The real 00's finals poll: Best WCF of the decade

koebbels

99-00. Last quarter of that game 7 was insane.

i voted mavs-suns. as close as nash ever got, amazing last second shot by diaw in game 1, and dirk has a 50 point game that determines the series.

i rooted for the losing team in every single one of these series. no wonder i'm an atheist.

2001–02 Los Angeles Lakers Sacramento Kings 4-3

This series was completely epic, the underdog had a real chance, and the kings were so royally (lol) dicked over by the refs that ralph nader wrote an open letter to the nba regarding officiating. I don't see another choice.

Yeah that series is painful to remember because of the officiating. Didn't Tim Donaghy implicate game 6 or 7 of that series as being one the refs fixed?

On those grounds alone I can't vote for that one. I'm going with 00, that Blazers team was completely stacked. Kobe's oop to Shaq is probably one of my most deeply embedded basketball memories.

xp the nader-led blubbering was over one game lest we get carried away. game 5 was called for the lakers, game 6 was called for the kings, game 7 was almost suspiciously well officiated and the best team won ;)

2001–02 Los Angeles Lakers Sacramento Kings 4-3

top 3 playoff series of the decade in all of sports imo

Game 6 was not for the Kings...that was the game with the infamous Kobe knocking over Mike Bibby...

i flipped the order.

It was a terribly ref'd series no matter who you were a fan of. I can't in good conscience vote for it even if strickly speaking it was slightly more exciting than the Blazers-Lakers from two years earlier.

1999–2000 Los Angeles Lakers Portland Trail Blazers 4-3

^^ one of my good friends is from portland and he cant even talk about this series, like, he goes catatonic when u bring it up. basically how i feel about the 2004 alcs.

Most dominant series was the Lakers over Spurs from 00-01. Almost unbelievable at the time that a team that won 58 games and had the best record and point differential in the league could be embarrassed that badly, but Lakers looked totally unstoppable in the playoffs that year.

one of my good friends is from portland and he cant even talk about this series, like, he goes catatonic when u bring it up.

I basically live a lie and pretend this series never even happened.

^ what i was getting ready to do at the end of the third quarter, brian shaw's little three pointer at the buzzer feeling like a cruel joke. it wasn't even that great a 4th quarter by the lakers, portland just froze up completely

yeah portland/lal for me, that 4th quarter was painful to watch even from a neutral perspective (to blazer fans yeah, it must be like a minor '04 alcs)

"it wasn't even that great a 4th quarter by the lakers, portland just froze up completely"

Um the Lakers scored 31. It was a pretty great 4th quarter (culminating in possibly the single greatest Bryant to O'Neal play ever.)

Didn't remember that the Lakers were 20-37 from the foul line that game (and Shaq was 8-12!)

of course it was GREAT but it wasnt 'great' i mean portland hits a couple ho-hum layups they could have kept it out of reach pretty handily

they terrorized l.a. with their length in the previous what, 3 games? and than totally forgot how to do it anymore

Yeah that was a weird game. Like everything just seemed to go right for the Lakers starting with that Shaw 3 and Wallace and Smith just completely fell apart.

Hell it was a weird series. Lakers were up 3-1 and it didn't look to me like Portland stood a chance at that point.

From the recap LOL:

In all, it was a fantastic finish to an epic series between the league's top teams.

"This is a rivalry that's gonna last a long time, probably the rest of my career," O'Neal said.

Um the Lakers scored 31. It was a pretty great 4th quarter (culminating in possibly the single greatest Bryant to O'Neal play ever.)

― Alex in SF, Tuesday, June 23, 2009 7:08 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

IIRC that oop happend with like 7, 8 minutes left to play didn't it? Then it was just a matter of cleaning-up...

I think it was closed 3 or 4 minutes. Lakers didn't actually take the lead until like 5 minutes left, maybe?

Haha oops it happened with under a minute to go. Dunno why I thought it happened so early.

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