2019-20 NBA Finals

Result

Games

Finals MVP

LeBron James. James won a unanimous Finals MVP, his fourth career Finals MVP award, averaging 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 8.5 assists per game, and became the first player to win Finals MVP with three different franchises.

Series context

The 2019-20 NBA Finals were held under extraordinary circumstances created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which suspended the NBA season in March 2020. The league resumed play in late July inside a secure, quarantined campus at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Florida, commonly known as the 'NBA Bubble,' with all remaining regular-season games, playoffs, and the Finals played without fans in the arena. The Finals themselves ran from late September into October, making this the latest-starting and latest-ending NBA Finals in league history to that point, and the only one played primarily in October. The Los Angeles Lakers, in LeBron James's second season with the team, finished first in the Western Conference behind James and co-star Anthony Davis, acquired in a trade the previous summer. The Lakers dedicated the season to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant, who died in a helicopter crash in January 2020 along with his daughter Gianna and seven others, and that tribute carried through the playoffs and into the championship celebration. The Miami Heat, meanwhile, authored a surprising run to the Finals as the fifth seed in the East, powered by an emerging young core around Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and rookie Tyler Herro, under longtime coach Erik Spoelstra. Los Angeles took control early, winning three of the first four games, but Miami, playing through significant injuries to Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic, kept the series alive by winning Game 5 behind a 40-point triple-double from Jimmy Butler. The Lakers closed out the championship in Game 6 on October 11, 2020, winning 106-93 to capture the franchise's 17th title, tying the Boston Celtics for the most in NBA history at the time. Lakers governor Jeanie Buss became the first female controlling owner to lead a team to an NBA championship. The 'Bubble Finals' are remembered as a singular chapter in NBA history: a championship won in near-total isolation from fans, punctuated by social-justice messaging on jerseys and courts following the killing of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake earlier that summer, and capped by an emotional dedication to Kobe Bryant's memory throughout the Lakers' title run. LeBron James was named Finals MVP for the fourth time in his career, a unanimous selection while averaging 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 8.5 assists per game, and in doing so became the first and only player in NBA history to win Finals MVP with three different franchises, having previously won it with the Heat (twice) and the Cavaliers. James and Anthony Davis also became the first teammates in NBA history to each average at least 25 points per game while shooting 50 percent from the field over a single postseason. The series was notable off the court for its historically low television audience: Game 1 drew roughly 7.4 million viewers, the lowest-rated Finals game on record since Nielsen tracking began in 1988, with ratings sliding further as the series went on, a decline widely attributed to the unusual October scheduling competing with the NFL and presidential election coverage rather than any lack of competitiveness in the series itself.

Sources

• Wikipedia - 2020 NBA Finals
• Basketball-Reference - 2020 NBA Finals
• The Hill - NBA Finals ratings plummet to 5.6M, lowest on record