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September 18, 2025 • 31 mins

In the next installment during Top-10 Week, Jason dives into the top-10 "championship-saving performances" from the last 25 years including LeBron James in the 2016 NBA Finals for the Cleveland Cavaliers, Steph Curry in the Golden State Warriors’ 2022 title, Dirk Nowitzki for the Dallas Mavericks, Giannis Antetokounmpo for the Milwaukee Bucks, Kawhi Leonard for the Toronto Raptors, Kevin Durant, and more.

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, welcome to Hoops tonight. You're at
the volume. Heaby Thursday, everybody hopeful of you guys are
having a great end to your week. We are continuing

(00:21):
our Top ten week today with the top ten championship
saving performances of the last twenty five years. I thought
we were gonna do top ten Offensive Engines today, but
then I figured that kind of was a little redundant
with all the player ranking stuff that we've done and
our Top ten Peaks video that we did on Monday.
We're still gonna do Top ten Defenders tomorrow. But what

(00:43):
I figured would be fun today is to dig into
specifically the best playoff games that came in adversity and
in a championship winning run. As we dig into some
NBA history today. I had a lot of fun with
this one. I've spent a lot of time on YouTube
this morning rewatching some of my favorite games growing up,

(01:03):
and we're gonna dig into it and get those into
those rankings. You guys are the joke before we get started,
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(01:24):
and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there. And
the last but not least, keep dropping those mail bag
questions in the YouTube comments and we'll get to him.
No mail bag this week, but we'll get back into
our mail bags as we get into the start of
this season. All right, let's talk some basketball so again.
Top ten championship saving performances of the last twenty five years.
The rules here, I'm digging into the idea of overcoming

(01:47):
adversity here. I've talked a lot about this concept over
the years, but I love when a basketball player has
no choice but to dig deep and to reach a
level that he might not reach otherwise because of the circumstance,
because of the degree of difficulty, because of the a
the adversity. Right, there are a lot of great games
by guys who took place in series where they weren't

(02:09):
really threatened because they had a substantial talent advantage, those
won't be considered. So for example, like Kevin Durant twenty
eighteen Game three against Cleveland, that's one of the top
five or so best games I've ever seen a basketball
player play, but they were the biggest championship favorite in
the finals in the history of the league, so it
didn't really qualify as adversity for me. Right, Jokich had

(02:32):
a thirty four, twenty one and fourteen against the Lakers
in twenty twenty three. That was in a sweep, so
it didn't qualify. No adversity. Kobe Bryant of forty eight
and sixteen against Sacramento in two thousand and one, but
it was part of a sweep, so it didn't get
counted in this particular category. I'm also explicitly focusing on

(02:52):
games that came in the context of overcoming adversity to
win the championship. So for instance, Lebron's fifty point game
against the Warriors in twenty eighteen, that maybe the best
basketball game any player has ever played, doesn't qualify. They
lost Steph Curry when he had that thirty point second
half against the Rockets after KD got hurt that's maybe

(03:15):
Steph's second best playoff game ever, but they lost in
the finals, so it didn't qualify for me. Here, Kobe
had several insane games against the Suns in two thousand
and six. If you guys remember, it doesn't qualify because
they lost Jokic twenty twenty four against Minnesota, he had
that forty seven and thirteen with a ridiculous shot making
insane game. Doesn't qualify because they lost so adversity and

(03:40):
in the process of actually winning the championship. So these
are the top ten championship saving performances of the last
twenty five years. And I'm gonna jump in with an
honorable mention here because Kobe did not make this list,
and he had a game that was my final cut
that came in at eleventh for me. That was his
Game six against Phoenix in two That was the game,

(04:01):
if you guys remember, he had thirty seven points hit
a bunch of these super tough shots, like right in
front of the Sun's bench. One of the most impressive
shot making games of Kobe's career. And it could have
ended up going back to the LA for a Game seven,
which could have gone either way, right, But it just
didn't quite make the cut, but I did want to
have Kobe on here because Kobe did have an incredible

