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.
