Game 7 was all Minneapolis. The Lakers pounded out an win at home to claim their second NBA crown in three years. The Lakers outmuscled the Royals during the regular season to finish atop the Western Division by a four-game margin. Mikan's scoring output dipped a notch to Mikan led the league in rebounding, pulling down Minneapolis whipped past Indianapolis and Fort Wayne in the preliminary rounds. Minneapolis barely beat the Knicks in Game 2, winning by a slim two-point margin.
The next three games were scheduled for New York, and with the series tied at one game apiece, the Knickerbockers had hopes of unseating the defending champions. But the Lakers would have none of that. With four championships in five years including the BAA crown in , the Lakers staked a claim as professional basketball's first dynasty.
The following season saw Mikan's production dip again. Bad knees were beginning to take a toll on the year-old center, and he scored only But the Lakers signed a promising rookie named Clyde Lovellette, who was more than capable of spelling Mikan at the center position. The playoffs got off to an odd start when the league experimented with a round-robin format in the first round.
Minneapolis survived, then downed Rochester in the Western Division Finals. Instead, the Lakers faced Syracuse. The Nationals surprised Minneapolis with a two-point win on the Lakers' home court in Game 2, tying the series at one game apiece. The Lakers then took two out of three games in Syracuse, and the teams returned to Minneapolis with the Lakers leading, three games to two. Syracuse survived Game 6 with another two-point victory, but the Lakers made it three titles in a row with an triumph in the deciding game.
The NBA instituted two revolutionary rule changes shortly after the end of the season. The second shot clock was introduced, as was a limit of six team fouls per quarter after which every foul would result in penalty free throws. The new rules accomplished two things: they helped quicken the pace of the action on the court, and they took away the tactical advantage of fouling a player who has possession of the ball late in a game. The big question was what effect the new rules would have on the three-time defending NBA-champion Lakers, a team built around the size and power of George Mikan.
But the question was never really answered, because Mikan retired before the season began and assumed the job of team general manager. With Mikan gone, the center position fell to second-year player Clyde Lovellette, who contributed But Lovellette was not the defensive force that Mikan had been, and the Lakers finished , second to the Fort Wayne Pistons in the Western Division. Minneapolis survived the first round of the playoffs but fell to the Pistons in four games in the division finals.
The beginning of the shot-clock era meant the end of the Lakers' dynasty. Age was also beginning to take its toll on Minneapolis. Jim Pollard retired before the season, ending an eight-year career with the Lakers that stretched back to the NBL days. Guard Slater Martin had a fine season, but he was 30 years old. The Lakers' youngest starter was the year-old Lovellette, who had become the team's star, finishing fourth in the league in scoring By midseason the Lakers were struggling so badly that they prevailed upon Mikan to come out of retirement.
It took him some time to get back into shape, but by the end of the season he had become a solid contributor, if not the star he had been a few years earlier. All told, Mikan appeared in 37 regular-season contests, averaging Slater Martin finished among the NBA's top 10 in assists 6.
The Lakers fell under. Facing the St. Louis Hawks in the playoffs, Minneapolis dropped Game 1, , then walloped the Hawks by 58 points in Game 2. But St. Louis came back with a repeat of the opening game and won Game 3, , to take the series. In Minneapolis managed to earn a tie for first place in the Western Division, but that said more about the division's weakness than about the Lakers' strength. Minneapolis, St. Louis, and Fort Wayne shared first place with identical losing records of By contrast, the last-place team in the Eastern Division was After a series of one-game playoffs, St.
While the Hawks waited, the Lakers and the Pistons squared off in the division semifinals. Minneapolis prevailed with a two-game sweep. Louis then took out the Lakers in three straight, but the series was close for a sweep. The Hawks won Game 1 by a comfortable nine-point margin. Game 2 was a squeaker at The final contest was a no-holds-barred marathon. The game lasted through a pair of overtime periods, and when it ended, St.
Louis was the team still standing. The final score was Hawks , Lakers The franchise endured a disastrous season in George Mikan was persuaded to assume the head coaching duties, but he failed miserably and stepped aside after the club fell to John Kundla moved back into the coaching spot after half a season in the front office, but there wasn't much he could do with the Lakers that year. The team finished with a record and in last place in the Western Division.
The dreadful record had a silver lining, however, for it earned Minneapolis the No. With the unbeatable combination of a great scoring touch, smooth ballhandling and passing skills, a willingness to pound the boards, and the seeming ability to defy gravity on the way to the hoop, the forward helped usher in a new era for the struggling Lakers franchise.
In his rookie campaign Baylor finished fourth in the league in scoring He also led the club in assists with 4. Powered by the league's newest superstar and that season's Rookie of the Year , Minneapolis won 14 more games than the year before and finished with a record, good for second place in the Western Division behind the St. Louis Hawks. The Lakers dispatched the Detroit Pistons in the division semifinals, then moved on to face St.
Louis in the Western Division Finals. By all accounts the series was little more than a warm-up for defending NBA-champion St. The Hawks had breezed through the regular season with a record and were looking forward to a rematch with the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals.
