The Warriors, the 2000–01 Lakers, and two dominant playoff runs

A look at two of the most dominant playoff runs ever.

Author:
Jeremy Woo
Publish date:
May 24, 2017

As you‘re likely well aware, the Golden State Warriors are blazing through the playoffs. They haven’t lost yet, and won’t play again until June 1, when the Finals begin against a TBD team (albeit probably one that includes LeBron James). It’s not rocket science to have posited long ago that adding Kevin Durant onto the winningest team ever would make them even better and less-guardable.

While no team has ever swept their way through the NBA’s postseason, the 2000–01 Lakers got damn close, winning out all the way to the Finals and losing just once, to the inimitable Allen Iverson and an overmatched but plucky Sixers team. The Kobe Bryant/Shaquille O’Neal tandem helped L.A. bulldoze through the Trail Blazers, Kings and Spurs, three seminal teams that still barely stood a chance, and win the second of three straight titles. The conversation about most dominant playoff runs ever begins there — at least for now.

So it’s worth diving in for some point of comparison between those Lakers and today's Warriors, who have so many good players that it’s hard to neatly nickname them one way or another. Let’s also acknowledge the 1982–83 Sixers (who also only lost one game, but had one less round of games to play). And as a disclaimer, this is purely a discussion of dominance over a single playoff run—yes, we know Michael Jordan’s Bulls were extremely good.

And of course, the Warriors actually need to win this title before we can get too serious about debating. Let’s just break the facts down.

NBA's Most Dominant Playoff Runs

2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers

The Spurs were 10-1 in the 2012 playoffs entering Game 4 of the Western Conference semifinals. San Antonio, of course, still has a long way to go to join the list of the best postseason runs in NBA history based on winning percentage. The 2000-01 Lakers, led by Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, top that list after dropping only one game en route to their second of three straight titles. The Lakers' only playoff loss that season came in overtime against the 76ers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.

1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers

The Sixers nearly delivered on Moses Malone's famous "fo, fo, fo" prediction, sandwiching sweeps of the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals and the Lakers in the NBA Finals with a five-game victory against the Bucks in the conference finals. This Philadelphia team was so good that it was 57-9 in mid-March, before splitting its final 16 regular-season games to finish 65-17.

1998-99 San Antonio Spurs

San Antonio won the first of four titles in the Tim Duncan era to cap a lockout-shortened season. The Spurs needed only five games in the Finals to dispatch the Knicks, the first No. 8 seed to reach the championship round, who faced San Antonio without an injured Patrick Ewing.

1990-91 Chicago Bulls

Michael Jordan and the Bulls launched the first of their two three-peats by rolling through the Knicks, Sixers, Pistons and Lakers in the playoffs. Jordan averaged 31.1 points (on 52.4 percent shooting), 6.4 rebounds and 8.4 assists in the postseason.

1988-89 Detroit Pistons

After a 63-19 regular season, the Bad Boys lost twice to the Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals and that's it. They showed no mercy in a Finals sweep of the Lakers, who lost Byron Scott before the series and played without Magic Johnson for part of it. Detroit repeated as champion the following season.

1981-82 Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers' second title in three years was not without turmoil: Pat Riley replaced Paul Westhead as coach after a 7-4 start, a move that met with Magic Johnson's approval. Johnson & Co. didn't drop a game in dismissing Phoenix and San Antonio in the Western Conference playoffs before handling the Sixers in six in the Finals. This 57-25 group was the only one of the Lakers' five title-winning teams in the 1980s that did not win at least 60 regular-season games.

1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson teamed to bring the franchise its only title. The Bucks averaged an NBA-high 118.4 points per game that season, when they went 66-16 and had winning streaks of 10, 16 and 20 games.

1995-96 Chicago Bulls

On the heels of a record-setting 72-10 regular season, the Bulls cruised through the playoffs with one loss (in overtime) to the Knicks in the Eastern Conference semifinals and two losses (after taking a 3-0 lead) to the SuperSonics in the Finals. This marked the first title in their second three-peat.

1986-87 Los Angeles Lakers

The Lakers didn't play many close playoff games during their romp to another title, but one they did play stands out in NBA history: Magic Johnson's sky hook gave Los Angeles a 107-106 victory against Boston in Game 4 of the Finals, putting the Lakers ahead 3-1 and setting up their clinching win back home in Game 6.