(04:21):
championship saving performance twenty six years ago, so just barely
outside the parameters of this list. So I'm going to
briefly shout it out here as essentially an honorable mention.
Game four of the two thousand NBA Finals against the
Indiana Pacers. Kobe was just twenty one years old, and
he had twenty two points in the second half of

(04:41):
an incredibly intense back and forth game. Shack fouled out
in overtime on this kind of iffy rebounding foul along
the baseline, and right after that, because Shaq was off
the floor, they had to go in with John Sally
and the Pacers immediately started pounding the ball to Rick
Smith's in the lane. In the post, he just went
right at John Sally a couple times in a row

(05:03):
for easy, little left shoulder hook shots that he made,
and that ended up turning it into a game that
easily could have gone either way. In overtime, and Kobe
hit a couple of insane shots he hit like a
scissor dribble step back over Reggie Miller. He hit like
a hesitation dribble pull up long two right on the
very next possession against Mark Jackson. The team went back

(05:25):
and forth a little bit after that. Brian Shaw got
a tip in on a Glen Rice little air ball
alongside the along the baseline on the right side. Rick
Smiths hit a couple more free throws. It was a
one point game with a four second difference between the
game clock and the shot clock. Reggie Miller was doing
a really nice job denying Kobe the ball, not allowing
him to catch it, but he just used that to

(05:45):
his advantage because Reggie was denying him, he was chasing him,
used that to get inside position for an offensive rebound,
and Brian Shaw ended up missing kind of like a
little sweeping hook going across the middle, and Kobe was
right there, right place, right time, got the offensive rebound,
put it back and effectively ice the game. And if
Kobe doesn't step up there, Indiana likely takes a three

(06:05):
to two lead going back to la with two chances
to get one win and potentially win that two thousand
NBA Finals. That was a real championship saving performance from
young Kobe that just missed the parameters of this list.
But let's get into our actual rankings, our top ten
Championship saving performances of the last twenty five years. Number
ten Steph Curry in Game five of the twenty fifteen Finals. Now,

(06:30):
the Warriors were massive favorites after Game one of that
series because of injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving,
but that didn't seem to matter much to Lebron, who
willed the Hospital Calves into competing in that series. And
the series was tied at two, and Lebron threw his
best punch of the series in Game five on the
road in Golden State. He had a forty point monster game,

(06:51):
one of his more efficient games. He had sixteen in
the fourth quarter and was really going at him. The
Cavs actually had a lead in the fourth quarter of
that game in the Warrior were staring down the ropes
of potentially a three to two deficit on the road
in Cleveland, but that was when Steph Curry decided to
have his best game of the series as well. He
poured in thirty seven points of his own. He went

(07:13):
punch for punch with Lebron in that fourth quarter. He
hit a couple of these ridiculous step back threes over
Matthew Delavdova had a couple of tough buckets, splitting pick
and roll. He split Timofey Mozgov for a little pull
up jumper at the top of the key. He split
Tristan Thompson for a little left handed layup off the glass.
He was ridiculous down the stretch of that game. Really

(07:34):
a fun duel. I really enjoyed watching that one today
on YouTube. Of the fifty five points that both teams
scored in the fourth quarter, Lebron and Steph combined for
thirty three of them. It was like an epic shootout
between the two of them. But that was one of
the top three or four playoff games that Steph has
ever played, and in my opinion, his second best playoff
game that saved his team's chances to win the title.

