by Shea Serrano
15. The 2003 Championship (Spurs beat Nets, 4–2): A quick personal note: I worked as a waiter in college for a very brief bit in 2003. I was working the night of Game 2. I spent something like 45 minutes in the bathroom on my phone because a friend of mine took my call and then just set the phone down by the TV so I could listen to the fourth quarter. When it was over, I came out of the bathroom and everyone—all my tables, my boss, etc.—was super fucking pissed. I decided it’d be easier to just not work there anymore than fix everything, so I just left. I was not that great of a waiter, I suppose.
As far as the historical ramifications of this title, we’re looking at: (1) My beloved Tim Duncan wins his second title and also his second Finals MVP. (2) It’s the last season for David Robinson, a first-ballot Hall of Famer and also God’s favorite and most perfect creation.11 (3) It’s the first title together for Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker, a group that would go on to be the winningest Big Three in the history of the league.12 (4) And it’s the fifth straight year after Jordan’s retirement that the championship is won by a team with a monster big man roaming around in the paint.
1. The least successful Big Three: 2012 Minnesota’s combo of Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, and J.J. Barea. And to be clear, they were never, ever, ever advertised as a Big Three, but it’s just fun to think of them as such.
2. The very best part of it was at the end of Game 6 after the Mavericks had won, he disappeared off into the locker room before anyone could grab him or even realized that he was gone. He said later that winning that title was an overwhelmingly emotional experience for him and he just needed to be alone for a moment. I love that. (Also, this was a revenge series for Dirk, as his Mavs lost to the Heat in the 2006 Finals, but, minus just a couple of pieces, it was mostly new teams so I’m not sure how accurate it is to call it an all-the-way revenge series like, say, when the Pistons lost in 1988 to the Lakers and then beat them in 1989.)
3. And also a future winner, too, as Kawhi Leonard would win the award the next season.
4. Shaq was unbelievable in this series. He averaged 38 points and nearly 17 rebounds per game.
5. LOL.
6. From 1999 to 2007, eight of the nine titles were won by teams that had either Tim Duncan or Shaq.
7. He ended the series with a 13-13-13 triple double, a number set that is oddly satisfying to look at.
8. Imagine you’re Jason Kidd and you’re getting ready to go to war against the 2002 Lakers and you look over there at their bench and see Shaq and then you look at your bench and see Todd MacCulloch.
9. A semi-nerdy stat: The last time the Lakers had three-peated before this was when they won the 1952 title, the 1953 title, and the 1954 title. Every time I get to looking at championship stats and whatnot from basketball that happened before, like, 1976, the first thought I always have is a very dismissive “I wonder how many playoff games this team could win if you dropped them into any year after 2000?” I just have a hard time seeing George Mikan and Slater Martin doing anything against Shaq and Kobe besides getting pounded into the earth.
10. I would argue no, mostly because Jordan was always the best player during each of his titles.
11. I’m assuming.
12. Their 575 regular season wins and 126 postseason wins are both records for a group of three teammates.
WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT NBA CHAMPIONSHIP?
PART 3
14. The 1990 Championship (Pistons beat Blazers, 4–1): This was a big one, really. (1) The Pistons were able to repeat off their 1989 title over a hobbled Lakers team, and so it helped to quiet all of the Y’all Would’ve Lost Last Year If Magic and Byron Hadn’t Been Hurt criticisms, and that sort of validation is always important historically.1 (2) It was the first Finals since 1979 that didn’t feature either the Lakers or the Celtics, which was great because it meant the league was opening up some (the Lakers made it to the 1991 Finals, but following that one neither the Lakers nor the Celtics would make it to the Finals again for nearly a decade). (3) The Pistons’s win here also was a war horn of sorts, signaling that a meaner, angrier version of basketball was what would be the next new trend in the NBA. (4) We get a retroactive Big Name game, what with Joe Dumars putting up a crushing 33 points and 5 assists in Game 3 and then finding out as soon as it was over that his dad had passed away.2 (5) And also Mariah Carey sang “America the Beautiful” before Game 1, and that’s maybe not super duper important to basketball, but it’s super duper important to me.
