Unmentioned reason LAL won 6 championships

[NPZ]

Clutch shots galore. In the early and late 2Ks, they had a yuge number of clutch situations and hit them repeatedly. Don't know if they could've done this again in 50 more attempts (if you can warp spacetime and reset them all). I know Showtime Lakers only had a couple of those shots and I doubt CHI, SA, or GS had this many situatons. If LA misses most of these, they could've been ousted a time or two. The early 2Ks had a murderer's row of clutch performers, Fisher, Kobe, Shaw, Harper. They suffered w/ some of those guys in the RS just for playoff moments like these.

2000 SF Gm 2 (vs PHX)- Kobe hit a mild double pump shot over Kidd, 97-96 win.
2000 CF Gm 3 (at POR) Ron Harper hit goahead deuce from baseline angle and was wide open, Kobe then blocked Sabonis at rim, 93-91 win.
2000 FIN Gm 4 (at IND) Shaw and Kobe both score putbacks at rim, Miller missed GW at buzzer, 120-118 win. This win was the killer, putting LA up 3-1.
2002 QFs Gm 3 (at POR) Horry hits series winning corner trey w/ POR players right behind him yelling in his ear. 92-91 win, 3-0 sweep.
2002 SF Gm 4 (at SA) Kobe rebounds and throws in missed shot over Duncan and Robinson, the win that killed SA, putting LA up 3-1, 87-85 win.
2002 CF Gm 4 (vs SAC) Horry hits trey at buzzer after Divac swatted ball to him. All Ws in that series critical. 100-99 win. I've seen Vlade do that as a Laker, btw. Wasn't his first time. He did it once in the RS at MIA to Tim Hardaway who did hit the trey.
2002 CF Gm 5 (at SAC) Kobe missed GW shot at 0.4 secs w/ Bobby Jackson having a handful of Kobe's jersey on the rise to the shot, never know if he would've made it otherwise, but this is the first true miss in that situation. 91-92, Kings.
2003 SF Gm 5 (at SA) Horry missed(!) a trey that went in and rattled out w/ 3 secs left to win. 94-96 L. Horry was shipped out, also after a 2-38 playoff trey record. Wasn't thought he had anything left in the chamber but SA, ironically, squeezed out the final one vs DET in 05.
2004 QF Gm 1 (vs HOU) Shaq slam at 17 secs wins game, Jimmy Jackson of HOU missed 3 at buzzer. 72-71 win.
2004 QF Gm 4 (at HOU) At 40 secs w/ 88-88 score, Kobe hits tough fallback shot with an and-1 and Malone hits a FT, HOU misses its attempts. 92-88 OT win.
2004 SF Gm 5 (at SA) With LA down by 1 pt, Fisher hits the 0.4 shot and releases it in time -- and the Spurs' clock operator immediately started clock as fast as he could. Critical win that killed SA. 75-74 win.
2004 FIN Gm 2 (vs DET) Kobe hit trey at 2 secs in reg to send to OT, eventual win, 99-91.

2009 QF Gm 3 (at UTA) Kobe missed 30 foot trey to win. 86-88 L.
2009 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Fisher missed 3 at buzzer to tie for OT, 103-106 L.
2009 CF Gm 4 (at DEN) This one is a maybe, but at 97-95 Lakers w/ 36 secs, Ariza got his 2nd steal from pudgy Melo in the first 3 gms. He also did it in Gm 1, quickly stepped in front of slower Melo and sniped ball, hit 2 FTs on foul, Melo was pissed. 103-97 win.
2009 FIN Gm 4 (at ORL) Magic allow Fisher to dribble full court and casually pop a trey w/ 4 secs left to send gm to OT. He made another in OT at 33 secs to go from a tie to 94-91 followed by FT closeout. He had a sh-eating smile as he backpedaled away from the shot. Killer loss for ORL. Bill Walton was furious about them for some reason not knowing DFish's clutch powers fueled by his bizarre level of self confidence as a middling overall player. Love him, but sorry, Fish. 99-91 OT win.
2010 QF Gm 5 (at OKC) Pau catches and puts in errant shot by Kobe at 0.5 secs to win the series. 95-94 win.
2010 SF Gm 3 (at UTA) Fisher hit 3 that put LA up by 1 w/ 26 secs (timely shot). FTs closed it out. 111-110 win.
2010 CF Gm 5 (vs PHX) Artest caught errant shot and threw in a bizarre looking bank shot. He got it out of his hands when the red light behind the basket was pink. Amazing shot that more or less sunk PHX. 103-101 win.
2010 FIN Gm 7 (vs BOS) This is an honorable mention, but in a Finals Gm 7, World Peace hit a trey at 50 secs that pushed LA's lead to 6. Ballsy shot by World Peace. Reminiscent of a timely Fish trey, 83-79 win.
2020 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Davis hit trey at buzzer to win gm 105-103. He misses, it's an L. Will see if Brawn ever has a moment in LA.