(07:56):
He is another one later on in this list, but
it's so increasingly stupid when you look back on that
series that Steph didn't win Finals MVP. He was very
clearly the engine that was making everything happen for the Warriors.
It was just a simple kind of narrative base thing
where Steph struggled at the beginning of the series, and
then towards the end of the series, the Cavs were

(08:18):
doing a ton of blitzing to get the ball out
of his hands. And then there was the Andre Gudala
guarding Lebron James thing that kind of grabbed a lot
of attention. But to me, Steph Curry very clearly deserved
Finals MVP in twenty fifteen, and he saved them from
a disaster. Lebron was this close to pulling that upset off,
and Steph just backpacked the team and got them out
of there with the win. Number nine. Kawhi Leonard in

(08:41):
Game seven of the Eastern Conference semi Finals against Philly
in twenty nineteen, one of the all time emptied the
clip games. It's kind of this epic back and forth
fourth quarter and a winner take all game seven. There
were seven lead changes in that fourth quarter and Kawhi
quite literally emptied the clip. He took thirty nine shots game,
but he scored forty one points. And this was a

(09:02):
game where the second leading scorer was Joel Embiid with
twenty one points, so the preeminent scorer in that particular game.
Jimmy Butler got this driving layup in transition that tied
it at ninety With four seconds left, Kawhi catches out front,
takes four hard dribbles to his right, elevates his heis
he can, shoots the ball as heis he can on
an impossible fadeaway right in front of the Raptors bench,

(09:24):
hits the rim four times before falling in and winning
the series. And again, anyone who watched that series remembers
just how close it was and how insanely good that
Sixers team was, and how close it came to going
the other way. They consistently killed the Raptors when Joel
Embiid was on the floor. Embiid was plus ten in

(09:45):
over forty five minutes that game. So, for the record,
the Raptors outscored the Sixers by twelve in just two
minutes and forty eight seconds when Embiid was off the
floor in that game, Embiid was a plus eighty nine
in that series. It's one of the big what ifs
of Joel Embid's career, but quite literally a championship saving
performance by Kawhi in Game seven of that series. Number eight.

(10:08):
Kevin Durant Game seven against the Rockets in twenty eighteen
I'm gonna throw another honorable mention to Steph Curry in
this one. He wasn't quite as good as KD, but
was very good in some pivotal moments in this game.
But we discussed yesterday how the twenty eighteen Rockets were
built solely to beat the Warriors, and they nearly did.
They led by eleven at home in the second half
of Game seven in of the Western Conference Finals. Katie

(10:29):
puts up thirty four points in the game. He had
twenty one of those thirty four points in the second half,
including some insanely tough shots. He hit like a smothered
pull up three coming off of a ball screen on
the left side that Clint Capella got a great contest on,
knocked it down in his face. He had like a
super tough little baseline fade away over Jerald Green. He
had a ridiculous pull up three at the end of

(10:51):
the shot clock against James Harden. It's like twenty seven
feet away and Harden was right there into the shock
clock and Kad just buried it. And then to ice
the game right in front of the Rockets bench, back
to back face up ISOs against Eric Gordon, where he
just protected the ball Carmelo Anthony style and just rose
up over the top and knocked down those jumpers to

(11:12):
ice that game. But again I want to shout out
Steph Curry here too. He only had twenty seven in
the game, but he had nineteen of his twenty seven
in that second half, comeback and hit several key shots
during the third quarter to run. That was one of
the great like Kevin Durant Steph Curry playoff moments and
their time together, and again that series could have easily
flipped the other way. That is one of those great

(11:34):
championship saving performances in NBA history. So you can call
that one. Kevin Durant Steph Curry kind of split it
fifty to fifty between the two of them. I gave
it to Katie just simply because he had more points
in the game. Number seven Dwayne Wade in Game three
of the two thousand and six NBA Finals. So the
Maps were up two zero in this series, and they
were up by thirteen points with six and a half

(11:54):
minutes left in the fourth quarter. The series looked over
and Dwayne Wade scored twelve points in the final six
minutes and fifteen seconds to steal that game, just lighting
up Josh Howard who was helpless to keep him in front.
He was just getting him with simple rip throughs and
jab steps and stuff, mixed in some tough mid range
pull ups to counter his drives when guys would get

