Thanks for that. Wow, all the more impressive, then. Spoelstra must be doing a hell of a job.
Lebron actually came back from 0-3 in the finals against the Warriors and won with Cleveland in uh… 2016 I think?
That was 1-3. The Cavs overcame a 1-3 deficit to win the series 4-3.
It is true that no NBA teams have pulled it off. Three have made it to game 7, then lost the final game.
Most recently, the 2003 Portland Trailblazers came back on the Nuggets, only to lose the game 7.
Other sports:
NHL - 4 times it has happened, once in the Finals against my dear Red Wings
MLB - The Red Sox famously did it. Only team to do so.
You are obviously astute and perceptive! 
I began to detest James when he anointed himself the GOAT. He’s not. Despite his carpet bagging from one team to another and despite the backroom mechanizations and collusion, he has only won four of the Finals he has been in.
Listen, no one wins all the time no matter how great he is, but if you truly are the greatEST, meaning clearly better than Magic, Bird, Kareem, Dr. J, etc, etc, you FINISH when you get to that point. No excuses. MJ was 6-0 in Finals and, since he took two years off for baseball, it was basically a 6-peat with an intermission. I firmly believe it would have been an 8-peat if he had stuck around and, if Jerry Krause wasn’t such an ego maniac, maybe a 9-peat.
I’m happy to see Denver get their first shot at a championship. Also happy to see one of these “packed” teams get their asses handed to them by a team that just plays an all-around and consistently good game. Kinda shocked by Boston’s failure to show up, but I’d love to see Denver sweep Miami in the final.
To be fair the Lakers were damn near the bottom of the league until the trade deadline, if it wasn’t for what Miami has done all the talk would be about how impressive it is they got this far.
Nikola Jokic joined Wilt Chamberlain (1967) as the only two players to average a triple double in two consecutive playoff series.
Oh, I give them that. GS was also struggling in the beginning.
And just passed him in total triple doubles in a playoff run, with a round still to go.
Right now, Jokic is the best basketball player on planet Earth.
I’m not going to argue that LeBron is the GOAT, as I truly believe that MJ holds that distinction. James is 4-6 in the finals, Bird is 3-2, Magic is 5-4, Kareem is 6-4, Dr. J is 3-3 (2 of those wins were ABA). The point is, that of those you mention, none except Jordan always won the finals when they made it that far.
The 10 finals appearances by James ranks him tied for third all-time with Jabbar, behind Bill Russell and Sam Jones.
Where James ranks all-time is probably worthy of another discussion.
Love it.
I did not watch the game, but I have heard reports about LeBron showing poor sportsmanship at the end of the game. Can anyone expand on that?
I watched the whole game on DVR, only to find out the recording died with two minutes to go! Very frustrating. So I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I did read some quotes from his postgame conference and felt he was being very classy in praising the Nuggets.
I saw a photo of him sitting on the bench with his head down. Some folks took that as being a poor sport, but it’s out of context so I can’t comment.
If that’s the standard, then Bill Russell is clearly the GOAT, because he won 11 Finals (granted, he did lose one). He only missed the Finals in one of his 13 seasons. Most remarkably, in winner-take-all games (NCAA tournament, Olympics, NBA series which went the maximum number of games), he NEVER lost. 21-0.
Greatest of all time is a whole different thread discussion and we’ve had it. I say “Michael Jordan”, but many others say Kobe or Lebron. Or Wilt.
Anyway, probably should either resurrect or start a new thread.
I watched the game and also watched for several minutes after the game ended. I don’t remember anything of the sort; I do remember LeBron congratulating Jokic with a hug. But I then turned to another channel, so I didn’t see everything.
Bill Russell was a fabulous player who probably played the best defense against Wilt Chamberlain, and he was a great leader. Thing is, his era was pre free agency, and the entire team was of Hall of Fame caliber so, in a sense, he was partially masked. If there was less talent, could he have scored 30 to 50 points? Netflix has a documentary on him. I highly recommend it.
Free agency started in the NBA in 1988. Kareem played from 1969-1989, so he played virtually his entire career before free agency. Both Magic and Bird played most of their careers before free agency started. Magic played from 1979-1991, and Bird played from 1979-1992.
Free agency wasn’t the overriding factor when Russell played. It was the fact that there were fewer teams, and the talent was more concentrated. In 1966, when the Celtics won the last of their championships with Russell, there were only 9 teams in the league, just 4 in the Eastern Division.
But by the time Jabbar entered the league in 1969, there were 14 teams. The next year, when he led the Bucks to the title, there were 17.