5 of the best statistical INDIVIDUAL playoff series displays of the last 40 years.

[Professor Emeritus]

We're talking about the Eastern conference record here, bytch boy. People like you is what causes people like me to dislike Lebron.

And these are the facts. Jordan on the other hand in the East ALONE faced 14 teams with a better record than 52 wins:

Why don't amazing performances against incredibly good Western Conference teams count? You don't explain why you're ignoring that. YOU just chose to say, "We're only going to count the East!", but you have zero reason for it. You just make arbitrary fukking rules in order to try to diminish LeBron.

Again, you show you don't know basketball from that era. They won 57 games in 1989 and didn't make the playoffs again till 1992 because Mark Price, Daugherty, Larry Nance all had major stretches of injuries when they missed almost the entire season.

EVERYTIME their core group of Price, Daugherty, Nance, Harper/Ehlo, was fit and didnt miss large stretches, they won nothing less than 54 games per season.

Like in 1989, 1992, 1993. I'm done here. I'm not going to go back and forth with a basketball illeterate (i.e Bronsexual) I already proved my point in my 3 posts on the Knicks, Sixers and Cavs.

You're gassing up a 42-win team with a defensively shytty backcourt based on what they did FIVE YEARS LATER?

And you ignored that Harper was hurt for much of the '88 season and didn't even play the whole first round. Price and Ehlo were fukking food defensively.

 

[ISO]

We're talking about the Eastern conference record here, bytch boy. People like you is what causes people like me to dislike Lebron.

And these are the facts. Jordan on the other hand in the East ALONE faced 14 teams with a better record than 52 wins:

This graph doesn't take the two 50 win teams (nearly 3 as Indiana had 48 wins) LeBron beat in '18 into account nor does it take into account Boston or Indiana in '12 who were at or near 50 win paces.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Is this what we doing? Hyping up 42 win teams?

Two can play at that game then.

The '06 Wizards were insanely underrated they only won 42 games but they were one of the younger teams in the league. This was a team that had Gilbert Arenas, Antawn Jamison, and Caron Butler, all multi time All-Stars.

This team had WAY more talent than the '06 Cavs who had LeBron, a post injury Larry Hughes, Big Z and a bunch of flat out mediocre players.

The '07 Nets were insanely underrated they only 41 games but they had Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Richard Jefferson. VC and Kidd are Hall of Famers and RJ was All-Star level. This team had WAY more talent than the '07 Cavs who had LeBron and Boobie Gibson was his most consistent second option as the playoffs wore on.

Also let us not sleep on the '12 Knicks. They found their footing in the lockout shortened season and went 18-6 after firing D'Antoni. They were on a 46 win pace in a lockout shortened season and found their footing late with the emergence of Lin and the acquisitions of J.R. Smith from China.

Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, J.R. Smith pretty good players All-Stars to near All-Stars

I was thinking about that Nets team. 42-win teams are only amazing opponents when they're MJ's opponents.

Hell, we can say the 2018 Pacers were better than ALL of those teams MJ faced. Young team won 48 games with Oladipo (MVP candidate), Sabonis (soon an All-Star), Bogdanovic (20ppg scorer), Collison, Lance, Thad Young. FAR more talented than a Cavs team who didn't have anyone other than LeBron average more than 11ppg.



MJ put up his three greatest playoff performances against a 42-win 8-seed Miami team with a shytty defense, a 42-win 6-seed Cleveland team with a terrible defensive backcourt, and a 53-win Sixers team that had the 2nd-worst defense of any playoff team. And this fool is bending over backwards trying to gas that shyt up.

Meanwhile LeBron put up his incredible numbers against Finals teams and 1-seeds who were stacked defensively....but it doesn't count because he "only" beat 17-18 fifty-win teams. Of course, the fact that his best performances were against the best teams is completely ignorable, right?

 

[ISO]

Why don't amazing performances against incredibly good Western Conference teams count? You don't explain why you're ignoring that. YOU just chose to say, "We're only going to count the East!", but you have zero reason for it. You just make arbitrary fukking rules in order to try to diminish LeBron.