1985-86 Boston Celtics

The third and final title of the Larry Bird era included a franchise-record 67 regular-season victories and a third consecutive MVP for Bird, who got plenty of help from Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, Dennis Johnson, Danny Ainge and first-year Celtic Bill Walton.

1949-50 Minneapolis Lakers

George Mikan led Minneapolis to five titles in a six-year period (including one in the BAA) from 1949-54, and this was the best of those teams in terms of regular-season record (51-17) and postseason dominance.

Let’s start with the Warriors, who bulldozed the Trail Blazers and the Jazz, then benefited from a stroke of injury assistance when Kawhi Leonard was forced out of Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals after landing on Zaza Pachulia, who was in midst of a tight, legally dubious closeout. The Spurs couldn’t keep up from there (no indictment on them), and here are the Warriors in the Finals. They went undefeated against 41, 51 and 61-win teams in succession. The fact that this paragraph is pretty quick is a testament to how neatly and unselfishly Golden State has cleaned up. Let’s look closer at the Lakers.

Did Kobe and Shaq have it tougher? Hindsight’s tricky, but maybe. They drew the 50-win Blazers (starring aging Scottie Pippen and prime Rasheed Wallace and Damon Stoudemire) in a best-of-five first round. These were not yet the Jail Blazers, but they were experienced and tough, and among the league’s most efficient teams on both offense and defense. All of L.A.’s wins were by double digits. The opponents were different, but degree of difficulty is relative here.

The Kings won 57 games that season in the first iteration of arguably the two best teams in franchise history, this one featuring Jason Williams at the point (before he was traded for Mike Bibby a year later) running a team that would give the Lakers a serious scare one year later. That series remains one of the most debated in NBA history thanks to dubious officiating and a conspiracy that won’t die. But anyway— the 2000–01 Kings were another quality opponent who played at the league’s second-fastest pace (94.4, which is pedestrian in 2017) and were a difficult cover, with Chris Webber at his most dominant, Peja Stojakovic and Doug Christie shooting threes and Vlade Divac giving them another elite interior passer. The Kings were blown out just once, losing Games 1, 2 and 3 by two possessions or less. This year’s Warriors have won all but two of their playoff games to date by double digits.

L.A. drew the top-seeded Spurs in the West finals, starring 24-year-old Tim Duncan, 35-year-old David Robinson and a cast of role players that were—I know, you've heard this before—far better than the sum of their parts. San Antonio won 63 games and had the league’s top defense that year (98.0 defensive rating) while relying heavily on guys like Derek Anderson, Antonio Daniels and Avery Johnson. The Spurs had no answer for the Lakers and were blown out in Games 3 and 4, gradually crumbling while Kobe averaged 33 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, and Shaq 27 and 13 rebounds. It was too much.

So when we’re trying to contrast these routes to the finals, it’s pretty tricky at a glance across eras and styles of basketball. In a walk-it-up league, of course Kobe and Shaq were unstoppable—with those two guys, you were almost always able to get a good shot late in the clock, could stagger their minutes, and yeah, they’re both Hall of Famers. Did they play teams with better resumés than the Warriors? Sure. Similarly, the Warriors are an engine built for the present, with boundless star power and a willingness to maximize the talents of the whole. It’s the egalitarian system that enables Golden State to truly dominate in a league where everyone wants to play fast.

Kobe and Shaq ranked first and third in overall win shares during that playoff run, and Lakers guard Derek Fisher sixth. As of this writing, the Warriors also place three players in the Top 10—Steph Curry (third), Draymond Green (fourth) and Kevin Durant (sixth). If you want to argue that win shares are a stupid statistic, Klay Thompson is 87th overall in these playoffs, making him the 11th most valuable Warrior to date. Cold as he’s been, we’re obviously not eating that measurement up for lunch. Golden State’s inarguably more talented top to bottom, but the three L.A. titles attest to a stronger team. In the end, the Warriors’ longevity will likely make their case for them.

The real point is that no matter how deep you dive into the numbers—and this is admittedly a surface-level glance, to be sure—these type of debates are never going to be definitive. By nature, they’re steeped in opinion. But it’s hard to deny the fact that the Warriors have elbowed their way into the conversation when it comes to dominant playoff runs, and will have a chance to cement the case by running the table in the Finals, or at least winning it in five. But, if we’ve learned anything from the last couple of years, it’s not usually that easy.