However, behind Baylor and Vern Mikkelsen, who was the last link to the glory years of the Mikan-era Lakers, Minneapolis stunned the Hawks. Louis owned a two-games-to-one series lead heading into Game 4, but the Lakers took that game by 10 points and then earned a one-point overtime victory in Game 5.
They completed the upset with a triumph in Game 6. They faced the Celtics, who owned an game winning streak against Minneapolis and had demolished the Lakers, , in the teams' last meeting. When the dust settled, the Celtics' winning streak was still intact-Boston swept the series in four straight.
Still, the Lakers' season had to be counted as a great success. After finishing with the league's worst record the year before, they had bounced all the way back to the NBA Finals.
After the Lakers' great playoff run in , the regular season was a bust. The team managed a dismal record under Castellani's command, and he was replaced by Jim Pollard, who had played alongside George Mikan in the early years of the NBA.
Pollard fared no better, and the Lakers finished with a mark. Only Baylor managed to shine-he pumped in Despite the difficult regular season, the Lakers made the playoffs because they had the third-best record in a four-team division. The Cincinnati Royals were worse at After making short work of second-place Detroit in the division semifinals, they headed to St.
Louis for a rematch of the previous year's Western Division Finals. Minneapolis got ahead, three games to two, but the Hawks avoided embarrassment for a second straight year by posting a point win in Game 6 and then ousting the Lakers with a victory in Game 7. Although Minneapolis fans had come out in droves to watch the Lakers when Mikan was with the club, attendance had fallen off dramatically in the ensuing five seasons. Even the presence of Elgin Baylor hadn't made much of a difference.
Lakers owner Bob Short, a shrewd young businessman from Minneapolis who had owned the franchise for two years, packed up the club and moved it to Los Angeles before the season. That wasn't the only important change for the franchise during the offseason. The Lakers' record the previous year had given the club the No.
Baylor was a scoring machine and a terror on the boards for the new Los Angeles Lakers. He averaged West struggled for the first half of the season before hitting his stride, finishing his first NBA campaign averaging The two players combined to boost the Lakers to a record and a second-place finish in the Western Division. The Lakers faced the Pistons in the opening round of the playoffs. In an era of rampant scoring, the two teams lit up the scoreboard. Los Angeles posted points in each of the first two games and won both.
Back in Detroit, the Pistons won Game 3, , and Game 4, The Lakers closed out the series with a shoot-out in the final game. Louis had finished the regular season 15 games ahead of Los Angeles and was heavily favored, but the series was a dogfight. The Hawks managed a one-point victory in Game 4 to even the series at two games apiece. After the Lakers took Game 5, St. Louis eked out a overtime win in Game 6 and a victory in Game 7 to move on to the Finals. Los Angeles played with a slight handicap during the season.
Elgin Baylor was one of only two NBA players called to active military duty in the wake of the Berlin crisis. Lenny Wilkens was the other.
For much of the campaign Baylor was only available on weekends. Still, in 48 games he averaged Meanwhile, West exploded for a The high-scoring duo was ably supported. The cast included Rudy LaRusso, a third-year forward who chipped in Frank Selvy, a much-traveled veteran who had played with six teams in his first five seasons in the NBA before settling in with the Lakers, added Los Angeles dominated the Western Division, topping second-place Cincinnati by 11 games.
Up against Detroit in the division finals, the Lakers trounced the Pistons in the first three games of the series, lost Games 4 and 5, and then ousted Detroit in Game 6.
The Celtics evened the series with a win in Game 4. Game 5, which was played in Boston, saw Baylor pour in 61 points to set a playoff record that stood for a quarter of a century. The teams headed to Los Angeles with the Lakers up three games to two and poised to clinch the championship on their home court.
But the Celtics pushed the series to the limit with a win. Game 7 ranks as one of the most exciting championship games of all time. The score was knotted at apiece when Selvy put up a shot that slid off the rim as time expired. Had the shot fallen, the Lakers would have claimed the crown. Instead, the game moved into overtime, and the Celtics outscored the Lakers, , to win the game and the NBA Championship. The Lakers added Dick Barnett to their roster during the offseason.
Barnett, who had spent the previous two seasons with Syracuse, moved into the starting lineup at guard, and Selvy became the team's sixth man. Barnett averaged West still finished with Los Angeles finished , repeating as Western Division champs. But the Celtics, in the midst of a string of 11 championships in 13 seasons, continued to hold the upper hand, winning the series in six games.
The Lakers' two-year reign atop the Western Division came to an end during the season. West But the team was weak in the middle. Starting center Gene Wiley averaged only 4. The Lakers failed to get by the St. Louis Hawks in the first round of the playoffs. In Los Angeles, they appeared in 26 NBA Finals as the Los Angeles Lakers, in , , , , , , , , , , and In their full franchise history, they've won 15 championships. Toggle navigation Champs or Chumps. Past 10 Seasons - Championship Years In Los Angeles , , , , , , , In Minneapolis The arena seats 17,, for basketball, 16,, for ice hockey, and up to 18, for concerts; it has no luxury suites but held an unprecedented 2, The Lakers won 69 games that season, which stood as the NBA record for 24 years until the Chicago Bulls won 72 games in — The Lakers won 60 games In Game 6, Magic Johnson played what may have been the greatest game of his career.
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