SI Flashback: NBA Finals

The Lakers were extended to seven games in all save the opening round, but they became the first team since the 1968-69 Boston Celtics to win back-to-back championships by taking Games 6 and 7 at home to stave off the Pistons' rise to the top another year.

Snapshot from Past, Present and Future

By Jack McCallum

June 27, 1988 Richard Mackson

Champs again: As the curtain came down on the 1987-88 NBA season, the images that remained were those from the locker room of the deliriously happy Los Angeles Lakers, the team that had done what a year earlier coach Pat Riley had said it would do -- repeat as champion. Over there was finals MVP James Worthy -- his Game 7 triple double of 36 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists enabled the Lakers to beat the Detroit Pistons 108-105 -- asking his wife, Angela, to spin around so he could admire her orange dress. There was sixth man Michael Cooper anxiously searching the wild crowd for his wife, Wanda, just as he had sought her out in the stands after making an important three-point shot late in the third quarter of the June 21 clincher. There was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar playfully stuffing a towel into Riley's mouth after the coach was asked if he was going to predict a third title. And there was the champagne-soaked prognosticator himself, old Repeat Riley, laughing, hugging, shaking hands, kissing and being kissed and resting his case, all at the same time. The verdict is in, and you win, Pat. This Laker team belongs with the great ones.

They Said It "I think other teams picked up from us the idea that 'O.K., we can win the championship.' Because of what we did, you're going to see any number of teams going for it all next season." —Detroit's Bill Laimbeer "We made a very strong defense. Now it's up to you, the prosecutors, to judge us, to give us our place in history." —Riley

So close: This season's championship game had been over for an hour, but Detroit's Isiah Thomas was still in uniform, his bum ankle draped with an ice bag, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of bubbly. "We deserve to drink champagne as much as they do," said Thomas. Next year, Thomas could be savoring his drink in a winning locker room. But while Detroit has the right ingredients to become a champion, the team must still learn to combine the elements in the right proportions. And the Pistons are, to be sure, a volatile mix, the kind that can blow up in the kitchen.

Issue date: July 4, 1988