Freddie Lewis happening here probably ranks somewhere behind Fort Sumter and Bobby Thomson.

“But considered in its bailiwick, the American Basketball Association, the 18-foot jumper Lewis tossed in with three seconds to play over the testy defense of the New York Nets' Brian Taylor gave the Spirits of St. Louis their own place in history.”

The Spirits, alas, lost in the next round to the Kentucky Colonels 4-1.

And after the next year, the Spirits disbanded, while other teams from the ABA merged with the NBA.

But a half-century later, the Freddie Lewis shot still keeps going in. St. Louis forever beat Dr. J.

“It was insane ...” Costas said. “It was an enormous upset.”