Background
The Los Angeles Lakers entered the 2000–01 NBA season as the defending NBA Champions. The club lost a few key stars to free agency, but they managed to sign up key veteran players like Isaiah Rider and Horace Grant. The Lakers began the season struggling on and off the court, as they were losing key games at the beginning with the Shaq–Kobe feud. Injuries also riddled the team as they struggled through the season. But by April 1, 2001, the Lakers last loss was to the New York Knicks and they never looked back as the team closed out the season on an eight-game winning streak, thus finishing the season 56-26 and closing out as the #2 seed in the West behind the San Antonio Spurs.
The Lakers began the 2001 NBA Playoffs versus the team against whom they played the previous year in the Conference Finals, the Portland Trail Blazers. The Blazers were a team that struggled throughout the season but battled back to claim the 7th seed. The series wasn't close as the Lakers swept the Blazers by double digits in all three games. In the semifinals the Lakers took on the Sacramento Kings, a team who had also given the Lakers a tough series the previous season, but the Lakers took two close games at home and went to Sacramento to finish the Kings off with a 4-0 sweep as well. In the Conference Finals the Lakers went up against the #1 seed San Antonio Spurs, who were expected to be more competitive than the Laker's previous opponents. But it was still all too easy for the Lakers as they took games 1 and 2 in San Antonio then blew them out in games 3 and 4 in Los Angeles in another complete sweep as they became the second team in NBA history to sweep the conference playoffs at 11-0, the 1988-1989 Los Angeles Lakers being the first.
But the Los Angeles Lakers met a snag on their quest to the first NBA sweep in playoff history as they went up against Allen Iverson and the Philadelphia Sixers. The Sixers, seeded #1 in the East, had just come out of two straight seven-game series. During the first game, the tandem of Iverson, Dikembe Mutumbo and Eric Snow, coming hot off a long Eastern Conference championship road, beat the Lakers in overtime, showcasing their endurance.
The Lakers then took Game 2. Afterwards, Kobe Bryant was quoted as saying he was coming to Philadelphia to cut their hearts out. The Sixers dropped all three games in Philadelphia, giving the Lakers their second straight championship.
Read more about this topic: 2001 NBA Finals
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