You're gassing up a 42-win team with a defensively shytty backcourt based on what they did FIVE YEARS LATER?

And you ignored that Harper was hurt for much of the '88 season and didn't even play the whole first round. Price and Ehlo were fukking food defensively.

Hold on breh let's not forget the '09 Hawks such an underrated team!

The 47 wins don't tell the whole story. Joe Johnson, Al Horford, Mike Bibby, Josh Smith. They were All-Star to near All-Star level players in their career!

Mike Woodson had bodies to throw on James like Mo Evans and Marvin Williams and Flip Murray was a bucket! Let's not forget Mike Woodson's switch defense.

Way more talent than the '09 Cavs whose second leading scorer in that series was Delonte West

LeBron was the X-Factor averaging 34/8/6 with 2.5 steals on 56/48/70 splits he's the reason they won 66 games

 

[Mad Good Dro]

Pssh, Lebron has had better box scores in the FInals than he had in that Finals plus there was an anomaly in the fact that neither side had any real Centers. Lebron was one of the largest players on the court for both teams and could lead in rebounds and blocks. Bogut got hurt earlier in the series. Its not really surprising for that to happen in an era of small ball.

It would have been impossible to do that if he was playing against a team with a Patrick Ewing for example. Of all the things he led both sides in, steals is the most impressive to me.

Jordan was the biggest fastest guard on the court so it wasn't impressive and he wouldn't be averaging 45ppg if he had to play against a team with gary payton. Am i doing it correctly?

 

[Jplaya2023]

Why are you lying?

The '06 Pistons had 64 wins.

The '08 Celtics had 66 wins.

The '09 Magic had 59 wins.

The '11 Bulls had 62 wins and the '11 Celtics had 56 wins.

I'm also sure the '12 Pacers and Celtics were near or above a 53 win pace in the lockout shortened season.

The '15 Hawks had 60 wins.

The '16 Raptors had 56 wins.

The '17 Celtics had 53 wins and the '17 Raptors had 51 wins.

The '18 Celtics had 55 wins and the '18 Raptors had 59 wins.

Now tell us is this you and if not why do you parrot these talking points?
Nobody Touches Jordan

The 09 cavs had 66 wins so remove orlando but you right

 

[Pack2]

Best Finals series by game score, same criteria as OP:

LBJ has 6 of the top 30: 4th, 7th, 11th, 14th, 22nd, 29th, and 30th best of all time.

MJ has 4 of the top 30: 5th, 6th, 12th, and 24th


MJ also has 34th, otherwise neither has any more in the top 50.

Then when you look at the defenders they were facing.....MJ had his five against the Lakers, Blazers, Suns, and Jazz (twice), all of whom were forgettable as fukk in their perimeter defense. LBJ had his six against Kawhi and the Spurs (twice) and Iggy/Draymond and the Warriors (four times), some of the best defenders in the game.

I guess this your way to prop up Bron while throwing dirt on the GOAT bc if I asked you who won and lost those series we both know the answer dont we?



But I will still ask. What's Bron's record in those 6 and what's MJ's in those 5 series?
I already know MJ's record in the playoff series OP posted

 

[fifth column]

All I ask is that one of you Bron stans make a credible basketball case for Bron over MJ as the greatest ever

 

[murksiderock]

So of the top 5 mentioned, two were decided in 3 games. Jordan vs the Heat in 1992 and Hakeem vs Dallas in 1988.

Jordan vs the Sixers in 1990 - 5 games.

Jordan vs the Cavs in 1988 - 5 games.

Jordan vs the Knicks in 1989 - 6 games.

So lets look at a brief back story to all 3 of those series :


Jordan vs the Sixers -

I already touched on this earlier in one of my previous posts. This was the best Sixers team Barkley played for arguably.

