Game analysis, highlights and everything else that is happening in the NBA.
I believe Steve Smith and Shaq talked about the 2000 playoff series they had and Steve said they had the momentum going into game 7.
Shaq then admitted that had the Blazers won, the Laker management would have blown up the team. This was the beginning of a Lakers 3 peat and a bunch of trouble il the unfocused Blazers team.
Suns beating the Lakers that badly in 2021, with all the injuries.
It led to the Westbrook trade that dismantled a title contending roster and has all but shut down LeBron's Lakers title window
The opposite of that is Dame sending the Thunder home saved their franchise, trading PG13 was the catalyst for every asset they have now
Kings 2002 but unironically it's Kings who got karmaed.
I guess Lakers is just a god's himself team
The thunder losing to the warriors in game 7 of the 2016 western conference finals
I mean you can argue that Dame horrible shot against okc sent us into a rebuild
Magic lost the Tim Duncan Sweepstakes because of team plane policies.
Nevermind Grant Hill.. TMac and Duncan would have probably saved McGrady's back, made the Magic a contender for a decade while with a 20/20 hindsight, who knows how a Spurs team of Dwight and Kawhi who do?
Malice at the Palace IMHO although not really a "loss" how you mean it
27 in a row
2016 WCF game 6 AKA the Klay game. If the Thunder win that game I truly believe we’re the champions that year. Instead we lose KD and don’t make it out of the first round for 7 years now. We went into the 4th quarter up by 8 with a chance to close vs the best regular season team of all time and advance to the finals
Rockets had the team, the remedy and the momentum to make it happen that year before they missed all those three pointers. That was their moment and imo they never actually felt like that big a threat afterwards, even with Harden scoring like he was at the time. That game changed everything for them.
Pacers beating the Knicks in the 2013 ECSF.
I’m going to try to make this concise.
The Knicks were an old team.
We started a close to retirement Jason Kidd.
We got valuable minutes from a rotation of Kurt Thomas Marcus Camby and Kenyon Martin. (The 3 of them rotating as our center off the bench, and some spot minutes occasionally off the bench for one of the other 2, but they were so old I don’t think all 3 of them ever suited up at the same time, and Kmart was a mid season signing.)
Our team was predicated on our spreadoffense, Felton or Melo pick and rolls with Tyson or Kmart, or double screens with Melo and Tyson or Kmart screening for Felton with the big rolling to the rim and Melo fading to the wing, getting us a lot of open 3’s or lobs to the rim.
We also played Melo a lot out of the post and surrounded him with shooters.
Felton, Jr, JKidd, Papi Prigioni, Shump, and most importantly 2 of the best 3 point shooters in the league. Steve “Novakaine” Novak, and Chris “Cope” Copeland, who both finished the season shooting over 42% from deep.
In that off-season, the Knicks decided they needed to be bigger, and they needed to shoot more, not a bad idea, bringing in a true center who wasn’t looking to soon retire, and giving Copeland more minutes could be a great idea right?
Right???
According to our front office, wrong.
What we needed, was a miracle, someone who could do what Chris Bosh was doing for the Heat, but better, according to our front office.
What we needed was Chris Bosh’s old teammate.
The guy Chris Bosh wanted to get away from.
A 7 footer, who shot under 40% from the field, and under 30% from deep
A 7 footer who barely averaged 5 rebounds a game, and hadn’t played in over 40 games in a season for over 2 years.
A 7 footer who was colloquially known as the worst defender, no, the worst player in the league.
What we needed was Andrea Bargnani.
And they were willing to trade Steve Novak and Marcus Camby to get him.
So trade they did, and they threw in another 3 picks that we didn’t have as well, just for kicks.
And with our newfound “Center” on the roster, and Amare “coming back from injury” we no longer had minutes for Chris Copeland either.
So they let him walk.
To the Pacers.
The next season, our team on paper looked remarkably similar. We had lost Camby and Kurt Thomas sure, but we had replaced them with Bargnani and Tyler Johnson.
Copeland and Kidd might be gone, but they were to be replaced by the rookie SG’s THJR, and Tour’e Murray (certified Knicks legend).
That was a team that should be good, right?
Wrong.
When you trade the incumbent 7/8th man of the Year. (Official reward of the NYBA (sponsored by the J train)) and a mainstay of the identity of you team, for the worst 7 footer to ever step on an NBA court, your season goes to shit. No questions asked.
And boy it wasn’t just one season. The Andrea Bargnani trade was the precursor, simply foreshadowing if you will, for what would be the Knicks future.
It culminated on March 12th, 2015, 2 years later, when the leagues worst Knicks at 13-51 played the 17-47 Los Angeles Lakers.
The Knicks started Langston Galloway, alexy Shved, Lance Thomas, Lou Amundson, and Andrea Bargnani on that night.
In a game uglier than any Knicks Heat matchup of the 1990s the Knicks recorded their first win of the season against a Western conference team.
5 months into the season.
4 months later, they would finally find the answer to a question they had posited to themselves 2 years previously.
Where could one find a 7footer, who could send shots into the stands, and also spread the floor for Carmelo Anthony?
The answer obviously, is in Latvia. And with the 4th pick of the NBA Draft, the New York Knicks selected Kristaps Porzingis, opening a new, equally tragic act, to the Broadway Magic that is the New York Knicks.
It seems like an obvious answer from recent history is the 76ers getting beaten by the Hawks when Simmons passed up the dunk. I know he's been hurt, but... It seems like if he dunks it and the 76ers start rolling, he might not get stuck in a bad mental spot and the NBA might look a little different now (especially if he'd kept playing and stayed under the supervision of a training staff, then he doesn't get traded, etc...).