(12:14):
into help or when Josh Howard would go underneath the pick.
He iced the game with this ridiculous contested rebound in
the laying off of a Dirknovisky miss free throw that
led to a foul. And again it completely flipped that
series around and Miami ended up winning four straight to
get the trophy. Dwayne Wade over the final four games
of that series averaged thirty nine points per game on

(12:35):
fifty one percent shooting, and attempted seventy three free throws. Well,
that will obviously be why that series is so controversial
in retrospect. And I'm not gonna come on here and
defend the whistle necessarily, but I will say, as someone
who watched that series, like Dwayne Wade was so much
faster than everybody and so much quicker than everybody on

(12:57):
that MAVs roster. It was like he was cutting them
to pe and getting wherever he wanted to on the floor.
Every time I go back and watch highlights too, it's
just like, literally looks like he's moving at a different
speed and defenders were consistently out of position. Now, should
he have attempted seventy three free throws? That's the big debate,
But let's make it very clear, Dwayne Wade was absolutely

(13:18):
cooking everybody in the map in a MAVs jersey in
that particular series. Number six Dirk Noviski's revenge Game two
of the twenty eleven Finals, not really the most impressive
stat line ever, but one of the most legendary scoring
runs in NBA history. Dwayn Wade hits a three right
in front of the MAVs bench early in the fourth

(13:39):
quarter that puts the Heat up fifteen. They're already up
one to zero in the series, so it's starting to
look like the Heat are going to run away with
the finals. Jason Terry comes out and gets eight quick
ones and the Heat go cold from the perimeter, and
suddenly it's a four point game with three minutes left,
and Dirk by himself goes on a solo nine to
three run in the final three minutes of the game
to end it. He hits a law two popping out

(14:00):
of a ball screen along the left side. He gets
like an easy transition layup off of their defense, which
we're going to talk about in a minute, and then
he hits a three after Eudonis haslam ducks under an
off ball screen. He just confidently steps into a catch
and shoot three right there along the left wing that
puts the MAVs up three. He called time out. They
run a nice little sideline out of bounds play that
gets Mario Chalmers a wide open three in the right corner.

(14:22):
Lebron throws the skip past Mario knocks it down. The
game is tied. Then on the very next possession, ty
game shot clocks off. Dirk catches at the top against
Chris Bosh, does a nice like spin move into a
hesitation and when he spun into his left hand, he
paused for just a second and that was enough to
freeze Bosh when right past him left handed layup wins

(14:46):
the game for the MAVs, and that really swung the series.
Like if the heat go up two oh, they almost
certainly are going to win. At that point, Dirk gets
his iconic playoff moment and gets his Larry O'Brien Trophy.
A side note, I rewatched that entire comeback this morning,
and the MAVs were so good on defense in that game,
like they had this It was like they were hedging

(15:10):
every ball screen to try to prevent Dwayne Wade or
Lebron from turning downhill, but then sprinting in the rotations
out of it, shrinking the floor to take away driving lanes.
Their rotations were sharp, they were trying. Lebron tried to
set a pin down for Dwayne Wade at one point
and just couldn't even set a screen because how attached
they were in their screen navigation. They were so good

(15:31):
down the stretch defensively in that game. There were three
straight possessions where they forced Wade or Lebron into like
impossible late clock pull up threes that had almost no
chance of going in, And like that was that comeback
was every bit as much about defense as it was
about Dirk. But Dirk the iconic nine to three run
to end that game and the game winner to steal

(15:53):
Game two of the Finals, to set the MAVs up
for their eventual win and to get revenge on the
way to come back in two thousand and six number
five Lebron James Game six against Boston in twenty twelve.
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(18:28):
or Virginia. So on the heels of the twenty eleven
Finals disappointment, Lebron came back like a man possessed. He
won MVP, his first team All Defense. He looked poised
to finally climb the mountain to win an NBA title.
But then, if you guys, remember, Chris Bosh pulls a
muscle in Game one in his abdomen in Game one
of the Pacers series, and suddenly the Margins got way thinner,