[chrbal]

What are you trying to say here?

This reads like you’re responding in a topic to someone else’s posts

[shakes0]

Championship #6 = asterisk.

[HotelVitale]

It's true that sports fan strongly tend to write history/narratives as though they were fate and not chance. Basketball has a ton of chance to it and most games that are close absolutely come down to a couple random plays that could've gone either way. That's why it's fun to watch, but a lot of times we forget that chance and write legacies based only on results.

Even something less totally random like MJ's shot over B Russell--we think of it as inevitable because MJ was MJ, but he still missed shots like that almost half the time. I believe that many players can focus in and perform better when they need to (e.g. Kawhi) but I don't think they can will themselves to make a shot like that every time. Your defining moments are still just mostly getting a lucky outcome at the right time. And if you happened to get bad luck or a rough bounce then, your legacy would be different.

[JN61]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

[Lockdown504090]

What I love about these moments, is that its not always the superstar doing it either. unexpected guys can make some crazy plays and have ppl making threads about them 10 years later.

[druggas]

What I love about these moments, is that its not always the superstar doing it either. unexpected guys can make some crazy plays and have ppl making threads about them 10 years later.

Most of the time the defense takes away the other team's best shot during crunch time, and it will be left to the role players to come through.

[Optms]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

Only there is no such thing as luck.

[Stan]

Damn, Kobe had 3 different bricks get converted into playoff GW’s lol. All of them happening in pivotal games too.

[Pelon chingon]

*2002

[tamaraw08]

Clutch shots galore. In the early and late 2Ks, they had a yuge number of clutch situations and hit them repeatedly. Don't know if they could've done this again in 50 more attempts (if you can warp spacetime and reset them all). I know Showtime Lakers only had a couple of those shots and I doubt CHI, SA, or GS had this many situatons. If LA misses most of these, they could've been ousted a time or two. The early 2Ks had a murderer's row of clutch performers, Fisher, Kobe, Shaw, Harper. They suffered w/ some of those guys in the RS just for playoff moments like these.

2000 SF Gm 2 (vs PHX)- Kobe hit a mild double pump shot over Kidd, 97-96 win.
2000 CF Gm 3 (at POR) Ron Harper hit goahead deuce from baseline angle and was wide open, Kobe then blocked Sabonis at rim, 93-91 win.
2000 FIN Gm 4 (at IND) Shaw and Kobe both score putbacks at rim, Miller missed GW at buzzer, 120-118 win. This win was the killer, putting LA up 3-1.
2002 QFs Gm 3 (at POR) Horry hits series winning corner trey w/ POR players right behind him yelling in his ear. 92-91 win, 3-0 sweep.
2002 SF Gm 4 (at SA) Kobe rebounds and throws in missed shot over Duncan and Robinson, the win that killed SA, putting LA up 3-1, 87-85 win.
2002 CF Gm 4 (vs SAC) Horry hits trey at buzzer after Divac swatted ball to him. All Ws in that series critical. 100-99 win. I've seen Vlade do that as a Laker, btw. Wasn't his first time. He did it once in the RS at MIA to Tim Hardaway who did hit the trey.
2002 CF Gm 5 (at SAC) Kobe missed GW shot at 0.4 secs w/ Bobby Jackson having a handful of Kobe's jersey on the rise to the shot, never know if he would've made it otherwise, but this is the first true miss in that situation. 91-92, Kings.
2004 QF Gm 1 (vs HOU) Shaq slam at 17 secs wins game, Jimmy Jackson of HOU missed 3 at buzzer. 72-71 win.
2004 QF Gm 4 (at HOU) At 40 secs w/ 88-88 score, Kobe hits tough fallback shot with an and-1 and Malone hits a FT, HOU misses its attempts. 92-88 OT win.
2004 SF Gm 5 (at SA) With LA down by 1 pt, Fisher hits the 0.4 shot and releases it in time -- and the Spurs' clock operator immediately started clock as fast as he could. Critical win that killed SA. 75-74 win.
2004 FIN Gm 2 (vs DET) Kobe hit trey at 2 secs in reg to send to OT, eventual win, 99-91.

