Los Angeles Lakers’ best NBA Finals: 4. 2002 vs. New Jersey Nets
The Los Angeles Lakers breezed through the NBA Playoffs in 2001. The team went 15-1 en route to winning its second-straight championship and headed into the 2001-02 season with a ton of momentum.
The 2002 playoffs were not as easy for the Lakers, who were just the third-seed in the West in the regular season and had a grueling Western Conference Finals matchup against the Sacramento Kings that we named the greatest WCF in team history.
After a seven-game battle against their biggest rivals in the Western Conference, the Lakers took on Jason Kidd and the Nets in a series that was never even close. The Lakers swept the Nets in the NBA Finals to become the fifth team in league history to win three consecutive NBA Finals (two of which were Michael Jordan’s Bulls).
The Showtime Lakers could not do it, heck, even the super team Golden State Warriors could not do it despite having four all-stars on the roster. The Kobe-Shaq Lakers are still the last team to not only have a threepeat in the NBA, but are the last team to threepeat in Major American sports.
The series itself might not have been all that miraculous, but what it meant for the franchise and the player’s legacies makes it crack the list.