Prelude to Greatest Game 7 Win in Lakers History

Dramatic Comeback Win Over Trailblazers Set 3-Peat Dynasty in Motion

Jun 12, 2009

As the Los Angeles Lakers make their 30th NBA Finals appearance, this is Part 1 of a look back at the game that led to their 25th and first of six in the past nine years.

If you've watched the NBA Playoffs this year, you've seen it - the ubiquitous "Where Amazing Happens" NBA spot in every commercial break. In it, a 21-year old Kobe Bryant dribbles up the deserted Staples Center floor, crowd of 19,000 and the other nine on the court digitally deleted from the picture. His Lakers leading within the final minute, but needing one more bucket to ice the game, he pulls up at the three-point line. He sizes up the Portland Trailblazer defenders in front of him, who begin to flicker in and out of the scene intermittently as he carves his way into the paint.

Iconic Play Defines Birth of Lakers Dynasty

First it's Scottie Pippen at the top of the three-point line, juked to his left, crossed over on the right. He vanishes and Rasheed Wallace slides over, also unable to stop the ball. Then Bryant's into the key and the wolves converge, completely selling out on the play before he jettisons the ball with a floating lob in the general direction of the basket. Shaquille O'Neal, conspicuously abandoned on the lower right block, pops into the frame, breaching from the paint to finish the alley-oop slam.

The full picture finally explodes back into sight - the dejected Blazers, the building erupting in delirium, O'Neal, wide-eyed and gaping, arms outstretched, lumbering maniacally toward the sideline to join Bryant, Coach Phil Jackson, the Lakers and an entire city in a party that would rage uninterrupted for another three years.

This was more than just a win that sent the Lakers to yet another NBA Finals. June 4's epic comeback for an 89-84 win over Portland in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, capped by Bryant's now famous dish to O' Neal, was the biggest Game 7 fourth quarter rally in NBA history and it proved to be the flash point for what would become the most successful NBA franchise of the decade. Consummate favorites nearly exposed as frauds, these Lakers saw their legacy flash before their eyes and took a giant step back from the brink of unthinkable, yet all-too-familiar failure, instead validating their potential to become the next great Laker dynasty.

Lakers Teams of Late 90s Underachieved

When the Lakers added O'Neal as a free agent and Bryant in a draft-day trade to an already competitive roster before the 1996 season, the Lakers were perceived as instant contenders in the Western Conference, but the first three years of the Shaq-Kobe era produced nothing but embarrassing early exits from the playoffs. In the three playoff series that ended the first three seasons since O'Neal and Bryant had arrived, the Lakers won just one game.

Lakers Favored to Win 2000 Title, Could Accept Nothing Less

With O'Neal at the peak of his powers, Bryant rounding into a superstar and Jackson, winner of six titles as coach of the Chicago Bulls, now on board - not to mention the christening of the team's new downtown arena, the Staples Center - 2000 was heralded as the year the Lakers would turn the page on past shortcomings and realize their championship potential.

Los Angeles won the West and cruised to the conference finals to meet Portland, widely seen as the Lakers' foremost threat in the league. The Blazers didn't have an All-Star tandem like the Lakers, but had more depth and rangy defense, as well as the veteran leadership of Pippen, who had been at Jackson's side throughout the Chicago dynasties of the 90s.

When the Lakers won Games 3 and 4 in Portland's hostile arena to go up, 3-1, it seemed the prophecy of greatness had all but been fulfilled. But the series was far from over.

Lakers Collapse Late in Conference Finals

As the world watched the Lakers fumble away two chances to close out the series, the Blazers looked more and more like the better team. The first three quarters of the winner-take-all Game 7 did nothing to alter that perception.

Portland mounted an early 13-0 run to go up, 19-9. While the Lakers would answer in the second and third quarters, even taking a slim lead early in the second half, they never took control. Buried by constant double teams, O'Neal was hardly a factor, being held to just nine field goal attempts on the game and nine points through the first three quarters.

With about six minutes left in the third, Portland went for the early knockout. A 21-4 Blazers run capped by a Pippen three-pointer gave Portland its biggest lead, 71-55, and the Lakers were reeling. Lakers guard Brian Shaw would bank in a three-pointer just before the end of the quarter, which would turn out to be huge in retrospect, but in the moment it did little to lift the moribund mood settling over arena.

By the end of the third quarter, the cavernous Staples Center was a mausoleum, oddly silent but for the agitated murmur of the disbelieving faithful, just 12 fleeting minutes away from entombing the Lakers' title hopes for one long interminable summer.

In Part 2:

The Lakers Make a Fourth Quarter Comeback for the Ages

The copyright of the article Prelude to Greatest Game 7 Win in Lakers History in Basketball History is owned by Gabriel Rizk. Permission to republish Prelude to Greatest Game 7 Win in Lakers History in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.