2009 QF Gm 3 (at UTA) Kobe missed 30 foot trey to win. 86-88 L.
2009 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Fisher missed 3 at buzzer to tie for OT, 103-106 L.
2009 CF Gm 4 (at DEN) This one is a maybe, but at 97-95 Lakers w/ 36 secs, Ariza got his 2nd steal from pudgy Melo in the first 3 gms. He also did it in Gm 1, quickly stepped in front of slower Melo and sniped ball, hit 2 FTs on foul, Melo was pissed. 103-97 win.
2009 FIN Gm 4 (at ORL) Magic allow Fisher to dribble full court and casually pop a trey w/ 4 secs left to send gm to OT. He made another in OT at 33 secs to go from a tie to 94-91 followed by FT closeout. He had a sh-eating smile as he backpedaled away from the shot. Killer loss for ORL. Bill Walton was furious about them for some reason not knowing DFish's clutch powers fueled by his bizarre level of self confidence as a middling overall player. Love him, but sorry, Fish. 99-91 OT win.
2010 QF Gm 5 (at OKC) Pau catches and puts in errant shot by Kobe at 0.5 secs to win the series. 95-94 win.
2010 SF Gm 3 (at UTA) Fisher hit 3 that put LA up by 1 w/ 26 secs (timely shot). FTs closed it out. 111-110 win.
2010 CF Gm 5 (vs PHX) Artest caught errant shot and threw in a bizarre looking bank shot. He got it out of his hands when the red light behind the basket was pink. Amazing shot that more or less sunk PHX. 103-101 win.
2010 FIN Gm 7 (vs BOS) This is an honorable mention, but in a Finals Gm 7, World Peace hit a trey at 50 secs that pushed LA's lead to 6. Ballsy shot by World Peace. Reminiscent of a timely Fish trey, 83-79 win.
2020 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Davis hit trey at buzzer to win gm 105-103. He misses, it's an L. Will see if Brawn ever has a moment in LA.

You mentioned 6 instances in 2004, the year the Lakers did NOT WIN the championship because they didn’t have Karl and Ho Grant to defend Wallace. Call that luck if Malone didn’t get injured.
2003, Horry missed a late 3pt shot versus the Spurs.

[og15]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

Only there is no such thing as luck.

I suppose we can insert whatever term we want in place. Good fortune. Favorable circumstances, whatever we want to call it.

[NPZ]

You mentioned 6 instances in 2004, the year the Lakers did NOT WIN the championship because they didn’t have Karl and Ho Grant to defend Wallace. Call that luck if Malone didn’t get injured.
2003, Horry missed a late 3pt shot versus the Spurs.

Thx for reminding me bout the Horry miss. Do'h. Fixed it. Only one I looked over. I included 04 in there also because no one wins them all. So, it's the 3 out of 5 years thing is what I was going for. 3 outta 5 ain't bad. Plus, 04 had too many of those for me to resist.

I did inlcude 08 in w/ 09-10, but there were no clutch moments in 08. Nor in 01.

[An Unbiased Fan]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

Nope just being clutch

[og15]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

Nope just being clutch

Teams can be "unclutch" and still win, that's the nice thing about basketball, you just have to get enough things right, and more than the opposition.

Sometimes it's physicality like getting offensive or defensive rebounds that wins it for you vs any mighty hero offensive or defensive play.

[tamaraw08]

You mentioned 6 instances in 2004, the year the Lakers did NOT WIN the championship because they didn’t have Karl and Ho Grant to defend Wallace. Call that luck if Malone didn’t get injured.
2003, Horry missed a late 3pt shot versus the Spurs.

Thx for reminding me bout the Horry miss. Do'h. Fixed it. Only one I looked over. I included 04 in there also because no one wins them all. So, it's the 3 out of 5 years thing is what I was going for. 3 outta 5 ain't bad. Plus, 04 had too many of those for me to resist.

I did inlcude 08 in w/ 09-10, but there were no clutch moments in 08. Nor in 01.

2002 Kobe rebound/putback, pretty sure it wasn’t game 4, because that outcome was settled early. I think it was either game 1 or 2.

[Goomba3666]

I'll NEVER forget these two clutch shots in 2004 to secure the 2nd seed.

Kobe literally has gametying shots & followed by gamewinning shots in multiple seasons. Mind boggling stuff.

Watch on YouTube

[An Unbiased Fan]

Who knew; you need to play on elite level and have a lot of luck to win championship.

Nope just being clutch

Teams can be "unclutch" and still win, that's the nice thing about basketball, you just have to get enough things right, and more than the opposition.

Sometimes it's physicality like getting offensive or defensive rebounds that wins it for you vs any mighty hero offensive or defensive play.

I don't know, how many teams won who were unclutch? Can't think of any.

[MrGoat]

Um... almost every championship team aside from the KD Warriors had to hit some clutch shots along the way

[Ballerhogger]

Clutch shots galore. In the early and late 2Ks, they had a yuge number of clutch situations and hit them repeatedly. Don't know if they could've done this again in 50 more attempts (if you can warp spacetime and reset them all). I know Showtime Lakers only had a couple of those shots and I doubt CHI, SA, or GS had this many situatons. If LA misses most of these, they could've been ousted a time or two. The early 2Ks had a murderer's row of clutch performers, Fisher, Kobe, Shaw, Harper. They suffered w/ some of those guys in the RS just for playoff moments like these.

