NBA Finals Notes

For the third straight year the NBA season will end in Miami. In 2011 the Dallas Mavericks clinched the title in six games at Miami vs the Heat. Last year the Heat clinched the title at home in game five vs the Oklahoma City Thunder. Game six and a potential game seven of this year’s finals are scheduled to be played in Miami.

The San Antonio Spurs, who are (4-0) in game five of the NBA finals, took a three games to two series lead by winning their last home game of the series, game five, last night.

In both 2003 and 2005, the Spurs won game five of a (2-2) NBA finals series on the road before coming home to win their second and third titles. The Spurs also clinched their first title with a game five, road win in 1999.

San Antonio has a (4-0) record in previous NBA finals, only the Chicago Bulls at (6-0), have a better finals record in any of the major North American sports leagues.

Teams with a three games to two, NBA finals lead, but facing the potential last two games on the road, are (5-4) in previous series.

The first team to win in that situation were the  1985 L.A.Lakers (at Boston, to win their first finals vs the Celtics in nine tries). Next, both  the 1993 and 1998 Bulls turned the trick, at Phoenix and Utah respectively. Then the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks accomplished the feat against each other, the Heat clinching at Dallas in 2006 while the Mavericks “titled” at Miami in 2011.

The first team to overcome a (3-2) NBA finals deficit were the Syracuse Nationals in 1955. The Nats led by the great Dolph Schayes, also won the last two at home in the 2-3-2 format, that was in place in the NBA finals that season. After that season it was another thirty years before the 2-3-2 format came back in the NBA finals.

That 1955 series in which Syracuse defeated the Fort Wayne Pistons in seven games is also the only all home team final in the 67 NBA finals contested in league history. That includes this year (1947-2013).

The 1988 Los Angeles Lakers coached by Pat Riley (vs the Detroit Pistons), the 1994 Houston Rockets vs the Pat Riley coached New York Knicks and the 2010 Lakers vs the Boston Celtics are the three other teams to win the last two games of the finals at home and of course, claim the title.

Pat Riley is currently the Miami Heat team president. He was the Heat coach in 2006 and in his current role in 2011. Thus Riley, with three different teams, has been involved in six of the ten NBA finals in which a team came home for the potential last two games, trailing the  series three games to two.

Riley’s teams are (3-2) in previous situations and it spans a period of 28 years and 29 NBA finals.

Pat Riley