The Best Combined NBA & NHL Finals Ever

There's a good debate going on that through four games the 2026 Stanley Cup Final is one of the best ever - an insane series that has featured a team coming down from at least two goals down in every game - a game that has been tied with four minutes to go in each, that has had two OTs, that has every team score at least three goals in every game - a first in decades. It has been insane, some of the most incredible hockey we've seen. There is a very good argument it has been the lesser of the two finals going on right now.

The NBA finals through four games has also been incredible, featuring two one point games, two others that were tied with two minutes to go, that has featured some insane shots and threes adn defense adn runs and atmosphere. And of course, the largest comeback in NBA Finals history. And again, there is an argument this is the worse of the two series.

Ever since ESPN/ABC and TNT got back into the hockey game five years back, wwhich has e've basically had the Stanley Cup Final and the NBA Finals run in parallel, alternating days.. Weirdly, the current TV deals has it where ESPN/ABC has both one year, and I guess NBC and TNT will have it the other year, but overall, we get them back to back, which has somehow only increased how good these series are. There is no time to rest, before we ingest how good one NBA game is, hockey is dropping its puck the next day. So far, the closest we've come to having two good series in a year is probably 2022, when the Lighting and Avs in hockey, and the Celtics and Warriors each went to six games. But other than that, its been one good and one bad - be it last year where hockey ended early, but the NBA went seven, or the prior year when it was the opposite, it is hard to get both good both years... until now.

It is so rare to get two series this good that both feature the best of the sport, and the silliest of the sport. Arguably, neither series has been all that well played, at least by the standard of their sports best - but both teams have been equally loose, equally wild, equally silly. That's how you get four straight games with a team blowing a two-goal lead on the hockey sidhas e (even if the Knights won one of those). And how you get four games where the Spurs blew a 12+ point lead, even if they won one of those. You can say that is a commentary on teh Spurs, but in Game 2, the Knicks nearly blew a 14-point lead with four minutes to go, which if anything would have been a bigger collapse than what the Spurs did in this most recent game. This has been wild, if only that the games have been a bit unvarnished, a bit "real".

The thrill of seeing these back to back has been unreal, in the best ways and again with it basically being on back to back nights in parallel, you get this great crossover. Each feeding to the next. Both series are getting their best ratings in years. For the NBA, this makes sense - the Knicks alone being in the finals taps into the biggest media market in the country in a way the NBA hasn't had the ability to do in 27 years. For the NHL, its weird that this series featuring two untraditional markets in Carolina and Vegas would draw so well. Part of it is the hockey has been thrilling and close. Part of it has been the carryover effect from the Olympics (which is absolutely a thing). At the end, though, some of it is just some folks watching ESPN one day watching basketball, and deciding to watch the hockey the next day.

In the end, neither of these series may go to seven games. Hell, the NBA finals may end in five - but even if it does, it will still be remembered forever. Not only because that means we have a New York Knicks team winning the finals, which is still a bit crazy to conceptualize, but we've had some amazing games. The Stanley Cup Finals may end in six, but it will still end that way setting numerous records in terms of mutual goal scoring and comebacks. However this ends, this will have been a glorious two weeks of watching these two sports toss it back and forth, and show again why these two sports deserve each other in the best way possible.

Re-Post: Nostalgia Diaries, Pt. 1: Game 5 of the 2011 NBA Finals

I started the Nostalgia Diaries series nine years ago, and the first one talked about a game taht was already at that point six years old. Now it is 15 years old. It was the best played game in a series that was generally well played (if too defensive), in one of the most energized finals, the first of the Heatles. At the tail end, after Jason Terry hit one of the great Heat Check threes in Finals history over LeBron, Jeff Van Gundy said "This is one of the best Finals games I've ever seen", and I think 15-years later, it still remains one of the best I too have ever seen.

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Let's take a trip down memory lane, to a place in time that was recent enough to be this decade, but long enough ago to when the Warriors were a mess of a franchise, the world hadn't heard of Kawhi Leonard, Derrick Rose was the reigning MVP, and Dwight Howard probably should have won it. Yes, now all of these diary entries can start with a similar 'back in the day' lineup of events not to have occurred yet. But this really was a different time. LeBron James was the most hated athlete in America. The Mavericks were the perennial chokers who with a band of random aging ex all-stars thrown together like the Expendables fought back against the Heatles for the good of America. It all crested in one of the best NBA finals games ever, a back-and-forth, dagger-filled game of multiple 'Bang's' a signature 'Hand down, Man down!' and the world of basketball coming together behind Dallas as it took on the world.