He had Hershey Hawkins who was a very good player that had just helped destroy the Cavs in the previous series :
1990 NBA Eastern Conference First Round - Cavaliers vs. 76ers | Basketball-Reference.com

Hawkins averaged 24ppg during the 1990 playoff run and 27ppg vs the Cavs in 1990 first round. Jordan in the Conference semifinals held him to 19.8ppg:
1990 NBA Eastern Conference Semifinals - 76ers vs. Bulls | Basketball-Reference.com

That Sixers team won 53 games in the 1989/90 season. They had very good players like Barkley, Dawkins, Hawkins, Giminski, Rick Mahorn, Ron Anderson, Derek Smith and son on. The Bulls won 55 games. Again two evenly matched teams by record but the X-factor was Jordan.

Interestingly, Lebron in his entire 16 year campaign in the Eastern conference only faced 6 teams with a better record. (17/18 - 59-23 Raptors), (10/11 - 56-26 Celtics), (13/14 - 56-26 Pacers), (15/16 - 56-26 Raptors), (10/11 - 62-20 Bulls), (14/15 - 60-22 Hawks). And in all these encounters, Lebron was already on his superteam in Miami or with Kyrie/Love in Cleveland.

So its kind of hilarious Bron superfan boy @Rhakim and closet Lebron apologist @murksiderock are complaining about this.

Anyone who knows anything about that 89/90 season knows it was one of the most balanced seasons in NBA history and that the 76ers were considered as much as contender than the Bulls. The fav to come out of the East was the Pistons but there were several contenders trying to ursurp them, including the Sixers and Bulls.

So just because Jordan averaged these insane numbers against them, you're trying to discredit his opposition? How pitiful

This is why nobody who is not a Lebron fan respects Lebron's jock sniffers. You tear down other legends and their achievments to push your agenda. Now, im going to FINISH kicking your ass @Rhakim and @murksiderock with my next post about the Cavs and Knicks teams.

I didn't discredit Mike's opponents, and neither did anyone else until you played this selective game of discrediting LeBron's...

We should all accept your 52-win arbitrary cutoff as a gold standard though, right? You can't even decide which direction you wanna go in, you go from the 52 wins to gassing 42 win teams...

Other than the fact you don't see you boo thing Lebron's name mentioned up there in the top 5 after 16 years in the playoffs no doubt facing MUCH WORSE TEAMS THAN the ones I've just mentioned.

Why are you so selective in who was a great opponent and what was a great performance?

Interestingly, bronsexuals like to say Jordan never won a playoff series until Pippen arrived. This was Jordan's 1st playoff series win. Pippen was coming off the bench averaging 10ppg on 47 FG%. Yeah I'm sure Jordan really needed him there

Nobody mentioned this, so the fact you're even bringing it to conversation reveals an insecurity in the fact that it can't be disputed that he never won a series without Pippen. No one mentioned this, why so insecure?

 

[murksiderock]

Why tear down other players achievements to boost up Lebron? I even went through the trouble of researching Lebron's best playoff series displays and I included him in my original post. What more awknowledgement do you guys want?

Are you just upset Lebron doesn't have a top 5 series GameScore and the true GOAT instead dominates everything?

To your bolded, no you didn't, and I suspect your omission was deliberate. You posted two series that LeBron had a 30+ GmSc, as if they are the only two he has. They aren't...

Furthermore, your agenda is all over the place and isn't clear because you keep shifting the topic of conversation. No one has ever had a series of 40+ GmSc, so every instance of 30+ was an amazing effort whether the player won or lost the series. All the guys you mentioned had one 30+ series besides Shaq. GmSc isn't available before the '84 playoffs for the most part, so there are some performances missing that can't/haven't been measured by it, but since '84, only two guys have more than two series of 30+ GmSc, which is more impressive than anyone peaking at that level just once...

Wanna be objective and guess who the other guy is?

Not a single person is tearing down other players, the fact you're doing exactly that towards LeBron is typical Anti-Bron fare. Carry on...

All I ask is that one of you Bron stans make a credible basketball case for Bron over MJ as the greatest ever

This has already been explained to you so just be transparent and admit that you don't think LeBron has a credible case. Don't play dumb...

