The Most Awesome NBA Finals You've Never Heard Of

Every NBA finals is awesome—by mere virtue of the fact that they're the NBA finals.

But to paraphrase George Orwell in Animal Farm, some are more awesome than others.

Besides my honorable mentions, I'm including one series from the '90s, two series from the '80s, one from the '70s and one from the '60s. I chose them by virtue of drama, closeness of games, power of matchups, and memorable plays and moments—good and bad.

Don't take my picks as the final word on the greatest finals. But I think they'll make a fine starting point if you're looking to appreciate the history of the game.

Honorable Mentions

My late father was a massive fan of the 1960s Boston Celtics; no team has dominated basketball like they did, before or since—including the Bulls of the '90s. From 1957 to 1969, they won an unbelievable 11 out of 13 possible championships.

If you like seeing one team have their way with another, any of the Celtics' decade full of championships (they won in every year but 1967) will likely delight you. I've included the Celtics' final championship of that era in these slides.

The 1970s are chock full of classic finals I could include. In the 1978 Finals between the Washington Bullets and the Seattle Supersonics, five of the seven games went down to the wire, and Game 1 featured Seattle coming back from a 19-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win the game.

If you like upsets, the 1975 Finals is, along with the 2004 Detroit Pistons over LA Lakers, arguably the greatest in NBA history. The Ffnals that year were predicted to be a sweep for the heavily favored, 60-win Washington Bullets. It was indeed over in four games—but they were all won by the underdog Golden State Warriors, who had won a mere 48 games in the regular season.

The Celtics-Suns matchup in the 1976 Finals featured what many experts call the most famous game in NBA history: the legendary Game 5, which contained one team leaving before the game was over, an assault of a referee by a fan and an incredible turnaround jumper to force the finals' first triple-overtime contest.

The most famous of the '70s Finals was 1970. The series featured a stunning eight players who made the Hall of Fame (including Phil Jackson, who made the Hall as a coach), and is best remembered for Willis Reed walking onto the court with an incapacitating torn thigh muscle, inspiring his team to a Game 7 victory and the championship.

Magic Johnson played in two finals herein, but the 1980 NBA championship series, in which Magic gamely played center when teammate Kareem Abdul-Jabbar went down with an injury, is also highly notable. The best play from that series is perhaps the best play ever in NBA history: Julius "Dr. J" Erving deciding in mid-layup, already airborne, to lay the ball in from the other side of the net.

Watch it and see Dr. J defy gravity for yourself.

I chose a Michael Jordan NBA finals most younger fans haven't heard of, his 1993 contest. But if you haven't seen any of them, you should check out the 1997 Finals, which featured MJ's unforgettable Flu Game performance, and the 1998 championship series, in which Jordan ended a storybook Bulls career with a stunning sequence culminating in one of his most famous and clutch shots.

1993: Bulls vs. Suns

None of Michael Jordan’s six championship series went seven games. And one can easily make a case for the 1998 championship, with Jordan’s brilliant last shot for the Chicago Bulls, as being the greatest of his half-dozen.

But to me, the 1993 Finals was Jordan’s toughest test. And it's the one a much smaller number of fans know about.

Michael Jordan was not the greatest player in the NBA in 1992-93. That honor, the MVP award, was bestowed upon Charles Barkley, Jordan's opponent in the finals. And the Phoenix Suns had won five more games in the regular season than Jordan’s Bulls.

So this Finals was far from a sure thing for Chicago.

Every game was decided by 10 points or fewer, including one triple-overtime game, where a lazy Stacey King pass was intercepted and laid in by Barkley for a dramatic finish.

The series-ending Game 6 was a mere one-point victory for the Bulls, made possibly by a clutch three-pointer from John Paxson...but it took a last-second Horace Grant block of a Kevin Johnson shot to seal the win.

Barkley was outspoken throughout the series, saying "it is our destiny to win the world championship" and "God want[s] us to win the world championship." But his interview years later about playing against Jordan in the Finals was the more telling—not to mention the more sane:

"

“We actually got nervous before Game 1. We struggled. The pressure got to the guys on the team. I played decent, but then I think the other guys were nervous. So Game 2, I'm talking to my daughter. She said, 'Dad? Are y'all gonna win tonight?'