37-year old Jason Kidd had never won a title. Jason Terry was 33, Peja Stojakovic was 33, Dirk Nowitzki was 32 and Shawn Marion was 32. But in NBA terms, after tons of deep runs they were all, in normal terms, in the great twilight of their effective NBA careers (Nowitzki excepted, of course). That they, with a 28-year old Tyson Chandler, and aging role players in Deshaun Stevenson and JJ Barea, could beat the Heat seemed impossible. They won Game 2 of the finals with an all-time quick-hit comeback, goign on a 20-3 run to end the game after falling down by 15 with six minutes left in the 4th quarter. They won Game 4 by playing a ridiculous level of defense. Actually, the first four games of the series were defined by defense. No one scored 100 points in a game. Hell, no one even scored 30 in any quarter until Game 5. It was 2-2, entering Game 5, back in the days of the 2-3-2 series. Dallas needed that game. Miami wanted it. Dallas won it, in the best way possible.

Until that series, Dallas had never really been an underdog, a place where the crowd had to get behind their raggedy team, but playing the Heatles changed that, and that Dallas crowd was all in, from the beginning with a quick start by Dallas giving them a 15-6 lead. Miami came back, but never pulled away, and the crowd was riotous the whole way through. What defined the game was what the crowd cheered for more than anything, a complete, unmistakable, before-its-time barrage of threes.

Dallas finished the game 13-20 from three. This is in a pre-Warriors, pre-Rockets era when that was fairly unheard of. Each one was better than the rest. There was aging, balding, custodian-like in every way Brian Cardinal, to DeShaun Stevenson mean-mugging a pair, to Jason Kidd, to so many others. Some were just audacious. Jason Terry hit a bank three off balance falling backwards. JJ Barea hit a pair, including one of the highest-arcing threes I've ever seen. If ever there was a three that could compete with the height of Barea's it would be the one that Dirk Nowitzki hit a few minutes later.

The Heat came to play as well. Mario Chalmers, before he became the starting PG for two title teams, high three threes. Mike Miller added a few. This was the year before the Heat really figured out their rotation, when hilariously, Juwon Howard and Mike Bibby were rotation players. So many small moments in the game stay with me the few times I've rewatched, but nothing more than this being an intersection between the game as it would become (jacking threes from all over) to the game of the past that I'm really nostalgic for (Peja, Kidd, Terry, Matrix, Bibby, etc.). The first half was an incredible back-and-forth run of threes and jams and fast breaks, ending with Dallas up 60-57. The pace slowed in teh second, but the intensity remained and the legacy grew.

The Big 3 of course made their mark in such different ways. LeBron only really took the alpha dog role in Miami the next year, and in this series you had to wonder who was the actual alpha. Wade was far better than LeBron in the 2011 Finals, and this game featured that odd dynamic to a tee. Wade injured his hip in teh first half, and twice needed to recede back to the Heat locker room for treatment. He twice came back, fueling Heat runs both time. LeBron was healthy, but mentally impaired. He continued arguably his worst playoff series of his career. James was absent, so often standing behind the arc catching and passing off the ball in one continuous motion. His few drives seemed lazy and uninspired. James learned so much from this series, never taking a playoff series off in his life again. He learned, we all did.

The game hit its apex late in the game, with the Jason Terry three heard around the NBA world. The Mavs were up 105-101 but a few stops and the Heat had a chance. Haslem walled off and denied Nowitzki well, leaving the Jason's Kidd and Terry to pass the ball back and forth. With the shot clock hitting five, Terry pulled him, dribbled a few times and launched. Launched it over James, over the NBA aristocracy that was supposed to make the season a foregone conclusion, and nailed in. Breen gave an All-Time bang. JET, despite saying he wouldn't do it until the series was over, ran down the court, arms extended in his trademark pose. He popped the Jersey. He earned it. The Mavericks as a whole earned it.

The game returned to Jackson pounding James defense in a way only he can ('Hand down... Man DOWN!') and Van Gundy called it the best finals game he had ever seen. Van Gundy isn't one for hyperbole but he was right, this was truly a special game. It was still to date, the last stand for the old non-Big Three / Superteam driven NBA. With a style that would become in vogue but a team far from it, the Mavericks showed what depth, what drive, what passion could do. They would wrap things up in Game 6 in Dallas in a surprisingly easy road win, but this game was the true legacy one. It was a show for a city that embraced basketball for years getting their due, with a handful of players who have Hall of Fame cases collectively getting theirs.

