2005 NBA Finals

• 1. Introduction

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  The 2005 NBA Finals came down to a single game for the first time in eleven years. Two teams that had defined defensive basketball for three straight seasons met in a series nearly every sportswriter called too close to call. The San Antonio Spurs, champions in 1999 and 2003, had home-court advantage. The Detroit Pistons, the defending champions, had momentum, resilience, and a reputation for winning when it mattered most. What followed was seven games of blowouts, late-game miracles, and a decisive fourth quarter that settled everything. How did two defensive juggernauts end up in a series marked by wild swings and one of the most celebrated bench performances in Finals history? And what happened to both franchises in the years that followed?

• 2. Defensive Giants

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  From the 2002-03 season through 2004-05, the Spurs and Pistons finished in the top three in points allowed every single year. In 2003, Detroit ranked first and San Antonio third. In 2004, they finished tied for the top spot. In 2005, San Antonio was first and Detroit second. No other pairing of finalists had been as defensively dominant in that era.

  Both teams also performed at a high level when scoring crossed the hundred-point mark. Detroit's record when reaching triple digits was 22-3. San Antonio's was 28-2. This was not a matchup of plodding, grind-it-out basketball. It was a collision of teams that combined shutdown defense with efficient offense.

  The 2004 Finals had already made Detroit famous. The Pistons had beaten a Lakers team with Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, a result that some called an upset and others called fully deserved. Karl Malone's injured knee had removed a key presence capable of slowing Rasheed Wallace, and tension between O'Neal and Bryant had fractured the Lakers from within. Detroit's balanced offense proved impossible to neutralize. A year later, the same Pistons arrived in San Antonio as the team everyone in the East had to go through.

• 3. The Road to Game 1

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  San Antonio's playoff run was relatively smooth. The Spurs beat the Denver Nuggets four games to one, dropped the home opener but then won four straight. They handled Seattle in six, then dispatched the Phoenix Suns, who many expected to push them hard, in just five games.

  Detroit's path was harder. After a five-game win over Philadelphia, the Pistons faced Indiana, a team that had been expected by many to miss the playoffs after the infamous Pacers-Pistons brawl the previous season. Instead, led by Reggie Miller in the final stretch of his eighteen-year career, Indiana had even beaten the Atlantic Division champion Boston Celtics in the first round. The Pacers pushed Detroit hard, but Miller's career ended after a Game 6 loss. Next came Miami, the East's top seed, led by Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal. Detroit trailed two games to one and three games to two, then won Game 6 at home and pulled off a Game 7 victory at American Airlines Arena to advance to the Finals for the second straight year.

• 4. Blowouts and Swings

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  Game 1 on the 9th of June set a tone that would define the first four games. Manu Ginobili scored 15 of his 26 points in the fourth quarter, including eight in a decisive 12-2 surge that put the Spurs ahead 67-55. Tim Duncan added 24 points and 17 rebounds. The Spurs had trailed 19-7 in the first eight minutes but won going away, 84-69.

  Game 2 was even more lopsided. Detroit missed nine shots from inside four feet and went scoreless from beyond the arc on six attempts. San Antonio made 11 three-pointers, with Ginobili and Bruce Bowen hitting four each. Ginobili led all scorers with 27. The Pistons had now gone down two games to none, a hole that only two teams in NBA history had ever escaped to win a Finals series: the 1969 Boston Celtics and the 1977 Portland Trail Blazers.

  Games 3 and 4 reversed the pattern entirely. In Game 3 on the 14th of June, Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton combined for 44 points. Ben Wallace added 15 points, 11 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 3 steals, helping hold Tim Duncan to 5-for-15 shooting. The Pistons outscored San Antonio 55-37 in the second half and became the first team to score more than 90 points in a Finals game against the Spurs that season.

  Game 4 was the most lopsided contest of the entire series. The Pistons scored 102 points, the only time either team reached triple digits across seven games. Seven Detroit players scored in double figures. Lindsey Hunter posted 17 points and 5 assists in just 22 minutes. Antonio McDyess scored 13 and grabbed 7 rebounds in 19 minutes. The Spurs shot 37 percent as a team and committed 17 turnovers, while the Pistons set an NBA Finals record with just four. Hunter's and Billups' 17 points to lead a Finals game were the fewest since George Yardley of the Fort Wayne Pistons led all scorers with 16 points in Game 5 of the 1955 Finals.

• 5. Robert Horry's Moment

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  After four consecutive blowouts by the home team, Game 5 on the 19th of June became the game the series needed. The lead changed twelve times. The game was tied on eighteen separate occasions. Regulation was not enough.