I said, 'Baby, your dad is the best basketball player in the world. I'm going to dominate the game tonight.' And I remember... I think I had like 46, 47. I played great. And Michael had 52.

And I got home that night, and my daughter was crying, and she said, 'Dad, y'all lost again.'

I said, 'Baby, I think Michael Jordan's better than me.'

She said, 'Dad, you've never said that before.'

I said, 'Baby, I've never felt like that before.’"

"

1988: Lakers vs. Pistons

This was as tense a finals matchup as you’ll ever see: the proud Lakers dynasty, slowed by age but buoyed by talent and wiles, versus the young-buck Detroit Pistons, battle-tested by years of Eastern Conference defeats at the hands of the Boston Celtics but new to the rarefied air of the finals.

The Pistons struck first, as Adrian Dantley pounded the Lakers into a loss on their home court. The Lakers fought back in Games 2 and 3, as Magic overcame the flu in both contests to lead his team.

The upstart Pistons, though, won Games 4 and 5 to take a 3-2 lead. But that meant they’d have to win one of the next two games on the Lakers’ home court to win it all.

From there on in, it was all classic NBA basketball.

Isiah Thomas suffered a severe ankle sprain more than halfway through the third quarter of Game 6. Incredibly, he returned and kept putting up dagger after dagger, scoring 25 points in the quarter while literally hopping up and down from the pain.

The Pistons had a three-point lead with a minute left. But the Lakers cut it to one with a jumper, and after a Thomas miss, the Pistons’ Bill Laimbeer was whistled for what became known as a “phantom foul” on the Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. After Jabbar sunk both free throws, Joe Dumars went airborne to lay one in for the win, but the ball rolled off the rim.

In Game 7, Thomas had to deal with his injury from the opening tip, a major handicap for the Pistons. Detroit closed it to within two, but a foul on the Pistons’ Dennis Rodman, plus a terrible shot by Rodman (a terrific defender with a horrific offensive game) spelled heartbreak for Detroit and the final championship for the Showtime Lakers.

1984: Celtics vs. Lakers

The Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers met in the finals just three times in the decade between 1980 and 1990...but if you ask anyone who lived through it, they'll tell you it seemed like an annual duel.

The Celtics' Larry Bird and the Lakers' Earvin "Magic" Johnson were forever linked, starting with their college days, where Johnson's Michigan State beat Bird's Indiana State in the 1979 NCAA championship game.

Both were the preeminent players of the day on the most popular teams of the day. Both had a vast and rabid fan base. And both saw each other as the perfect foe.

Bird was the killer with a penchant for daggers that broke opponents' spirit. Johnson was the effervescent point-forward who made his stunning versatility look effortless.

It was the perfect recipe for finals drama. And of their three matchups, 1984, their first, was the only one to go seven games.

Two of the games went to overtime.

The first was Game 2, a heartbreaker for L.A. The Lakers had battled back to come from behind and lead by two with 18 seconds left. But a mistimed timeout by Johnson led to teammate James Worthy's errant pass being stolen and laid in by the Celtics' Gerald Henderson. To compound the situation, with 13 seconds to go, Johnson then dribbled out the clock instead of shooting, and by the time he passed to teammate Bob McAdoo, with Kevin McHale closely guarding him, it was impossible to get off a shot.

Their two chances to win in regulation squandered, the Lakers foundered in overtime.

The Lakers rallied to blow out the Celtics by 33 points in Game 3. Everyone thought the series was done—that the Lakers were just too athletic for Boston to stay with them. But after Game 3, Bird famously called his own team "a bunch of sissies" and the inspired Celtics came out in Game 4 ready to do battle.

The most vivid evidence of their changed attitude was the picture on the intro slide: Kevin McHale of the Celtics absolutely clotheslined Kurt Rambis of the Lakers in the second quarter, causing a bench-clearing brawl. But it also, according to many, made the Lakers, unnerved by Boston's physicality, start looking over their shoulder.

The Lakers had a five-point lead with under a minute to go. But a bad pass and two missed free throws by Johnson, and a missed free throw by Worthy—the two players who were otherwise L.A.'s heroes of the series—resulted in another overtime loss. Boston's Cedric Maxwell even poured salt in L.A.'s wounds, flashing Worthy the choke sign after his big miss.

