2009-10 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

Kobe Bryant. Bryant won his second consecutive Finals MVP award despite a poor shooting night in the Game 7 clincher (6-of-24 from the field), finishing with 23 points including 10 in the fourth quarter to help close out the series.

Series context

The 2010 Finals was a rematch of the 2008 championship series, in which the Celtics had beaten the Lakers in six games. This time the Lakers entered with home-court advantage, having finished 57-25 as the West's top seed, while Boston came in as the East's fourth seed at 50-32, an aging but battle-tested roster built around the 'Big Three' of Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, and Ray Allen. The two teams had split their regular-season series, foreshadowing a tightly contested Finals. Los Angeles won Game 1 comfortably, 102-89, but Boston answered by taking Game 2 and eventually held a series lead heading into the middle games, pushing the Lakers to fight from behind. The Lakers blew Boston out in Game 6, 89-67, forcing a decisive Game 7 in Los Angeles. That game was a defensive slugfest; the Lakers prevailed 83-79 despite Bryant's inefficient shooting, securing the franchise's 16th championship and finally beating the Celtics in a Finals Game 7 after having lost all prior Game 7 meetings between the two rivals. The series was marred for Boston by a serious injury to starting center Kendrick Perkins, who tore both his PCL and MCL in Game 6 and was unable to play in the decisive Game 7, a significant blow to Boston's interior defense and rebounding. For the Lakers, the championship extended head coach Phil Jackson's record to 11 titles as a coach, further cementing his legacy as the most decorated coach in major North American professional sports. Game 7 drew a massive television audience, the largest Finals audience since the Bulls-Jazz series in 1998, reflecting the historic pull of the Lakers-Celtics rivalry. The win made Los Angeles's 16 championships one shy of Boston's all-time record of 17 at the time, while marking the twelfth Finals meeting between the NBA's two most storied franchises. This victory also completed a run of back-to-back titles for the Lakers' Bryant-Gasol-Odom core. Ratings reflected the rivalry's pull throughout the series: Game 1 drew roughly 14.1 million viewers, the most-watched Finals opener since 2004, and Game 7 drew about 28.2 million viewers, the largest audience for any Finals game since the Bulls-Jazz series in 1998. Bryant shot just 6 of 24 from the field in the Game 7 clincher but still scored a game-high 23 points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, to claim his second consecutive Finals MVP award; he later called the title the sweetest of his career given the opponent. Ron Artest, in his first season with the Lakers after signing as a free agent, scored 20 points in Game 7, including a clutch corner three-pointer with under a minute remaining that put the game out of reach, prompting Phil Jackson to single him out afterward as the game's most valuable player. The win improved the Lakers to 3-9 all-time in Finals meetings with Boston but gave them their first Finals Game 7 victory over the Celtics after losing all of their previous meetings in that scenario.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 2010 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 2010 NBA Finals
• ESPN - 2010 NBA Finals: Nielsen Co. says 28.2 million watched Game 7
• Sports Media Watch - 2010 NBA Finals Most-Viewed Since 2001