Basketball is exciting no matter when in the season you catch a game. However, the Finals are the culmination of an entire season’s campaign for the two best teams in the league that year. When it’s all the on the line, who comes out on top? These are the ten most exciting NBA Finals games ever.
1992 Game 1
Game 1 of the 1992 Finals wasn’t particularly close. The Bulls won 122 points to Portland’s 89. What was exciting, however, was just how absurdly good Michael Jordan was in the first half of the game. At one point, after nailing six three-pointers, he famously looked at Magic Johnson in the commentary booth and shrugged, apparently not even believing how well he was doing himself.
2006 Game 5
One need only look at the final score to know just how intense the fifth game of the 2006 Finals between Miami and Dallas got. The Heat won with 101 points to Dallas’s 100 in an extremely contentious game. Mavericks fans got heated (pun intended) over a foul call that led to Dwyane Wade getting a free throw to take the Heat from 99 to 101 just before the final buzzer. Video replays show that no contact took place, but ref Bennett Salvatore had already made the call.
1984 Game 4
Boston was down 2-1 in the Finals series going into Game 4, having been absolutely pummeled in Game 3 in an embarrassing 137-104 loss. The Celtics weren’t having it, though, breaking ahead of the Lakers in Game 4 late in the fourth quarter after trailing by five with less than a minute remaining on the clock. This game shows a rare few Magic Johnson errors, and an irrepressible Larry Bird who kept landing clutch jump shots to bring the Celtics to a 129-125 victory.
1988 Game 6
The Lakers were good in the 80s. That’s another way of saying “Kareem Adbul-Jabbar was good in the 80s,” but you get the idea. Having won the title in 1987, they were hungry for another victory but had to go against a resurgent Detroit Pistons team and the seemingly unstoppable Isiah Thomas. Abdul Jabbar picked up the slack with some clutch free throws. The game nearly boiled over into a fight late in the fourth quarter, but the Lakers managed to win it to even out the series and sent themselves to a Game 7 (which they won, by the way).
2005 Game 5
The Spurs went the whole seven games to beat the Pistons in their red-hot 2004-2005 season. The “home team always wins” trend of Games 1 through 4 finally broke in Game 5 when San Antonio crunched through Detroit’s defenses in the final moments with a Robert Horry three-pointer with only 5.8 seconds left on the clock. That nail-biter of a game saw the lead change 12 times and had no fewer than 18 tied scores throughout its heart-stopping runtime.
2013 Game 6
Miami won the title in 2012 but faced a fierce San Antonio team in the 2013 Finals in their quest to repeat. LeBron James put up some stellar numbers in Game 6, pushing for one section of 20 points against the Spurs’ seven. Still, the Spurs took the lead by five points with only 30 seconds on the clock. In the last few seconds of regulation, Ray Allen took a step-back three shot from the right corner that forced the game into overtime. Miami won 103 to 100, with James putting up 32 points himself.
1976 Game 5
The Suns made their way to the finals in their second ever playoff appearance in 1976. Phoenix ended up losing the title to Boston that year, but they fought like their lives depended on it to stay in the game. In a bizarre series of twists, the game was thought to be over after a John Havlicek two-pointer at the end of the second overtime. A replay showed there were still two seconds on the clock, despite fans storming the court, so play resumed with Curtis Perry pulling off a shot that pushed the game into a third overtime. During that final overtime, Boston pulled ahead enough to win over Paul Westphal’s impressive last-minute heroics.
2016 Game 7
Cleveland’s greatest sports moment came in 2016 when they came back from the doomed 3-1 series after Game 4 to win Games 5, 6, and 7 in stunning fashion over the dominant Golden State Warriors. Game 7 was the stuff of legends, with 20 lead changes and 11 ties marking a historic battle. Kyrie Irving send things home for the Cavs with a final tiebreaking shot that put them ahead in time to win in dramatic fashion.
1998 Game 6
The final game of the classic Bulls era with Michael Jordan on the roster ended in perfect fashion. Trailing 85-86 against the Utah Jazz, Jordan stripped the ball from Karl Malone and juked Bryon Russell to sink a picture perfect go-ahead jumper that endures as the final image of his unmistakably dominant career with the iconic Bulls lineup of the 90s.
Read More: The Best NBA Players of All Time
1970 Game 7
Defending against Wilt Chamberlain was no easy task, even for a superstar like Willis Reed. Reed performed above and beyond expectations in Game 7 against the Lakers, though, delighting a New York home crowd by taking to the court after a thigh injury forced him to miss Game 6. Reed kept Chamberlain off seven of his first nine attempts at the basket, while Walt Frazier helped push the Knicks to their first-ever title with an unbelievable 36 points and 19 rebounds in the game, ending things 113 for New York and 99 for LA.
Read More: The 15 Most Successful NBA Coaches of All Time
