2007-08 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Paul Pierce. Pierce won Finals MVP, leading the Celtics' newly formed Big Three to a title that ended the franchise's 22-year championship drought.

Series context

The 2007-08 NBA Finals renewed one of basketball's most storied rivalries, pitting the Boston Celtics against the Los Angeles Lakers for the first time since 1987. Boston had been transformed over the prior offseason through blockbuster trades that brought Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to join longtime Celtic Paul Pierce, forming a new 'Big Three' that produced a stunning turnaround and a league-best 66-16 regular-season record. Los Angeles, meanwhile, had rebuilt around Kobe Bryant, the league's reigning MVP, bolstered by a midseason trade for Pau Gasol that gave the Lakers a formidable interior scoring complement to Bryant's perimeter dominance. Boston took control from the outset, winning Game 1 at home 98-88 and Game 2 108-102 to grab a 2-0 series lead. The series shifted to Los Angeles, where the Lakers responded with an 87-81 win in Game 3 to get on the board, but Boston reasserted control with a 97-91 win in Game 4. A notable moment came when Pierce briefly left Game 1 in a wheelchair after appearing to injure his knee, only to return minutes later and deliver a strong performance, a sequence that became emblematic of his leadership throughout the postseason. Los Angeles staved off elimination with a 103-98 win in Game 5, but Boston closed out the championship in dominant fashion back home, routing the Lakers 131-92 in Game 6 on June 17, a margin that was, at the time, the largest in a Finals-clinching game. Paul Pierce was named Finals MVP after anchoring Boston's offense and playing tenacious defense on Bryant throughout the series, capping a career that had spanned Boston's lean years in the late 1990s and 2000s. Garnett and Allen provided crucial two-way contributions, with Garnett's interior defense and rebounding proving especially decisive in containing the Lakers' frontcourt. This championship ended a 22-year title drought for one of the NBA's most storied franchises, marking Boston's first championship since 1986 and its record-extending 17th overall. The formation of the Celtics' Big Three via trade is often cited as a pivotal moment in modern NBA roster-building strategy, presaging the era of superteams constructed through free agency and trades that would come to define the following decade, including the Lakers' own subsequent championship runs and Miami's 'Big Three' formation in 2010. Boston's road to the Finals was itself grueling: the Celtics needed Game 7 home wins over both the Atlanta Hawks and LeBron James's Cleveland Cavaliers before dispatching Detroit 4-2 in the conference finals, meaning the Game 6 clincher against the Lakers came in Boston's 26th playoff game of the run, breaking the record of 25 shared by the 1994 Knicks and 2005 Pistons for most games needed to win a title. The Game 6 rout itself set several marks: Boston's 39-point margin of victory broke the previous record for largest winning margin in a championship-clinching game, a mark of 33 points the Celtics had set against the Lakers back in 1965, while Ray Allen tied the then-Finals record with seven three-pointers in that game and the Celtics recorded 18 team steals. Los Angeles had briefly threatened a comeback, leading Game 4 by 24 points in the first half before Boston rallied to win, at the time the largest points-scored comeback in Finals history; asked afterward if his team could still come back from a 3-1 series deficit, Phil Jackson said he believed Los Angeles was 'young enough and dumb enough to do this.' The Lakers ultimately could not solve Boston's defense, particularly its handling of Bryant, and Los Angeles's road to the Finals had itself been comparatively easy, a sweep of Denver followed by wins over Utah and San Antonio.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 2008 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 2008 NBA Finals