13. The 2015 Championship (Warriors beat Cavaliers, 4–2): Seven things happened here. Let’s go in order from most important to least important: (1) In the regular season, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson combined for 525 threes, obliterating the previous record by 41.3 Then, in the Finals, the Warriors made a record 67 three-pointers. Anyway, but so the point is: This was the exact moment when it became impossible to argue that a jump-shooting team couldn’t win a title, as the Warriors were, at that moment, the most jump-shootingest team of all time and won it. (2) It’s the fifth Finals in a row for LeBron, which is a thing that nobody had done for half a century. It’s wild to think about. Kobe never did it. Jordan never did it. Only LeBron.4 That said . . . (3) LeBron loses in the Finals again, dropping his record down to 2–4.5 (4) Steph Curry officially enters his name into the Who’s the Greatest Shooter Who Has Ever Lived? debate. (5) It was the first Finals since 1998 that didn’t feature Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, or Dwyane Wade. (6) The Warriors become the first team since the 1991 Bulls to win a Finals without any of their players having had any sort of Finals experience. (7) Steve Kerr becomes the first rookie head coach to win a title since Pat Riley did it in 1982.
12. The 1988 Championship (Lakers beat Pistons, 4–3): While working on this book (and specifically this section), I was going back and watching each NBA Finals. Of all of the main runs, I think the Pistons’s run from 1988 to 1990 was secretly my favorite, and this Finals was the best of that bunch. You’ve got (1) Magic winning his fifth ring, which would end up being his last; (2) James Worthy picking up the Big Game James nickname after throwing up 36-16-10 in Game 7, a game that, oh by the way, was decided by only three points—still the record for Closest Finals Game 7 since the merger;6 (3) the Lakers becoming the first team since the ’60s Celtics to repeat as champion; (4) Isiah Thomas’s Sprained Ankle Game, when he badly turned his ankle in the third quarter of Game 6 and still managed to pour in 25 points that quarter, which remains a record; (5) the Phantom Foul on Bill Laimbeer that put Kareem at the line at the end of Game 6 with the Lakers down one, and of course he sank both free throws and gave the Lakers the one-point lead that they’d eventually win by. It was all just such great theater.
11. The 1983 Championship (Sixers beat Lakers, 4–0): (1) This was the Fo’-Fo’-Fo’ playoffs where reigning league MVP Moses Malone, who the Sixers had added to their roster after losing to the Lakers in six games in the Finals the year before, said that his team was going to sweep its way through the then three rounds of the playoffs to a title. (He nearly delivered, too. They lost one game in the Conference Finals to the Bucks.) (2) It was the first Finals sweep since the Warriors swept the Bullets in 1975. (3) It was the only title not won by either the Celtics or the Lakers from 1980 to 1988, which is kind of insane. (4) And there were four already NBA MVPs in the series (Kareem, Dr. J, Moses, and Bob McAdoo) and one eventual NBA MVP (Magic). It was super big boy shit here, for real.
10. The 2014 Championship (Spurs beat Heat, 4–1): A personal note: This was the single most enjoyable championship that I have ever experienced in my life, and likely will ever experience in my life. I for real was so nervous during Game 1 of this series that rather than watch it, I sat in a car in the driveway with my wife and listened to it. I don’t know why I thought that would help, but I did.7 Okay, but so big picture stuff: (1) This was a revenge championship for the Spurs, which is great, and they did it the very next year after Ray Allen stole the 2013 championship from them with his unreal three in Game 6, which m
ade it even better.8 (2) Better than it just being a revenge series, it was a revenge killing: The Spurs outscored the Heat by 70 points, the most in Finals history. (3) Tim Duncan gets his farewell championship, his fifth, tying Kobe and also passing Shaq. (4) Tim Duncan wins a title in three different decades, which is a very strange and kind of overwhelming stat to think about. (5) The Spurs shoot the highest field goal percentage in the Finals of any team ever. (6) This series marks the arrival of Kawhi Leonard, but more importantly it marks the end of the Big Three era in San Antonio regarding championships and Finals appearances, and Tim, Tony, and Manu end it as the winningest Big Three in playoff history.9
TIER I: HALLOWED GROUND
Unquestionable.
9. The 1986 Championship (Celtics beat Rockets, 4–2): (1) This Celtics team (67–15 on the season, including 40–1 at home) is regularly argued to be one of the best NBA teams of all time, if not THE best NBA team of all-time. (2) Bird plays maybe the all-around best game10 of any of the 31 he played in the Finals.11 (3) We get an all-time great Infamy Game in the series when the 7'4" Ralph Sampson punches the much, much, much smaller backup Celtics guard Jerry Sichting (6'1") in Game 5.12 (4) It’s the Finals debut of Hakeem Olajuwon who, after having watched him play about 20 games while working on this book, I am officially in love with. (5) It’s the first time since 1981 that the Lakers don’t make it to the Finals. (6) It’s a reverse revenge championship, in that the Rockets had lost to the Celtics in 1981, and then they lost again to them here.
