There was a point a couple weeks ago, when San Antonio had won 10 in a row in the playoffs and looked headed to the NBA finals, it looked like the Spurs could be one of the better NBA playoffs teams ever. Then the Oklahoma City Thunder happened.
No team out of this year’s NBA playoffs is going to be linked with the most dominant playoff teams in the league’s history. We may be at the start of a fantastic Heat/Thunder rivalry that lasts a few years, but neither of these squads has been dominant in the playoffs.
Still, this talk raises the question:
Which were the five most dominant NBA playoff teams ever? Here’s my list.
5) 1970-71 Milwaukee Bucks. You think you can slow a team with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at his peak in the paint and Oscar Robertson on the wing? Good luck. These Bucks averaged 118 points a game, won 66 games in the regular season and shot 50.9 percent as a team. They went 12-2 in the playoffs and steamrolled everyone in their path including a sweep of Baltimore in the NBA finals.
4) 1990-91 Chicago Bulls. It was the first title for Michael Jordan and the Bulls and after years of running into the wall that was the Detroit Pistons (three straight playoff eliminations) they broke through with a vengeance and went 15-2 in the playoffs. That Jordan guy was pretty good in the playoffs — 31.1 points per game on 52.4 percent shooting, 8.4 assists and 6.4 rebounds.
3) 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers. Everyone seems to overlook this team and forget how great they were — they killed it during the regular season (they were 59-7 at one point) then Moses Malone, Julius Erving and team turned it on in the playoffs. Malone predicted a “fo’ fo’ fo’” sweep through the playoffs, and they came close going 12-1 and that included a sweep of the Showtime era Lakers in the finals.
2) 1995-96 Chicago Bulls. The best team ever, they won 72 regular season games and lost just one game getting through the Eastern Conference. Then Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and friends raced out to a 3-0 lead over Seattle in the finals before they took their foot off the gas pedal and dropped a couple to the Sonics. But they went 15-3 in the playoffs and if you put these teams in a tournament it’s hard to see who beats them. Unless…
1) 2000-01 Los Angeles Lakers. The middle year of the Lakers three-pete with Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, they coasted and dealt with injuries through much of the season. But when the playoffs came they flipped the switch — they went 15-1 and that only loss was in overtime to the Allen-Iverson led 76ers. No team has ever had a better playoff run.