1. Blown Out: Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Lakes and Magic was really notable for…well nothing. The Lakers destroyed the Magic and effectively held down Dwight Howard as well as anyone we’ve seen so far (including the Celtics). Phil Jackson used his personnel perfectly against Howard. In effort to avoid defensive mismatches with the Magic’s small but quick forwards, Andrew Bynum, Lamar Odom, and Pau Gasol did not play too much together in the game (though that might’ve also been because the game was a blowout early). In any event, Bynum seems much more valuable as a wall to throw at Howard (regardless of how may fouls he picks up), rather than in his conventional role as a full purpose center. There’s no way Howard will be kept this far down again but this doesn’t seem like a great indicator for Orlando for the rest of the series.
But what about Orlando losing by 25 points? Is this an unprecedented Finals-opening dud? Has any team ever started out so poorly in the Finals? We went through the records of NBA Finals Game 1s and found only five other 20-point blow outs. Here’s the list:
–1960-61: Boston behind the Bill Russell/Bob Cousy core beat Bob Pettit’s St. Louis Hawks 129-95 in Game 1 and went on to win the series comfortably (4-1) and winning those four games by at least eight points each time.
–1964-65: Boston again won a blow out Game 1 with Russell (though Cousy had retired by this point). This time they took out the Lakers (behind Jerry West and Elgin Baylor) 142-110 and won the series comfortably (4-1).
–1971-72: The famed Red Holzman Knicks took on the equally legendary Lakers of West, Baylor, and Wilt Chamberlain. The Lakers had won 69 games and set all sorts of records but the Knicks blew them out 114-92 in Los Angeles to take Game 1. The Lakers then promptly won the next four games to take the series 4-1.
–1984-85: The most famous rout in Game 1 history. The Larry Bird Celtics and Magic Johnson Lakers met again. The Celts won a tough series in 1983-84 and the re-match was much anticipated. The Celts then destroyed L.A. 148-114 in Game 1 and there were loud murmurs about L.A. being soft and about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar being finished. Neither were close to true and the Lakers won Game 2 in Boston and took the series 4-2 with Kareem getting the Finals MVP.
–1991-92: This was another well-anticipated match up between Michael Jordan and the Bulls and Clyde Drexler and the Blazers. In Game 1, Jordan got incredibly hot, hitting six threes and scoring 39 points in 34 minutes in a 122-89 rout. It’s forgotten but the Blazers held pretty tough, winning Game 2 in Chicago and losing 4-2 (and could’ve forced a Game 7 if they hadn’t blown an 18-point lead to the Chicago’s reserves).
The upshot of this review is that while getting beaten badly is not a good thing, it doesn’t mean you’re totally finished. Two of the teams above went on to win the Finals and Portland kept its series respectable.