  In overtime, Detroit took a quick lead and seemed to have the game in hand. With nine seconds left and Detroit ahead 95-93, Chauncey Billups missed a layup that would have sealed it. San Antonio got the ball, and Robert Horry inbounded to Ginobili. Rasheed Wallace had left Horry to double-team Ginobili. Horry stood alone in the left corner. Ginobili passed it right back. Horry sank the game-winning three-pointer with 5.8 seconds left.

  Horry finished with 21 points off the bench, going 5-for-6 from beyond the arc. He had not scored a single point until the final play of the third quarter. He was already known for late-game heroics, including a crucial basket in Game 4 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals between the Lakers and Sacramento Kings. Tim Duncan, despite struggling from the free-throw line all night, finished with 26 points and 19 rebounds. Billups had been the high scorer for Detroit with 34 points, but his missed layup gave the Spurs a three-games-to-two series lead.

• 6. Game 6, Then Game 7

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  Rasheed Wallace had a large role in Game 6, partly to make up for leaving Horry open in Game 5. He later commented, incorrectly, that he had actually left Horry to guard Duncan. Wallace hit a three-pointer late in the fourth quarter that pushed Detroit clear, and the Pistons held on for a 95-86 win. Detroit became the first road team to force a Game 7 in the NBA Finals. It was also the fifth consecutive game in which the Pistons had won while facing elimination.

  Game 7 on the 23rd of June was the first decisive game in the Finals since 1994, the longest gap between Game 7s in NBA history. Detroit entered tied with the 1994 New York Knicks for the most games played in a single postseason, at 25. The Pistons needed to become the first team to win the final two games on the road after trailing three games to two, while San Antonio held a 74-17 all-time record in home Game 7s and was nine-for-nine in that scenario when leading three-two heading home.

  With 7 minutes and 45 seconds left in the third quarter, the Spurs were down by nine. Duncan scored 10 of San Antonio's final 18 third-quarter points to erase the deficit. Ginobili added 23 points. The Spurs took control in the fourth quarter and won 81-74. Duncan finished with a game-high 25 points and 11 rebounds, earning his third NBA Finals MVP Award. Robert Horry became only the second player in NBA history, after John Salley, to win championship rings with three different franchises. Sean Marks became the first New Zealander to win a championship ring.

• 7. Broadcast and Viewership

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  ABC carried all seven games, with Al Michaels and Hubie Brown on the call. ESPN Radio provided national coverage through Jim Durham and Dr. Jack Ramsay. Locally, the games aired on KSAT-TV in San Antonio and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Rob Thomas' song "This Is How a Heart Breaks" served as the featured track throughout the playoffs.

  The ratings told a complicated story. Game 3 drew a Nielsen rating of 7.2 percent of households, and the first three games averaged 7.1, which was 32 percent lower than the first three games of the 2004 Finals. Across all seven games, the 2005 Finals averaged 11.5 million viewers with a 7.6 rating and 14 share. The 2004 Finals had averaged 17.9 million viewers with an 11.5/20. For context, the 2003 Finals, which also featured San Antonio, had averaged 9.8 million viewers and a 6.5/12. Even so, all seven games were the top-rated broadcasts of their respective nights.

  Game 7 proved to be Michaels' final major NBA assignment for ABC, though he remained with the network through Super Bowl XL in February 2006. He then moved to NBC Sports as the lead voice of Sunday Night Football. Mike Breen eventually took over as ABC's lead play-by-play voice for the NBA.

• 8. What Came After

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  The Spurs won a franchise-record 63 games the following season to claim the top seed in the West, then lost to the Dallas Mavericks in Game 7 of the conference semifinals, marking the third time in franchise history they failed to win back-to-back championships. San Antonio won again in 2007, claiming its fourth title, and once more in 2014.

  Detroit's path fractured more quickly. Head coach Larry Brown bought out his contract after the 2005 Finals and eventually moved to the New York Knicks, where the team won only 23 games in his one season there. Under replacement coach Flip Saunders, the Pistons won a franchise-record 64 games the following season, but fell to Miami in six games in the conference finals. Miami went on to win the 2006 title. Ben Wallace left for the Chicago Bulls, yet Detroit still reached the conference finals in each of the next two years, losing to Cleveland and then Boston. The core finally broke apart at the start of the 2008-09 season, when Finals MVP Chauncey Billups, along with Antonio McDyess and Cheikh Samb, was traded for Allen Iverson in November of that season.