Hardwood Classics - Notable Episodes

Notable Episodes

The episodes that have been broadcast on this series have been mostly playoffs and Finals games, but it also features significant games with great personal accomplishments, such as:

• Kobe Bryant's 81-point game vs. the Toronto Raptors in January 2006.
• Michael Jordan's 63-point game vs. the Boston Celtics in the 1986 NBA Playoffs.
• Michael Jordan's 55-point game vs. the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on March 28, 1995, in one of his first games upon returning from his first retirement.
• Kevin Garnett's NBA debut versus the Sacramento Kings at Sacramento in November 1995.
• The playoff duel between Hall of Famers Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks and Larry Bird of the Boston Celtics in a 1988 playoff game in Boston Garden.
• Charles Barkley of the Philadelphia 76ers making his NBA debut against the then-Washington Bullets at the Spectrum in Philadelphia.
• Julius Erving’s final NBA All-Star Game appearance in 1987 at Seattle's Kingdome.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's final All-Star Game appearance in 1989 at the Houston Astrodome.
• At Denver's now-demolished McNichols Sports Arena, the Denver Nuggets hosted the Detroit Pistons on December 13, 1983 in what still is the NBA's highest scoring game ever, with Detroit winning 186–184 in triple-overtime. This game also set the record for the most players in a single game to score 40 or more points, as Piston players Isiah Thomas and John Long scored 47 and 41 points respectively, while Denver's Kiki Vandeweghe led all scorers with 51 points and teammate Alex English scored 47.
• At Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey on December 7, 2006, the Phoenix Suns and New Jersey Nets played in the fourth-highest scoring game in NBA history, with the Suns winning in a 161–157 final score in triple-overtime.
• Shaquille O'Neal’s NBA debut versus the Miami Heat at Orlando on November 6, 1992.
• Considered by many as the greatest basketball game ever, the upstart Suns took the Celtics to triple-overtime, with the Celtics winning Game 5 of their NBA Finals series, 128–126, on May 9, 1976 at Boston Garden.
• The Toronto Raptors in their first year in the NBA upset the Jordan-led Chicago Bulls, who went on to have a record-breaking 72-win season.

As sort of a special treat for fans, NBA TV normally broadcasts a Hardwood Classics/Greatest Games episode that features a significant game between two franchises that happen to play each other in a game taking place on that same night.

On or around Christmas, NBA TV shows marathons of classic Christmas Day games. These games are from as far back as 1970 and often feature the New York Knicks (with 45 appearances, by far the most of any NBA franchise, including 27 straight years from 1961–88), while other teams are featured as well. One example of this was the Christmas Day 1985 matchup between the Knicks and the eventual champion Boston Celtics where the Knicks trailed 58-33 in the third period, yet came back to force overtime, eventually winning 114-103 in two overtimes. Another notable Knicks Christmas Day game took place a year earlier, featuring them and cross-river rival New Jersey Nets at Madison Square Garden, in which Knicks forward Bernard King scored 60 points in a 120-114 New York loss.

The earliest Christmas Day telecast in the NBA TV archives is a 1970 ABC telecast, between the Hawks and Suns from the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix, with the Suns winning 127-115.

There have been several Hardwood Classics episodes that were re-edited and remastered. For instance, Game 6 of the 2006 NBA Finals, first aired in early 2007, was re-aired three years later with a shortened version of the Miami Heat's championship awarding ceremonies. As mentioned, Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals, originally an hour long when it first aired in late 2008, was broadcast in a full two hours when it was re-aired in 2010. In contrast, Larry Bird's 49-point performance against the Portland Trail Blazers in 1992 was originally aired as a two-hour episode in 1999, but was shortened to an hour when it was re-aired in 2004, only covering the latter stages of the fourth quarter and two overtimes.

Some Hardwood Classics games were aired with one portion of the broadcast handled by a local network, and another portion handled by either a national (or another local, preferably the opposing team's) network, handling play-by-play for the duration of a game, often due to audio problems or lack of footage. For example, a majority of Game 5 of the 1984 First Round between the New York Knicks and the Detroit Pistons used the MSG Network broadcast tandem of Marv Albert and Butch Beard, with the remainder handled by the Pistons' WDFN radio broadcast of George Blaha and Dave Bing. Another example was the rebroadcast of Game 5 of the 1987 Eastern Conference Finals between the Pistons and the Celtics, using both the TBS broadcast by Bob Neal and Doug Collins, and the SportsChannel New England broadcast by Mike Gorman and Tom Heinsohn.