8. The 2001 Championship (Lakers beat Sixers, 4–1): You have almost all of the parts here that you need when you start to talk about the best, most influential, most substantial championships. You’ve got an absolutely and grossly dominant and impressive team (the Lakers were 11–0 in the playoffs entering Game 1 of the Finals, and then finished the playoffs at 15–1; they were like if a herd of rhinos were driving giant steamrollers). You’ve got a player making a big leap up in the All-Time Player rankings (Shaq wouldn’t yet pass Hakeem Olajuwon on that list, but he would tie his championship count and also his Finals MVP count). You’ve got Kobe two seasons away from averaging more than 30 points per game for the first time in his career and also from beating Shaq in Win Shares for the first time, too. You’ve got Phil Jackson adding to his legend with an eighth title as a head coach. And you’ve got an Iconic Move that happened during a game (Allen Iverson’s Step Over in his masterful Game 1 performance).
7. The 1980 Championship (Lakers beat Sixers, 4–2): (1) It’s Magic’s first title, and it happens in his first season in the league, and his first season in the league is the one that came after him winning an NCAA title. (2) We get the single greatest Magic in the Finals moment of his career: his 42-15-7 in Game 6, which is the game where everyone talks about how he played all five positions, including center (Kareem was out with a severely sprained ankle so Magic filled in, but mostly what he did was just do the jump ball). (3) It was the first NBA Finals that featured a three-point line, which is at least a little bit weird to think about13 (and of course the inclusion of the three-point line changed basketball forever).14 (4) And also this was the series where we got Dr. J skywalking for the One-Handed, Behind-the-Backboard Scoop Layup move, which, even looking at it today, feels less like you’re watching a basketball move and more like you’re watching a Leonardo da Vinci paint stroke.
6. The 1981 Championship (Celtics beat Rockets, 4–2): A couple of good smaller things, and also one big and very strong thing. The good smaller things: (1) It’s Larry Bird’s first title, tying him with Magic at one apiece. (2) Magic won his in 1980, then Bird won his in 1981, and so this one really helped to build the fervor of a potential high-stakes showdown between the two. (3) There’s a great sort of sidebar, and that’s that Cedric Maxwell ended up being the Finals MVP this year, meaning he’d become the only Finals MVP who’d not eventually make his way into the basketball Hall of Fame.15 The big and very strong thing: This was the title that represented the beginning of a new era for the Celtics. The Celtics had 14 championships by this point, but the first 11 were Bill Russell teams, and the 12th and 13th had guys like John Havlicek and Don Nelson on them, and both of them had been part of the Russell run. This one, though, had exactly zero players on it who’d won a title with the Celtics the last time they’d won it (1976). It was Bird’s franchise from here going forward.
5. The 1992 Championship (Bulls beat Blazers, 4–2): The most important thing here is the Bulls repeat as champs, which makes this championship wildly meaningful because it very clearly, very obviously, very loudly declared that Jordan was legit, which was a thing people weren’t all the way willing to accept after the 1991 title. Also, this was the series where Jordan delivered The Shrug, his most iconic Big Name moment of all.16 (A smaller thing is he becomes the first player to ever win consecutive Finals MVPs, a record he’d break the very next year by winning his third.)
4. The 1993 Championship (Bulls beat Suns, 4–2): You’ve got Jordan at his most dominant vs. Barkley at his most dominant.17 You’ve got the triple-overtime in Game 3 that the Suns, down 0–2 in the series, absolutely have to have (and end up getting).18 You’ve got Barkley putting up a goofy 32-12-10 stat line in Game 4, only to be outdone by Jordan’s obscene 55-8-4, including the and-one on Barkley that sealed the game.19 You’ve got Barkley telling Ahmad Rashad after the Suns manage to win Game 5 in Chicago to keep the series alive that “God want[s] us to win the world championship,” then you’ve got John Paxson proving Michael Jordan was more powerful than God when he hits the go-ahead three in the final seconds of Game 6 to give the Bulls the title. You’ve got this title making the Bulls the first team since the Celtics in the ’60s to win three championships in a row, and also Jordan becomes the first player ever to win three Finals MVPs in a row.20 You’ve got Jordan averaging over 40 points per game for the entire Finals (it’s the only time he’d done that, or would do that). And you’ve got Jordan’s first retirement just a few months away.21
All that equals up to: You’ve got the fourth most important Finals in NBA history.
