Is the NBA Finals Over?
It’s hard to believe but the NBA Finals are already over. We take a look back at all the highlights and discuss what’s next for both teams.
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Introduction
The NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The winning team of the series receives the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy.
What Happened?
The 2020 NBA Finals concluded on October 11th, 2020, with the Los Angeles Lakers defeating the Miami Heat in six games. This was the Lakers’ first NBA Finals victory since 2010, and the first time they had won a championship with LeBron James as their leading player. The Finals were originally supposed to take place in June, but were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Aftermath
Now that the regular season is over and the NBA Finals are done, it’s time to take a look at what happened.
The Golden State Warriors won their third championship in four years, beating the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games. It was a dominant performance by the Warriors, who won all four games by double digits.
While the Warriors are clearly the best team in the NBA, there were some other notable storylines from this year’s Finals.
For one, this was LeBron James’ eighth consecutive trip to the NBA Finals. He has now played in more Finals than any other player in NBA history, and his teams have won three championships.
Another storyline was the injury to Warriors star Kevin Durant, who missed Game 3 with a calf injury. Durant returned for Game 4 and scored a team-high 20 points, but he wasn’t 100 percent healthy and didn’t have his usual impact on the series.
Finally, there was the drama between Cavaliers star forward Kevin Love and head coach Tyronn Lue. Love was benched for most of Game 3 after getting into an argument with Lue, but he returned to the starting lineup for Game 4 and played well.
Looking ahead to next season, it remains to be seen if anyone can dethrone the Warriors. They will once again be the favorites to win the championship, but with Durant’s free agency looming and several other teams getting better, it should be another intriguing season.
What’s Next?
Now that the NBA Finals are over, we turn our sights to next season. Here’s what you need to know about the NBA’s upcoming season.
The NBA though will not officially release their full schedule until late August, we do know a few things. First, the regular season will start on Tuesday, October 22nd. Second, each team will play 82 games. Lastly, the 2020 All-Star game will take place in Chicago on February 16th.
