The 1991 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1990–91 NBA season. It was the first NBA Finals broadcast by NBC after 17 years with CBS.
The Chicago Bulls of the Eastern Conference took on the Los Angeles Lakers of the Western Convention for the title, with Chicago having home court advantage. It was Michael Jordan’s first NBA Finals appearance, Magic Johnson’s last, and also the last NBA Finals for the Lakers before 2000. The Bulls would win the series. Jordan averaged 31.2 points about 56% shooting, 11.4 assists, 6.6 rebounds, 2.8 steals and 1.4 blocks en route to his first NBA Finals MVP Award.
The show wasn’t the first time that the Bulls and Lakers faced off at the playoffs. Prior to 1991, they met four postseason series (1968, 1971, 1972 and 1973), all Lakers successes. Chicago was a part of the Western Conference at the moment and proceeded to the East in 1981. The first time the Bulls defeated the Lakers in a playoff series was marked by the 1991 Finals.
This series would mark the conclusion of the Lakers Showtime era and the beginning of the Bulls’ dynasty. After winning five championships in eight finals appearances in the 1980s, the Lakers would struggle for the rest of the 1990s before winning five championships between the 2000-2002 and 2009-2010 seasons.
The 1991 Lakers were led by Johnson, who was 32 and playing in what could be his final full season, as well as fellow All-Star teammate James Worthy; Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had retired two seasons earlier. The Bulls, led by NBA MVP Michael Jordan and superstar small forward Scottie Pippen, would acquire five more championships after 1991 in a seven-year span, cementing their status as a dynasty.
As it was all said and done, Michael Jordan became just the third man in NBA history (later George Mikan and Abdul-Jabbar) to capture the scoring name and the NBA Finals Championship in the same season.
Until 2015, the Bulls were the final team to win an NBA championship despite having a full roster lacking in championship or Finals experience. Not one of the Bulls players had logged a moment of NBA Finals encounter before this.
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