NBA’s Crowning of a New Champion: The Los Angeles Lakers

With the recent COVID-19 outbreak, daily life was put on hold. In July, humanity took its first steps back into normalcy with the 2019-2020 NBA season’s restart. Last night, the Los Angeles Lakers made history. 

With their dominant win over the Miami Heat, the Los Angeles Lakers became the NBA bubble’s first champion team. Scoring 106 points to Miami’s 93, they successfully contained the Heat on both sides of the floor. While the championship alone holds a considerable weight, this series ending on a clean note represents a much broader message. As proven by the NBA bubble, sports will always prevail, even in the most unlikely circumstances. 

Heading into this series, the Lakers was the clear favorite. With a lineup housing two future NBA legends in Anthony Davis and the disputable greatest player to ever touch a basketball (LeBron James), Miami’s seemingly underwhelming roster simply couldn’t compete. However, the expectation of a 4-0 sweep in favor of the Lakers didn’t hold up, as the series went to 6 total games.

After a back and forth Game 5, hopes for the underdog Miami Heat were high. With their backs against the wall in a 3-1 series deficit, Jimmy Butler could pull his team through 4 hard-fought quarters and earn a 111-108 victory against the seemingly untraversable L.A squad. With this in mind, millions of fans tuned in to watch what would hopefully be a fantastic game. 

While the game will undoubtedly go down in history, it wasn’t for the right reason. At the half, the Lakers lead by a whopping 28 points, the second-largest halftime lead in NBA finals history. In short, Miami was simply outclassed by a combination of stifling Laker defense and a lack of effort on the defensive end, with Anthony Davis getting whatever he wanted, and Bam Adebayo folding under the pressure of the brow. As if that wasn’t enough, Heat rookie and breakout star, Tyler Herro, was relatively nonexistent, putting an exclamation point on the underwhelming heat performance with an airballed floater that elicited a gleeful reaction from the Laker bench. 

By the fourth quarter, the results were set in stone. As LeBron James continued to dominate (adding to his 29.8 ppg average), the Heat eventually submitted to defeat. When the dust settled, the NBA crowned a new champion. Will the Lakers build a dynasty upon their newfound success? Only time will tell.