SI Flashback: NBA Finals

Thanks to Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant forming one of the best tandems in NBA history, Showtime returned to Los Angeles as the Lakers won their first championship since 1988.

Snapshot from It's a Wrap

By Phil Taylor

Coming together: In their first year under the tutelage of coach Phil Jackson, O'Neal and Bryant learned how to put a leash on their egos, how to replace panic with patience, how to let themselves be coached, and the rest of the team followed their lead. They developed, in short, the qualities of a champion, qualities that were never more apparent than in Game 6, when a noble effort by Indiana nearly pushed them to a seventh game. The Lakers of the past few years, just as talented as this team, would have crumbled under the pressure applied by star guard Reggie Miller and the Pacers, who led for most of the game until L.A. asserted its superiority at the end.

They Said It "We played our hearts out tonight. Going through the Pacers and the Blazers, no one can say we took an easy route to this championship." " —Rick Fox

Clutch: The margin of victory may have been humbling, but the suggestion that the Lakers cannot be considered elite champs because of their failure to put the hammer down doesn't take into account the stumbles of past titlists. Jackson in particular is well aware that several of his Chicago Bulls championship teams had a similar habit of letting opponents temporarily dodge the last bullet, at least in the Finals. In 1993 the Bulls missed a chance to win the title at home by losing Game 5 to the Suns. Three years later they had a 3-0 lead over the Seattle SuperSonics before dropping Games 4 and 5. In 1998, Michael Jordan's final year, they were ahead 3-1 and lost Game 5 at home to the Jazz. Chicago won all three series because it was the best team in the big moments. The same can now be said of L.A.

Heroic effort: Bryant's 28-point performance was a tribute not just to his talent and ability to excel under pressure but to his powers of recuperation as well. By the estimate of Lakers trainer Gary Vitti, if the average weekend warrior suffered the same second-degree sprain (third degree is the most severe) he would need several weeks before he would be healthy enough to return to his pickup games. Bryant needed only five days to recover enough to put on the kind of show that Jordan used to deliver on a regular basis at this time of year.

Issue date: June 26, 2000