2000 SF Gm 2 (vs PHX)- Kobe hit a mild double pump shot over Kidd, 97-96 win.
2000 CF Gm 3 (at POR) Ron Harper hit goahead deuce from baseline angle and was wide open, Kobe then blocked Sabonis at rim, 93-91 win.
2000 FIN Gm 4 (at IND) Shaw and Kobe both score putbacks at rim, Miller missed GW at buzzer, 120-118 win. This win was the killer, putting LA up 3-1.
2002 QFs Gm 3 (at POR) Horry hits series winning corner trey w/ POR players right behind him yelling in his ear. 92-91 win, 3-0 sweep.
2002 SF Gm 4 (at SA) Kobe rebounds and throws in missed shot over Duncan and Robinson, the win that killed SA, putting LA up 3-1, 87-85 win.
2002 CF Gm 4 (vs SAC) Horry hits trey at buzzer after Divac swatted ball to him. All Ws in that series critical. 100-99 win. I've seen Vlade do that as a Laker, btw. Wasn't his first time. He did it once in the RS at MIA to Tim Hardaway who did hit the trey.
2002 CF Gm 5 (at SAC) Kobe missed GW shot at 0.4 secs w/ Bobby Jackson having a handful of Kobe's jersey on the rise to the shot, never know if he would've made it otherwise, but this is the first true miss in that situation. 91-92, Kings.
2003 SF Gm 5 (at SA) Horry missed(!) a trey that went in and rattled out w/ 3 secs left to win. 94-96 L. Horry was shipped out, also after a 2-38 playoff trey record. Wasn't thought he had anything left in the chamber but SA, ironically, squeezed out the final one vs DET in 05.
2004 QF Gm 1 (vs HOU) Shaq slam at 17 secs wins game, Jimmy Jackson of HOU missed 3 at buzzer. 72-71 win.
2004 QF Gm 4 (at HOU) At 40 secs w/ 88-88 score, Kobe hits tough fallback shot with an and-1 and Malone hits a FT, HOU misses its attempts. 92-88 OT win.
2004 SF Gm 5 (at SA) With LA down by 1 pt, Fisher hits the 0.4 shot and releases it in time -- and the Spurs' clock operator immediately started clock as fast as he could. Critical win that killed SA. 75-74 win.
2004 FIN Gm 2 (vs DET) Kobe hit trey at 2 secs in reg to send to OT, eventual win, 99-91.

2009 QF Gm 3 (at UTA) Kobe missed 30 foot trey to win. 86-88 L.
2009 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Fisher missed 3 at buzzer to tie for OT, 103-106 L.
2009 CF Gm 4 (at DEN) This one is a maybe, but at 97-95 Lakers w/ 36 secs, Ariza got his 2nd steal from pudgy Melo in the first 3 gms. He also did it in Gm 1, quickly stepped in front of slower Melo and sniped ball, hit 2 FTs on foul, Melo was pissed. 103-97 win.
2009 FIN Gm 4 (at ORL) Magic allow Fisher to dribble full court and casually pop a trey w/ 4 secs left to send gm to OT. He made another in OT at 33 secs to go from a tie to 94-91 followed by FT closeout. He had a sh-eating smile as he backpedaled away from the shot. Killer loss for ORL. Bill Walton was furious about them for some reason not knowing DFish's clutch powers fueled by his bizarre level of self confidence as a middling overall player. Love him, but sorry, Fish. 99-91 OT win.
2010 QF Gm 5 (at OKC) Pau catches and puts in errant shot by Kobe at 0.5 secs to win the series. 95-94 win.
2010 SF Gm 3 (at UTA) Fisher hit 3 that put LA up by 1 w/ 26 secs (timely shot). FTs closed it out. 111-110 win.
2010 CF Gm 5 (vs PHX) Artest caught errant shot and threw in a bizarre looking bank shot. He got it out of his hands when the red light behind the basket was pink. Amazing shot that more or less sunk PHX. 103-101 win.
2010 FIN Gm 7 (vs BOS) This is an honorable mention, but in a Finals Gm 7, World Peace hit a trey at 50 secs that pushed LA's lead to 6. Ballsy shot by World Peace. Reminiscent of a timely Fish trey, 83-79 win.
2020 CF Gm 2 (vs DEN) Davis hit trey at buzzer to win gm 105-103. He misses, it's an L. Will see if Brawn ever has a moment in LA.

alot great laker moments since 2000, in before Portland and kings throw a fit.