Going Deep
Five Amazing Moments in NBA Basketball History
Come June, all the hype is gone. Shoe deals, cell phone commercials and late-night talk show appearances don’t matter. During the NBA Finals, it’s all about whose will is strongest, whose blood is coldest and whose heart is biggest.Thirty teams start every NBA season with the hopes of playing this month. But in the end, only one takes home the coveted Larry O’Brien Trophy.
It’s why Bill Russell doesn’t have enough fingers for his jewelry.
Why Michael Jordan is revered as the best who ever did it.
Why Earvin Johnson’s nickname, “Magic,” makes sense.
And why Larry Bird is known around Boston as “Larry Legend.”
The Finals have been providing heart-stopping, gut-wrenching, fall-down-to-the-floor-crying and jump-for-joy moments since 1947.
So, in the spirit of June’s NBA Finals, here’s my list of the top five Finals moments of all time.
5. A Triple-overtime Thriller
Perhaps the greatest game ever played was the triple-overtime classic in Game 5 of the 1976 series between the Phoenix Suns and the Boston Celtics.
The Suns thought they put the game away with a basket to put them up 110-109 with four seconds left in the second overtime. But Celtics guard Jon Havlicek hit a runner off the glass in the final seconds to give the Celtics the win …right?
Wrong.
After talking it over, the officials put one second back on the clock. So with no timeouts, the Suns accepted a technical foul to stop the clock and give them possession at mid-court. Then Suns guard Gar Heard hit an impossible turnaround shot to send the game into a third overtime.
Eventually the Celtics rallied to win 128-126 and take the series. But this game’s magic lay in the back-and-forth battle, not the end result.
4. Dr. J Operates
The flare of today’s game wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the Afro-sporting, high-sock wearing Julius Erving. Dr. J started his professional basketball career in the flashy ABA with the Virginia Squires. Then, after mesmerizing spectators with how smoothly he drove, passed and finished, the Philadelphia 76ers knew they had to have him in the NBA.
In Game 4 of the 1980 series, Erving showed them why.
With his team trailing in the series 2-1, “The Doctor” pulled off a move in the fourth quarter that defied gravity in ways even he had never accomplished. He drove the baseline and jumped from one end of the backboard, swung his long arms around to the other end of the basket in mid air with his whole body out of bounds, and miraculously made the layup.
Although his Sixers would eventually lose the series, that shot is still regarded as one of the greatest ever.
3. Reed’s Surprise Appearance
Sometimes timing is everything. That was the case during shootaround of Game 7 of the 1970 series when Willis Reed emerged from the tunnel to play despite a severely torn thigh muscle.
Previously, his New York Knicks team led Wilt Chamberlain’s Los Angeles Lakers 3-2 in the series but lost Game 6 in Los Angeles with Reed hobbled throughout.
Coming into Game 7 nobody imagined Reed would play, but he jogged onto the court before tip-off, and the Madison Square Garden crowd erupted.
Then after he made his two shots of the game the Knicks had all the motivation they needed, as they took the series-clinching game 113-99.
2. Magic Does It All
With captain Kareem Abdul-Jabbar out with a sprained ankle, the Lakers needed somebody to step up in Game 6 of the 1980 series against the Sixers.
Not to worry.
A 20-year-old rookie from Lansing, Mich. by the name of Earvin “Magic” Johnson began his illustrious career by doing it all when his team needed it most. Johnson played all five positions, scored 42 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and dished out seven assists to oust the Sixers 123-107 for the first of his five championships.
1. Jordan Sinks the Jazz (again)
In my mind, Michael Jordan’s last shot on an NBA floor occurred in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals in Utah — not in a meaningless, season-ending game in Philadelphia in a Washington Wizards jersey in 2003.
The Chicago Bulls were up 3-2 in the series, but the Jazz were up by one with less than a minute to go. That’s when Jordan stole the ball from Jazz forward Karl Malone and trotted down the court to do what he’d done so many times before: hit the game-winning shot.
Jordan isolated himself with Jazz forward Bryon Russell at the top of the key, went right, jab-stepped hard to the left and rose up and shot with Russell on the floor looking on as Jordan sealed the game to claim his sixth, and final, championship.
So now pull up the easy chair and enjoy this season’s NBA Finals and remember, you never know when you might be watching history in the making.