(18:51):
and that's when the adversity came. A lot of people
forget this, but Chris Bosh missed the rest of the
entirety of the Pacers series and ended up playing just
seventy three minutes total in the Celtics series, missed the
entirety of the first four games, came off the bench
for the final three games of that series and barely played.
He did it some big shots in Game seven of

(19:12):
that series, a couple of big corner threes, But that
Pacer series was super tough. They went down two to one.
If you guys remember Dwayn Wade was dealing with knee
issues two and was kind of struggling. Wade ended up
having a big breakout game in Game four of that series.
But in Game five, two to two against Boston, Paul
Pierce hits a huge three with less than a minute
left that basically ice is the game, and suddenly the

(19:34):
Heat are down three to two and I have to
go on the road to Boston in like this Rocko
is his close out environment. The stakes were ridiculous, if
you guys remember the takes. At the time, everyone was like,
if the Heat lose, they might have to blow up
the team, but no. Lebron literally eviscerated the Celtics single
handedly on the road in Game six. He dropped thirty
in the first half, just completely sucked the life out

(19:54):
of the arena. Even when they started to make a
run in the second half, he just nailed a three
that sucked the life right back out of the Iran.
He had fifteen points in the second half that closed
that deal for a total of forty five. Hit a
crazy variety at jumpers from three and from the mid range.
He had this like savagely calm look on his face,
like he was just completely supremely confident in his ability

(20:16):
to regain control of the situation, and the rest was history.
Over the final seven games of the twenty twelve playoff run,
Lebron averaged thirty one points, eleven rebounds, and six assists
on fifty one percent shooting, and the Heat went six
and one. He played his best basketball when he needed
to push that team over the top and change what
would have been potentially a blown up Heat team into

(20:38):
the first champion of that era. The definition of a
championship saving performance number four Johannison Tennakumpo in Game six
to the twenty twenty one NBA Finals. The stat line
is obviously insane. Fifty points, fourteen rebounds, and five blocks.
But I want to focus on the second half of
this game. Every game down the stretch of this series,
if you guys remember, was super competitive. Game six was

(21:00):
no exception. The game was tied with ten minutes left
in the fourth quarter. And again you're staring down the
barrel of a Game seven in Phoenix, which NBA history
tells us typically goes towards the home team, right Giannis
poured in thirty three points in the second half and
hit everything. It wasn't just bullyball. He had a three
along the right wing early in the second half. He

(21:21):
hit like a tough right shoulder fade away in the lane.
He hit a hook shot over Michale Bridges with like
three minutes left in the fourth quarter from like thirteen feet,
like he turned over his left shoulder and hit a
hook shot from thirteen feet. He made twelve of his
thirteen free throws in the second half of that game.
He all mixed in with the usual Yannis bullyball, deep

(21:42):
seals for dunks, offensive rebound put backs, driving right through
Deandrayton's chest just like it was Janis's version of just
hitting the zone and entering into that basketball nirvana where
just everything is going for you, and he was completely
unbelievable and just backpacked the team to close the deal
in Game six and win the title. They had a

(22:03):
couple of huge blocks on Devin Booker, won at the
rim and won in ISO. It was just the greatest
game that Yannis ever played, and it was in a
spot where his team desperately needed it, and it was
one of the great championship saving performances of the last
twenty five years. Number three Lebron James in Game seven
of the twenty thirteen NBA Finals, the game Lebron needed

(22:24):
his jump shot the most, and it came through. Greg
Popovich had a very simple game plan against Lebron in
the twenty thirteen Finals. He was going to completely shut
off the paint and dare Lebron to take jump shots.
They were going underneath picks, even comically low like picks
that were below the foul line. They were just daring
Lebron to shoot, and it worked pretty well for six games.
Lebron took fifty five jump shots through the first six