Game 5 was known as the "Heat Game" because the air conditioning in Boston Garden was on the fritz. In sweltering conditions—the temperature nosed up to 97 degrees—the Lakers prevailed.

And in Game 7, the bench player who had taunted James Worthy with the choke sign, Cedric Maxwell, led his Celtics to victory.

1977: Trail Blazers vs. 76ers

Thanks to my friend James Hicks for giving me a first-person account of this series.

The ’77 Finals between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Portland Trail Blazers was one of very disparate teams.

The legendary Dr. J, in his first NBA season, was the leader of the Sixers, a team who had the clear edge in skill and talent.

Erving was the star attraction of the ABA, which merged with the more famous NBA prior to the 1976 season. The ABA was more of a flamboyant league, focusing on scoring and razzle-dazzle. Erving's teammate George McGinness, for example, was also a scoring machine, and Caldwell Jones had led the league in blocked shots.

Even the Sixers who had not played in the ABA matched that style: Darryl Dawkins, for example, was famous for his backboard-breaking slams. Lloyd B. Free, who later changed his first name to World (get it? World B. Free?) was a 360-degree dunker who twice finished second in the NBA in scoring.

The Trail Blazers had two former ABA players as starters as well—Maurice Lucas and Dave Twardzik. But even though Lucas made the All-Star Game in 1977, the two were not famous like the Sixers' ABA players were. In fact, the entire Blazers squad, other than Bill Walton, were largely relative unknowns.

But what they lacked in fame, they more than made up for in cohesiveness. They have been called the most selfless and efficient NBA team ever.

The result was a series featuring a truly great contrast in styles.

The finals featured three other players you're likely familiar with in different roles: Lionel Hollins (the Memphis Grizzlies coach), Doug Collins (the former 76ers coach), and Mike Dunleavy (the former LA Clippers coach).

It also featured the most intense bench-clearing brawl ever in a finals (Game 2); an apparent assault that turned into a handshake; two straight alley-oops by Walton within five seconds of each other (Game 3); Walton setting the NBA record for blocked shots in a Final contest (not to mention 23 rebounds in Game 4) and numerous rebounding records set (Game 5).

Game 6 was the most riveting of the series. The Sixers fell behind by 15 at halftime but cut the lead to just two with 18 seconds left. They forced a turnover, and Dr. J put up a jumper that fell short. Free got the rebound and launched a shot that missed. The Sixers' George McGinnis got the ball back and launched a third attempt with one second left; everyone held their breath as the ball hit the rim, but it didn't fall through and Portland won in dramatic fashion.

1969: Celtics vs. Lakers

That old guy in Kyrie Irving’s “Uncle Drew” commercials was once young. And when he was, he was the most dominant player the game has ever seen.

Michael Jordan aside, no one had more of an influence on the game than Bill Russell. The defensive phenomenon led his team to 11 out of 13 possible championships; by contrast, his most prominent contemporary, prolific scorer Wilt Chamberlain, won a mere two rings—one after Russell retired.

So it’s fitting that Russell’s final NBA championship came against Chamberlain.

By this time, Russell was both a player and the head coach of the Celtics. Despite his responsibilities and his advanced age (36), Russell averaged almost 20 boards a game in the regular season. His Celtics were a rare fourth seed but made it to the finals to face the favored Lakers and their new acquisition Chamberlain.

The series went the distance. Two of the seven contests were decided by a mere two points, and one was decided by a single point. That was Game 4, where three Celtics set a triple pick, called an “Ohio,” for Sam Jones, who managed to toss the ball around Chamberlain’s attempted block, where it bounced around and then in as time expired. The victory evened the series at two games pieces.

The Lakers won Game 5, the only game with a margin of victory greater than nine points, and the Celtics won Game 6 by nine.

That set up Game 7 on the Lakers’ home court.

The final matchup was hotly contested. With just under six minutes to go and his Lakers down by seven, Chamberlain hurt his knee. While he was sidelined, L.A. closed the gap to a mere point with two minutes to go. When Chamberlain told coach Butch van Breda Kolff he could go back in, he was told to sit down, because “we’re doing fine without you.”

Chamberlain never got back on the court as the Celtics’ Don Nelson—yes, the former Golden State Warriors coach—hit a jumper for a three-point lead the Celtics never relinquished.