3. The 2016 Championship (Cavaliers beat Warriors, 4–3): Whoa. All the things this Finals did: (1) It tied LeBron with Duncan, Shaq, and Magic for second-most career Finals MVPs (three). (2) It was the first pro championship for Cleveland in over 50 years, making it, in the estimation of many, the fulfillment of a destiny grander than even LeBron’s quarter-mile-wide shoulders. (3) It prevented the Warriors from completing what would have been considered the greatest single season in NBA history.22 (4) It took the Steph Curry Is Having One of the All-Time Best Offensive Seasons Ever conversation, dumped it into a muddy river, and replaced it with the Wait, Should We Very Seriously Start Talking About How LeBron Could Possibly Finish His Career As the Greatest Basketball Player of All Time? talk. (5) It was the first time a team in the Finals had come back from being down 3–1 in the series. (6) It gave us the defining play of LeBron’s career23 and gave us one of the cruelest, most ironic death sentences of all.24 (7) And it changed the fortune for not only the Cavs franchise, but also the Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder, as Kevin Durant, who left the Thunder to sign with the Warriors less than a month after the Warriors had lost, told Rolling Stone that had the Warriors won that series, he’d have not joined their team. LeBron had already won two titles in Miami, but it was his one here, with Cleveland and for Cleveland, that made him a true, no joke, no hyperbole, basketball legend.
2. The 1998 Championship (Bulls beat Jazz, 4–2): The coronation of the greatest basketball player of all time. Jordan wins his sixth title, which put him up past Magic’s five and also tied him with Kareem (only former Celtics had more championships at the time). Jordan sets a still-standing record with his sixth Finals MVP. Jordan hits an updated version of The Shot, his iconic moment from the 1989 playoffs when he hit the series-winning jumper over Craig Ehlo, only this time he hits it over Bryon Russell and it’s for a championship. Karl Malone loses again in the Finals (he’d never mak
e it back as a member of the Jazz, and he’d flat-out never win a title, either). Jordan retired after the series was over, Phil Jackson never coached another Bulls game, and Pippen was traded before the next season arrived. It was as dramatic and certain an end to a dynasty as the NBA had ever seen.
1. The 1984 Championship (Celtics beat Lakers, 4–3): Almost too much stuff to sort through, truly: (1) This was when the playoffs moved into the format they still fall under today, which is to say that all of the teams from here going forward would have to win four series to win the championship. (2) This was the Finals where Larry and Magic FINALLY played against each other for the NBA championship for the first time, a scene that’d been set in motion in 1979 when they played for the college championship and then both entered the league the summer after and began winning championships perpendicular to one another, and of course their rivalry is the one that the modern NBA built itself up on so there’s really no way to overstate how important of a moment this was. (3) The Celtics won, meaning Larry and Magic both now had two titles, and them both having the same number of titles helped to make everything feel even more electric and intense. (4) Larry was the league MVP that season (his first such award) and then won the Finals MVP, too, a thing that only three players had done up to this point.25 (5) There were a couple of major basketball gaffes to point back to, and major basketball gaffes are always interesting.26 (6) There was the press conference after the Celtics got blown out in Game 3 where Bird famously said the Celtics had played “like sissies,” which led to the even more famous Kevin McHale Clothesline Foul on Kurt Rambis in Game 4 that turned the series from a basketball contest to full-scale warfare.27 (7) There was Game 528 being played at the Boston Garden under an oppressive, relentless, unforgettable heat (it was 97 degrees in the building that day, but to hear the players talk about things it was closer to 970 degrees). (8) There was how this was two full years after the NBA Finals had been taken off tape delay, and so everyone was actually watching it as it was happening. And then also, somehow, improbably, perfectly, (9) there was a Game 7 in the Boston Garden. The Celtics ended up winning. The crowd ran out onto the court at the buzzer. If you watch the clip closely, you can see Bird crashing into people, shoving them, plowing through them as he full-speed-bumper-cars his way to the locker room, to salvation, to prosperity. It wasn’t exactly a metaphor for what the NBA would do over the next four decades, but it’s close enough.