(22:46):
games of that series and got just forty five points
on them. That zero point eight two points per attempt. Obviously,
he was good in other ways, it was a super
competitive series is back and forth. Lebron was great in
Game six. He kind of saved the team from elimination
in the fourth quarter, dragging them from a double digit
deficit into a close game. Those of you guys who
remember the end of that game had a crazy shot

(23:07):
making sequence between Tony Parker and Ray Allen. Tony Parker
hit like a ridiculous step back three at the top
of the key in like a sideways jump shot in
the lane. Ray Allen hits the massive three in the
right corner that sends it to ot. Then Lebron scores
or assists on every single field goal for the heat
and o T they win. Goes to Game seven, and
in Game seven, with all the marbles on the line,

(23:29):
Lebron finally burned Popovic's game plan. He hit nine jump
shots in Game seven. Again, this was an ugly low
scoring game where everyone looked exhausted. He had five threes,
and then he iced the game in the fourth quarter
with mid range jumper after mid range jumper after mid
range jumper. My favorite moment from this game is after
Lebron hits his final mid range jumper over Kawhi. He

(23:52):
has this like very private moment of internalized celebration. And again,
like you guys know, Lebron has always been very external celebrators.
He's a performer, he's playing to the camera, he's playing
to the crowd, and like he's high five and the
guys on his way back to the huddle. His head's down.
It's very internally focused, and he kind of does this
like two handed fist pump with like a roar that

(24:14):
you can tell was like very much like an internalized celebration.
It was almost like a release of all of the
stress and pressure of the last half decade involving his
jump shot. And like we found out after in the
days after from reporting that Lebron had been like really
paying his dues to become a good jump shooter. Like

(24:35):
he was traveling with a full time shooting coach, and
no matter where he was, whether he was on vacation
or at a marketing event or just at home, he
was working on his jump shot every single day. And
I've told you guys before, like jump shot improvement is incremental,
it's tedious, and the only way to get there is
thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands and
thousands of shots, and Lebron paid that price, and it

(24:57):
paid off on the biggest stage. Game seven NBA Finals,
the absolute peak of professional basketball on Earth, and it
was the first of two amazing Lebron moments that he
had on that stage. Number two Steph Curry in Game
four the twenty twenty two Finals in Boston forty three points,
ten rebounds. With the series very much at a tipping point,

(25:21):
it was an incredibly tough matchup for the Warriors. I
actually picked the Warriors to win that series because I
believed in Steph and just overall my basketball philosophy surrounding
veteran experience. But I was extremely nervous about that Boston team,
and I did say before the series that I thought
the Celtics were the more talented team. They were one
of the best defenses I had ever seen to that point,
and they matched up really well with Golden State and

(25:41):
some key areas, especially involving their perimeter speed. Emai Udoka
also opted for a high drop coverage, not like a
blitz or like a above the level coverage. They didn't
want to give up the role man, but they were
up with their bigs contesting threes, and the entire purpose
of it was Ema Yuduka did not want to let
the Warriors get into their four on three. They did

(26:02):
not want to let them get into the blender. The
thing that you know resulted in Andre Gudala getting a
Finals MVP in twenty fifteen. If you guys remember that
same Draymond andre Gudala sequence off of blitzerz of Steph Curry.
He didn't want to He wanted to put the burden
on Steph to make incredibly difficult pull up jump shots
over contests from very good defenders, guys like Rob Williams

(26:24):
and Al Horford. And by the way, it worked at first,
the Celtics took a two to one lead on the
strength of the big late game comeback in Game one
where their defense really strangled the Warriors, and they had
the Warriors up against the wall in that Game four,
even with Steph lighting the world on fire to that point,
the Celtics led by five, was seven minutes left in
that fourth quarter, and again they win that game. They're

(26:45):
up three to one going back to Golden State. That's
a big and advantageous position for that Celtics team. Steph
scored ten of his forty three over the final four
minutes to steal that game and to save the series.
This is one of my favorite YouTube video to watch.
The degree of difficulty on some of these pull up
threes that Steph hit was literally off the charts, and

