When it comes to basketball, it’s no secret that I have become a huge college basketball fan over the last 10-15 years. And my interest in the NBA has quickly diminished due to many reasons: an extremely long regular season, a ridiculously long dragged-out playoff season, the players are somewhat annoying, there is much more one-on-one playing than in college and quite frankly, the Bucks and Timberwolves have flat out stunk the past few seasons.
However, I usually turn on the playoffs to see if anything catches my eye. Well, the Bulls-Celtics has caught my eye as well as most of the sports universe. These two teams enter Game 7 on Saturday even 3-3. Not only are they even in wins, but in five of the six games, the result as hinged on the final possession of the game. In four of those games, they’ve gone into overtime. Two have gone multiple overtimes and Game 6 was one for the ages...a triple overtime game that a little of everything.
It literally has had everything. I have been so intrigued by how these two teams plan strategy against each other, how they don’t allow the other team to get too much momentum and how hard both teams play. It almost reminds me of watching the college game.
I have heard a number of people say this is the best first round or non-Finals playoff series they have ever seen. I will go one step further and say it is the best NBA playoff series I have ever seen. Usually, I am not one to get caught up in the current emotion and make those kind of statements, but I can think of only a couple other series that drew me in:
-The Knicks/Heat series in 1990-something that included that brawl where VanGundy was holding on to Alonzo Mourning’s leg. That series was intense.
-The Sonics-Nuggets series in 1994 when the first seeded Sonics went up 2-0 only to have Denver come back and win three in a row and become the first 8-seed ever to win an NBA playoff series.
-And just cuz I’m a Bucks fan, the 1999 Pacers-Bucks series which went the full five games and featured the Bucks absolutely destroying Indiana in their two wins but not having enough to beat the veteran Pacers in the other three hard fought games.
I guess I am annoyed by those who say this series isn’t as good as the first Bird-Magic matchup in 1984 or the Rockets-Knicks series of 1994 with the OJ car chase or the Bulls-Jazz Finals of 1998 when Jordan hit that famous last shot. Those series might have had cool story lines or a couple famous plays (or car chase), but they came nowhere close to the drama of this series.
This is the best NBA playoff series ever.
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