Finals and Final Notes

Just over 40 years ago, on the same day both Pat Riley’s Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Blackhawks were eliminated in the respective NBA and NHL finals.

This past Monday, on the same day of the NBA champion Miami Heat victory parade (where team President Pat Riley was prominently displayed wearing white shorts), the Chicago Blackhawks clinched the Stanley Cup title.

Other playoffs notes: The 2013 NBA finals series pattern of road team win, home, home, road, home, home, and finally home had not taken place in the finals of either baseball or basketball which have the (2-3-2) format, since the 1946 World Series.

That encompasses 65 World Series (1947-2012, with no World Series played in 1994), 32 NBA finals (1985-2012 and 1950, 1952, 1954 and 1955 when the 2-3-2 format was in place) and two hockey finals, 1984 and 1985 played with the 2-3-2 format.

One more and that is it, I promise! The home team win, road, home, road, home and finally road team pattern of the 2013 NHL finals had happened only once before. That was in 1989, when the Calgary Flames beat the Montreal Canadiens in six games in the 1989 finals.

That encompasses the 74 best of seven NHL finals from 1939-2013, with no finals nor an NHL season in 2005. Counting the other NBA finals played with the (2-2-1-1-1) format in which there was never such a pattern, only two of the 107 (2-2-1-1-1) finals had such a pattern.

For the record, the 1956 NBA finals series though not a (2-3-2) format, was also not a (2-2-1-1-1) format.

Knowing this, much from memory, might be attributed to sleeping alone for a good deal of my life.

Click here for 1973 Blackhawks video

1973

1973