The NBA Playoffs would have been underway right now and we likely would have been seeing the Los Angeles Lakers take on, and dominate, the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round.
However, we currently are without basketball, and any sports, for that matter, and we can only look back at the Lakers’ playoff history.
They certainly have a lot of it. As 16-time champions, there are countless moments and memories to reflect on, and some truly great showings in the first round of the playoffs.
In honor of this being when the first round was supposed to happen, we found the four greatest first-round playoff showings in Los Angeles Lakers’ history, starting in 1977 when the playoffs expanded to four total rounds.
In chronological order, here are the four greatest first-round playoff showings in Los Angeles Lakers history:
2002: Sweeping Portland
The 2002 Los Angeles Lakers were the final championship-winning iteration of the Kobe Bryant–Shaquille O’Neal Lakers and winning the title was not as easy this year as previous years, although a three-game sweep in round one made it look fairly easily.
The Lakers were only the third seed in the Western Conference and were nearly knocked off in the Western Conference Finals by the first-seeded Sacramento Kings. The Lakers avoided a 3-1 deficit in that series with a clutch buzzer-beater three by Robert Horry.
That is the shot that every Laker fan remembers Horry for, but earlier in the playoffs, he gave us an appetizer for what was to come. With a 2-0 series lead in Portland, the Lakers trailed by two and it looked like we were going to a Game 4.
Kobe drove into the lane, was met by a collapsing defense and kicked the ball out to Robert Horry at the corner. Horry buried the corner three with 2.1 seconds on the clock and then secured the game-winning steal to send the Lakers to the second round.
The 2002 playoffs are absolutely Horry’s biggest legacy builder and before his famous shot in the WCF, he came up clutch against Portland.
2001: Sweeping Portland during the 15-1 playoffs year
The Los Angeles Lakers almost made history in 2001 by becoming the first team (and still only) to go undefeated in the playoffs. The Golden State Warriors were one game away from doing it in 2017.
The Lakers went 15-1 in the playoffs that year and that is the reason for including this first sweep of Portland on the list. This series did not have a memorable buzzer-beater as the Lakers easily handled the Blazers.
The closest margin of victory in this series was 13 points and altogether, the Lakers outscored the Blazers by 44 points in three games. This was the three-peat Lakers at their best and it was very fun to watch.
1991: Sweeping a great Houston Rockets team
The 1991 Los Angeles Lakers were the last Lakers team to make the NBA Finals until the three-peat Lakers and were also the last team Magic Johnson would play for before coming back five years later to play 32 games for the team.
It also represented the start of Michael Jordan‘s dominance in the NBA, as Jordan won his first NBA Championship in 1991 by beating the Lakers in five games.
Prior to this, though, the third-seeded Lakers impressively took out a sixth-seed that presented a lot of problems, the Houston Rockets.
Led by Hakeem Olajuwon, the sixth-seeded Rockets were easily good enough to make a run to the NBA Finals. Olajuwon missed 26 games in this season and the Rockets never really found a groove in the first half.
However, after starting the year 23-21, the Rockets got hot and went 29-9 in their last 38 games. They presented a tough first-round matchup to the Los Angeles Lakers, who were at the end of the Showtime Era with no Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, but it did not matter.
The Lakers wound up sweeping the talented Rockets team, which included a masterful Game 3 from Magic Johnson. Magic scored 38 points on 14-20 shooting that night.
1987: Dominating the Denver Nuggets
If you want an example of a team that absolutely demolished its competition in the first round of the playoffs then look no further to the first-round matchup between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Lakers in 1987.
The Nuggets were coming in as a 37-45 eighth-seed and had to square off against a Lakers team that won 65 games, and boy did the talent gap show.
This series was not even close. The Lakers swept the Nuggets in three games and the closest margin of victory was 12 points in Game 2. In three games, the Lakers outscored the Nuggets by 80 points.
The Los Angeles Lakers went on to defeat the Boston Celtics in six games in the NBA Finals that year in what was the last Finals matchup between Magic and Larry Bird.