 

[ISO]

The 09 cavs had 66 wins so remove orlando but you right

I think he’s saying LeBron only faced those teams with 53 or more wins which isn’t true.

 

[viktordoomsecretwars]

To your bolded, no you didn't, and I suspect your omission was deliberate. You posted two series that LeBron had a 30+ GmSc, as if they are the only two he has. They aren't...

Furthermore, your agenda is all over the place and isn't clear because you keep shifting the topic of conversation. No one has ever had a series of 40+ GmSc, so every instance of 30+ was an amazing effort whether the player won or lost the series. All the guys you mentioned had one 30+ series besides Shaq. GmSc isn't available before the '84 playoffs for the most part, so there are some performances missing that can't/haven't been measured by it, but since '84, only two guys have more than two series of 30+ GmSc, which is more impressive than anyone peaking at that level just once...

Wanna be objective and guess who the other guy is?

Not a single person is tearing down other players, the fact you're doing exactly that towards LeBron is typical Anti-Bron fare. Carry on...



This has already been explained to you so just be transparent and admit that you don't think LeBron has a credible case. Don't play dumb...

You're talking nonsense as usual. I picked Lebron's 2 highest gamescore's and 2 from Shaq as well. Not everyone has played 240 playoff games like Lebron (with 3 rings to show). No top player that will be in the conversation for 30+ Game Score has played 240 playoff games. I mentioned Shaq. Duncan came close.

Jordan also had number 30+ Game Score series that I omitted for the sake of brevity.

And anti-Lebron for you = Me not believing he's even close to Jordan.

There was nothing anti-Lebron about my original post in this thread. Just because it doesn't validate your pre-concieved notions doesn't mean it is anti anyone.

 

[fifth column]

To your bolded, no you didn't, and I suspect your omission was deliberate. You posted two series that LeBron had a 30+ GmSc, as if they are the only two he has. They aren't...

Furthermore, your agenda is all over the place and isn't clear because you keep shifting the topic of conversation. No one has ever had a series of 40+ GmSc, so every instance of 30+ was an amazing effort whether the player won or lost the series. All the guys you mentioned had one 30+ series besides Shaq. GmSc isn't available before the '84 playoffs for the most part, so there are some performances missing that can't/haven't been measured by it, but since '84, only two guys have more than two series of 30+ GmSc, which is more impressive than anyone peaking at that level just once...

Wanna be objective and guess who the other guy is?

Not a single person is tearing down other players, the fact you're doing exactly that towards LeBron is typical Anti-Bron fare. Carry on...



This has already been explained to you so just be transparent and admit that you don't think LeBron has a credible case. Don't play dumb...

You didn’t credibly explain it, if I recalled you just rambled off random Bron stats that Giannis, Westbrook and Harden can easily achieve. It’s funny because Bron himself would tell you stans that the most important achievement is winning chips while dominating. He ain’t played this long for more meaningless stats but that’s what y’all hang y’all head on.

 

[Sccit]

KOBE 2001 VS KINGS:
35 PPG 9 RPG 4.3 APG


KOBE 2001 VS SPURS:
33.3 PPG 7 RPG 7 APG


KOBE 2003 VS WOLVES:
31.8 PPG 5.2 RPG 6.7 APG


KOBE 2008 VS NUGGETS:
33.5 PPG 5.3 RPG 6.3 APG


KOBE 2008 VS JAZZ:
33.2 PPG 7 RPG 7.2 APG


KOBE 2009 VS NUGGETS:
34 PPG 5.8 RPG 5.8 APG


KOBE 2009 VS MAGIC:
32.4 PPG 5.6 RPG 7.4 APG


KOBE 2010 VS JAZZ:
32 PPG 3.8 RPG 5.8 APG


KOBE 2010 VS SUNS:
33.7 PPG 7.2 RPG 8.3 APG

 

[madness]

Thread is further proof that MJ, Dream and Bron are undeniable GOATs