2001-02 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal won his third consecutive Finals MVP award, averaging 36.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.8 blocks per game as the Lakers completed a three-peat.

Series context

The 2001-02 NBA Finals pitted the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers against the New Jersey Nets, who were making the first Finals appearance in franchise history. Los Angeles entered the postseason as the third seed in the Western Conference after a 58-24 regular season marked by simmering tension between co-stars Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, but the team had shown in the prior postseason that it could elevate its play dramatically, having gone an NBA-record 15-1 through the 2001 playoffs. The Nets, by contrast, were a franchise transformed: after a dismal 26-56 season in 2000-01, New Jersey acquired point guard Jason Kidd in a blockbuster offseason trade and adopted an up-tempo, ball-movement-heavy version of the Princeton offense under coach Byron Scott. The result was a 26-win improvement to 52-30 and the top seed in the Eastern Conference, powered by Kidd's triple-double-caliber playmaking alongside Kenyon Martin, Keith Van Horn, and Richard Jefferson. Despite the Nets' regular-season success, the Finals proved lopsided. In Game 1 at Staples Center on June 5, the Lakers survived a late New Jersey rally to win 99-94. Game 2 was more emphatic, with Los Angeles routing the Nets 106-83 behind a dominant O'Neal performance. The series shifted to the Meadowlands for Game 3, where the Lakers again prevailed in a tighter contest, 106-103, effectively ending any realistic hope of a Nets comeback. Los Angeles completed the sweep on June 12 with a 113-107 win in Game 4, clinching their third consecutive championship. Shaquille O'Neal was utterly dominant throughout, averaging 36.3 points, 12.3 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 2.8 blocks per game to capture his third straight Finals MVP award, joining an elite group of players to win the honor in three consecutive years. Kobe Bryant complemented O'Neal with strong all-around scoring and defense, while Jason Kidd, despite the sweep, cemented his reputation as one of the league's premier floor generals and a driving force behind the Nets' remarkable turnaround. This Finals capped the height of the Lakers' O'Neal-Bryant dynasty, representing the franchise's third straight title under coach Phil Jackson. It marked the last of the Lakers' three-peat championships before the team's roster began to fracture in subsequent seasons amid growing discord between its two superstars, foreshadowing the Detroit Pistons' upset of an even more star-laden Lakers team just two years later. The sweep was also a personal milestone for Phil Jackson, whose ninth career championship as a head coach tied him with Red Auerbach for the most in NBA history, and it pushed his career playoff win total past Pat Riley's for the most of any coach. Jason Kidd's postseason was itself historic even in defeat: during New Jersey's run through the Eastern Conference finals he averaged a near triple-double, becoming just the fourth player in NBA history to average a triple-double across an entire playoff series. The 2002 Lakers remain, as of the mid-2020s, the last NBA team to complete a three-peat, with subsequent contenders such as the Miami Heat and Golden State Warriors managing consecutive titles but falling short of a third straight championship.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 2002 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 2002 NBA Finals