The Villains of Vegas

The Vegas Golden Knights are playing in the Stanley Cup Final, and are if anything somehow the betting favorite. A sleeping giant all year, one that always had really strong underlying numbers despite having awful luck, they awoke fully when coach Bruce Cassidy was fired with eight games to go in the season, repalced by John Tortorella. The Knights suddenly didn't lose in those eight games, avoided a scare against the Ducks, and then ran roughshod over the heretofore clear best team in teh league. The 2026 Knights are a fun story, but the fact that this is their third trip to the Cup Final in nine years of existing, and a whole other host of issues are putting a dark, Golden Knights gray-themed cloud over everything.

Let's start with one clear point, the Vegas players, with one (huge) exception I will talk about, are mostly blameless. We can quibble about Mitch Marner's drama in leaving Toronto and shitting on them on the way out, but whatever. On the ice, he's a great player who is finding another gear. There are a lot of generally talented and likeable players on the team, from Mark Stone, healthier than he has been in years, to Jack Eichel, to youngsters like Dorofayev and so many others. But everything about Vegas the organization is just tough to deal with right at this second.

Let's start with maybe the most ridiculous thing going on right now, which is the saga of teh Vegas Golden Knights not letting fired coach Bruce Cassidy interview for the Edmonton Oilers job. Yes, I get that the Oilers are a division rival, but I just don't understand how the Knights should be able to block someone they chose to fire. I get that technically tehy gave him some other FO role or something, but this just wreaks of the "we don't have to play by teh rules" approach that they've had for years now. How no one has made a bigger deal out of this is beyond me.

Then there's the signing of Carter Hart, one of the Canada Hockey guys who went on trail for sexually assaulting a woman. Yes, they were found not guilty, and a level further than just standard "not guilty" (though critically, not "innocent") but there was a lot of weird stuff that went on in that trial even outside of anything to do with the players. Most of the five players caught up in that have been persona-non-grata in the league. They all got suspended for a while. No one touched Hart, until the Golden Knights had goalie trouble, and of course Hart has repaid them by being brilliant (it always works out for the worst people).

We can go further on this, both micro - like them not speaking to the media, which resulted in a big fine and losing a 2nd round pick (honestly, good on Bettman there). And then macro, like their repeated playing aroudn with the salary cap / LTIR rules when it came to Mark Stone. Yes, many other teams did something of the like, including memorably the Lightning with Kucherov in the 2020-21 season, but teh Knights did it multiple years in a row with the same player without even the least shred of guilt.

Finally in my list of greivances is yes, the cold ruthless way they've churned through players. Now, to be fair, by all reports they are an extremely accommodating franchise to current players, but the second a player outlives what they feel his usefulness to be, by god to they go for the jugular. The first and most memorable example was Marc-Andre Fleury and the famous back-stabbing photojob by his agent after they traded for Robin Lehner. At the time, people were mostly in the "come on Marc, grow up" camp, but little did we know that was the first in a series of cruel, cold, calculating decisions. Now, most of them have worked - its why this team has made its 3rd Stanley Cup Final with a roster that includes just three of the misfits from the first season, but its also led to a lot of sour memories. 

None of this matters if you are a Vegas fan, and more than that, a fan of the NHL at large. Vegas's success out of the game, and more than that even, their continued success, is a story worth celebrating for the league. They took the jump into Las Vegas before anyone (a city that by 2031 or so will likely have all four major sports), and I've read a lot of reports that Vegas cares about the Knights more than the Raidres, adn certainly will more than the A's (if that even happens at this point). I would dare claim they'll remain more popular than the NBA team. The NHL moved first, and it has paid off spectacularly creating a singular event-like atmosphere there, as the team's game production has leaned far into the things Vegas affords you. Still, you just wish you could like the organization a bit more.

Eight years ago I wrote about Vegas when they made that first Cup Final, and wrote largely that I was fine with that fact. I awsn't jealous of this upstart team making a final. It helps when I had watched my favorite team win a few by that point. I thought it was cool that the NHL had this magical story, and the Knights that year were one. The second that second year, when they traded for Max Pacioretty and Mark Stone, becuase they rightly realized their first season was still a bit of a fluke, and they became this ruthless, never-ending series of trades, signings adn cap machinations, it quickly became less magical. In 2018, I wasn't mad at Vegas for making the final, but was greatly hoping they wouldn't win, mostly because I wanted Ovi to get his cup. There's no Ovi on the 2026 Hurricanes, but still - for the good of all of us, Vegas, just lie down. Especially since god knows what a loss in teh final will convince their ownership and leadership to try next.