The Los Angeles Lakers have 16 NBA Championships to their name.
If the 2019-20 NBA season was never put on hiatus because of the Coronavirus pandemic then we would be in the NBA Finals right now, hopefully cheering on the Los Angeles Lakers as they looked to tie the Boston Celtics in all-time championships with 17.
Of course, that is not the reality. Luckily, we now know what the NBA’s plan is to resume the season — starting in July at Disney World and creating a “bubble city” for the players to finish out the year.
While that is promising, it is still a bummer that we are not seeing a normal NBA Finals with the Lakers playing in front of their faithful fans. To bring a little light to the situation, we have been ranking the five best years for every single round of the NBA Playoffs and today, we bring you the NBA Finals.
Los Angeles Lakers’ best NBA Finals: 5. 1988 vs. Detroit Pistons
The Los Angeles Lakers headed into the 1987-1988 season looking to do something that no team in almost 20 years had not done: win back-to-back championships. The Lakers embarked on their journey in making history, yet again were the first seed in the Western Conference and made it to the NBA Finals after a seven-game series against Dallas.
Waiting for them were the Detroit Pistons, who were in the early years of the Bad Boys timeframe and proved to be a year away from being a title-winning team.
The Lakers fell down to a 3-2 deficit in the series and risked looking foolish after Pat Riley promised Laker fans another championship in the parade a year prior.
However, the Lakers rallied and won a one-point game in Game 6 at The Forum and finished the series with another close game at home with a three-point victory in Game 7.
Not only were the Lakers the only team in quite some time to win back-to-back championships, but this was also the last time that the Showtime Lakers would take home gold.