NBA Time Capsule: Ranking every NBA Finals series since 1990

31. 2007 – San Antonio Spurs over Cleveland Cavaliers (4-0)

Look, this is a pretty long piece so I’m not going to waste a lot of words on this one. Just don’t watch the 2007 NBA Finals. I went back through my notes for this series and my final thought read: “I need therapy to forget what I’ve seen offensively from the ’07 Cavs and I’m sending them the bill.”

Don’t do it to yourself, find another series to watch.

30. 2002 – Los Angeles Lakers over New Jersey Nets (4-0)

The 2002 NBA Finals are the tragic story of New Jersey’s Todd MacCulloch, who was victimized in the post by Shaquille O’Neal so brutally in all four games that it should have been a crime.

If you watch the series all the way through, you’ll start by admiring Shaq’s dominance, then laughing at Todd MacCulloch’s inability to do anything against him, and you’ll ultimately end the series by feeling bad for Todd and hoping he’s doing well nowadays. He did his best.

Jason Kidd and Kenyon Martin do enough to keep these games relatively close, but in the early 2000s, if the other team has Shaq and you don’t, you’re probably not going to win that series. L.A. easily finishes their three-peat in four games.