Cavs-Celtics, 2010. When LeBron took that jersey off we all knew he was gone
Pacers @ Suns, January 2014. It completely killed Hibbert, the whole verticality thing and the early season Pacers hype after a 9-0 start. The sour taste of that season's ending lingered for many years after.
A missed layup from Courtney Lee altered the Orlando magic v lakers 2009 finals
KINGS LAKERS 2002 GAME 6
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Spurs vs Warriors, Zaza hurts Kawhi
Vince whining out of Toronto
We have two. 2016 Game 6 WCF when Klay went supernova with 11 threes, and KD joined GSW in the offseason. And 2019 1st round against Portland, Dame dropping 50 and one signature buzzer beater… these two games erased two MVP’s and Hof’ers from our franchise.
In hindsight you should have traded for CP3 after the disaster shots that Westbrook was taking in the 2014 wcf. Some of the most bull shit shot selection and wierd layup angles I have ever seen a player take.
Nets vs Milwaukee the KD foot on the 3point game. nets win that game. They most likely go on to win the championship.
I dunno, the Nick Anderson missed free throws in 1995 was pretty big. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INt66rnIvSs
Blazers beating the Thunder in the 2019 playoffs, you know when Dame hits the deep game winner and Thunder proceed to trade their entire team and Presti turns into a pick hoarding goblin for the next 3 years…
Nets losing to bucks 2021
an inch away from winning, and we're not even talking about pete carroll
Kawhi and the shot have left us perpetual 2nd round exits
Chargers losing to Jaguars.
Probably not exactly what you're looking for, but I can think of a single pass that destroyed a dynasty -.-
Fucking Russel Wilson's pick at the end of the Superbowl. Our whole team disbanded after that. Whole Legion of Boom left Seattle or retired along with other key pieces like Michael Bennett and Marahawn Lynch. All this because Pete Carroll couldn't just feed Marshawn 1 more fucking handoff.
Nick Anderson missing 4 free throws at the end of the finals game 1 against Houston.
Game 6 of 2001 ECF set the Bucks back for a long time. We've finally been able to recover, but it didn't seem like we ever would. We somehow got blessed with Giannis to stop our suffering.
DRose's knee has crushed the Bulls since.
Kings 2002 WCF game 6
Kings 2002 G7. They've never had a true championship contender since.
Cavs 2018 Finals G1. JR Smith botching that last possession in regulation killed any chance the Cavs had that series. Lebron joined the Lakers that summer.
Edit: the better (or worse) choice for the Kings is 2003 West Semis G2. Kings were as much of a contender as the year before. Webber does his knee in the second half, and his career - and the Kings franchise - is never the same.
For the Spurs, the closest thing would be Kawhi leaving after getting injured by Zaza. Kawhi played I think 17 games the next season and demanded to be traded. That essentially started our rebuild
Bit of a deep cut, but the defending back to back champion Rockets losing to the Sonics in '96 caused the org to make a run for Barkley since the Sonics were the Rockets kryptonite at the time. They gave up a couple major contributors in Sam Cassell and Robert Horry.
The trade helped them get over the hump against Seattle, but it made them worse against everyone else including the Jazz who beat them in 1997.
JR Smith going the wrong way springs to mind. Like LeBron afaik already had one foot out the door in Cleveland, but the Cavs had all their fight sapped, got swept, LeBron left and the Cavs have basically been in limbo at best since then.
Game 4 vs Phoenix in 2021
I know we’ve kinda recovered, but that loss (and the series as a whole) virtually solidified the Westbrook trade.
It’s kinda wild that the top two in this thread are two different Thunder games. OKC is resilient and so well ran for a small market and maybe the least desirable place off the court.
This post is new so I’m sure some better examples will show up, however, it’s so interesting to look at a single game and how two franchises use it, for better or worse. (OKC/POR)
I want to include Game 5 of the 2004 NBA Finals, but that was a multiple-game disaster that derailed a franchise.
OKC losing Game 7 against GS after blowing the 3-1 lead certainly ranks up there.
Blazers blowing Game 7 vs the Lakers.
And I'm cheating with this answer as they won the game, but a singular game in NBA history that didn't involve an on-court injury possibly changing at least parts of the course of the league?
Pistons won it all that year. And Indy was, at least IMO, a better team. With a YOUNG team (outside of Reggie.)
Maimi vs Spurs 2014 finals Game 1. If Miami wins game 1....I think the team would have one game 2 anyway and have been close enough to the finish line to push for a threepeat. From, there....Lebron would not leaver Miami and they go for the 4peat. The 4peat. Greatest Organization ever. Steph Curry gets traded to the Kings and Clay Thompson joins the knicks.
Zaza injuring Kawhi and starting the drama, the trade, the tanking, retirements for the big 3…. Basically setting the spurs back a decade
Game 7 Nuggets/Clippers in the Bubble.
They have yet to recover.
As a Houston fan:
Trading for Westbrook. The team was on fire and with a few smart choices could’ve been a real super team. But nah we had to give away CP3 & a bunch of first rounders in the next following years which would’ve given us heaps of opportunity to get more depth or role players/defenders/etc to have a complete team.
The management in my eyes real fked Houston. Lucky they got some young stars now, but gonna be awhile before we back where we were.
Wanna hear others opinions tho, I’ve been a casual since that trade if I’m being honest.
Nick Anderson’s four free throws, 1995 Finals Game 1.
D Rose ACL injury in the Sixers playoff series
Lonzo Ball knee injury totally derailed the current iteration of the Bulls