PHX Suns at Lakers, 1989 (FAMED Magic triple-double & GM WINNER!!1) by @nonplayerzealot4 - Post Details
PHX Suns at Lakers, 1989 (FAMED Magic triple-double & GM WINNER!!1)
3-26-1989. Easter Sunday. This is a special gift for you fans of NPZ. Don't say I never put out the good ones. You NEED to watch this one IN FULL. Make the time, watch it in segments if you have to because it's an absolute CLASSIC 80s NBA game thru and thru. The Magic lead Lakers vs the Kevin Johnson lead Suns playing a high octane offensive running game. They often played very entertaining games, especially at The Forum. This is a historic piece of NBA history, Magic's shot has been shown a thousand times, but w/o the context of the game.
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Lakers at PHX Suns, 1987 (Kareem's only 3 point FG in 20 seasons) (Chick w/ Mychal T at half)
2-24-1987. Chick n Stu, rare game. Magic DNP, Achilles strain. Kareem hits his only trey ever, yes only 1 in 20 yrs, a quick look at bballref of his career stats will prove it. This scene was shown in the Lakers 87 championship tape as some of the guardlike things Kap was doing while Magic sat out w/ the Achilles. I have the other play he made shown in the same clip, also vs PHX at home in a home-n-away. He stole the ball and ran it down court like Magic and Chick said, "We got a new point guard!" while Keith Erickson chuckled. I was surprised to find out that this arena still stands, it's where the Cyber Ninjas are doing their "recount" of the 2020 election results for AZ. I saw some of the familiar sightlines on some news shots, same acoustical tile roof, too. You can probably count the number of remaining arenas from the 70s/80s to early 90s on both hands.
Rockets at Lakers, 1988 (Chick/Stu's 2nd gm w/ Chick)
11-08-1987. Mastertape wasn't too great, pardon any minor fluttering in the color. This is the second gm of the 88 season and only the 2nd game of Stu's career as Chick's color commentator, hired that offseason after Keith Erickson decided to retire. Stu didn't really talk that much for quite awhile until he got the jitters out. He also had to learn how to get his comments into Chick's rapid fire 1-man gang announcing style. -- Lakers won 62 gms in 1988, but they were inconsistent so it didn't feel like a standard 60 wn season. The 1998 squad that won 61 games was more consistent w/ the Ws and Ls. HOU otoh, was embarking on a 4 year stretch as First Round fodder and then, in 92, they lost the 8th seed on the last possession of the season to the Lakers when Sedale hit the GW over a flopping bitch Doc Rivers in the final RS game of the season. HOU benefitted by getting Horry in the lottery while the Lakers got destroyed by Porty during the 92 LA Riots.
NJ Nets at Lakers, 1996 (Magic comeback)
2-07-1996. TBS game during the comeback. Jayson Williams and the Jersey Boyz. I read that Shawn Bradley got paralyzed after being hit by a car. Tragic.
VAN Grizzlies at Lakers, 2001 (odd ending, Kobe 3x2, best Grizz gm vs LAL to that point)
1-15-2001. This was a controversial game at the time. I've never seen a game end exactly that way either before or since this example that I remember anyway. Losing team filed a protest and all that jazz. Both Kobe and Shaq were hot in the home stretch, the norm was usually one or the other if either one was pullin off clutchwork. The still-Vancouver Grizz had not yet beaten the Lakers at Staples Center as of this game. Would they??? Chick mentioned that the first time the Grizz beat the Lakers was in 99 and Del Harris got fired because of it. That's true. They had just lost all 3 of a road trip finishing w/ the Grizz and another bad loss to a bad Nuggz team. Started 6-6 that season and Del was gone only 12 gms after Nick was already dealt.
Lakers at PIstons, 1998 (Grant Hill, Dumars vs Shaq, EJ, NVE, Kobe, Foxy, Eazy E)
4-05-1998. Old one I repurposed, was 11 mins, now is 40 mins, A/V improvements. I put the older version on private, so you got no choice anyway. NBC game featuring Grant Hill and the gang. Excellent game by Brian Williams (Bison Dele) and Jerome Williams. Going by Walton n Snapper's claims, the Pistons w/ Collins that year had a bad habit of blowing leads. Del Harris wanted to win this one to the extent of setting and enforcing a curfew on the players. -- Lakers had a great 61-21 RS even w/ Shaq missing 20 games due to an ab strain. They won 16 of their last 18 games including this one and also a win vs Utah in Game 82. Del wanted them to be sharp going into the playoffs. I think they would've won 4-5 more games during Shaq's injury, they lost some gms that probably would've looked a lot different w/ Shaq considering the opponents. Without that injury, they were a 65-66 win team. This squad was loaded, which made their ugly sweep to Utah all the more disappointing. Pistons were 34-36 and then finished the season losing 9 of their last 12 including numerous 1-3 pt and OT losses. This game was during that stretch.
Pistons at Lakers, 1995 (rookie Grant Hill, 1st at The Forum)
1-03-1995. Grant's first at The Forum, Allan Houston with one of the most beautiful shooting forms in NBA history, scored 53 at Staples on the Lakes in 2003. But back to 1/3/95, things rosy up to this point of the season. However, just a week later, they suffered a nasty 46 pt loss at Porty and there was a "misunderstanding" between Nick and Del where Nick came out of the locker room and sat on the bench at the start of the 3rd and didn't report for some reason and Del was too scared to ask him what up. Nick sat out the rest of the game. That was warning signal #1, 1/9/95 at POR. Then by 1/20/95 at the historic final game at the Boston Garden that Nick won at the buzz, there were reports that Ced was miffed over something. He looked glum from start to finish in that game. When Nick hit that shot, Ced barely responded as every other Laker went berserk. Those kinds of things foreshadowed things to come. (PS: The original recorder of this game was swissbeats2k who watches and posts on my vids. Round of applause to The Swiss! I don't have many 95 Chick home gms in my collection.)