(27:07):
the Warriors needed every single one of them. To put
it very simply, I believe that if Steph did not
do what he did in Game four of that series,
the Celtics are the twenty twenty two NBA champion the
end of story. And I thought it was a particularly
important win for Steph because of the way his career
had been kind of slandered in retrospect. Like, Steph was

(27:28):
the massive favorite in his first three champions right A championships,
right Like, obviously you have Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving
out for the first one, Kevin Duran on the team
in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, it's the greatest roster
ever assembled. So he had like absurd talent advantages in
his first three championships. And so when they you know,
flamed out in twenty twenty one and missed the playoffs,

(27:50):
and when he's down to one in the finals there
even up to that point, there was just this large
group of detractors that was kind of undercutting everything that
Stephan had done previously in his career, and so at
that point that win, winning that game and kind of
like allowing himself to legitimize his success, because again, part

(28:13):
of the reason they had such an absurd talent advantage
in those series was because Steph had become close to
as good as Lebron James was as the best player
in the world, while also being surrounded with that elite roster.
But to his credit, Steph was contributing in a major
way to the success of that team. I still believe
to this day that Steph was the best player on

(28:35):
that Kevin Durant Warriors team, and this game, this game
for the twenty twenty two Finals, was the biggest middle
finger in the world to all those folks who had
basically kicked Steph while he was down in the years
following the Kevin Durant injury. It was a demonstration to me,
a clear demonstration that he was the second best player

(28:56):
of the Lebron era and in my opinion, still underrated
to this day. Number one is actually going to be
Lebron's last three games of the twenty sixteen Finals. You
could pick any of them individually. It's kind of crazy.
You go back through NBA history and you look at
some of the great like back against the Wall performances,
and Lebron just has so many of them like it.

(29:18):
Just in this series, Game five, forty one, sixteen, and
seven when you're down three to one in the finals,
forty one to eight, and eleven when you're down three
to two in the Finals, a twenty seven point triple
double with a game saving block in Game seven. Any
one of those could have made this list, But I
think it's a disservice to Lebron to pick just one
of those games. So I'm gonna break it down like this,

(29:40):
down three to one to the greatest team in NBA
history up to that point, a Warriors team that had
won eighty eight games. Lebron James over the final three
games of that series averaged thirty six points twelve rebounds
in tennisis per game on fifty one percent from the
field and forty two percent from three with six stocks

(30:01):
per game. That's right. He had nine steals in nine
blocks over the final three games of that series. Everyone
remembers the block on Iguadala. There's another play that I
have burned into my brain from the tail end of
Game seven, and it was the Steph Curry iso of
Kevin Love. This is a play that is remembered as

(30:22):
the stop by Calves fans. Go watch that play again
and you'll see Lebron hawking the lane behind Kevin Durant
and Steph had absolutely no interest in driving past Kevin
to deal with Lebron there, who had blocked Steph so
many times to that point in the series that he
was scared to drive on it. There's so many moments
in that series, obviously, the Kyrie shot in the Lebron block,

(30:46):
the half court surgery that Lebron performed in the fourth
quarter of Game seven, consistently generating great shots for the Calves,
and like the Rock Fight of all Rock Fight games,
I thought he performed some ridiculous half court surgery and
game if you guys remember as he was picking the
Warriors apart and pick and roll, just consistently setting Tristan
Thompson up for easy layups and dunks as he was

(31:08):
using his eyes to look off Warriors help defenders. It
was the greatest stretch of basketball ever played, and it
literally turned a loss into a trophy against the greatest
basketball team success wise that had ever performed up to
that point again having won eighty eight games, and so
that easily takes the number one spot on this list.

(31:29):
All right, guys, that's all I have for today is
always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting us and
supporting the show. We'll be back tomorrow with one more
top ten list, the top ten defenders of the last
twenty five years. I'll see you guys then,
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Host

Jason Timpf

Jason Timpf

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