2007 NBA Finals

• 1. Introduction

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  The 2007 NBA Finals matched the San Antonio Spurs against the Cleveland Cavaliers, and the result left little room for suspense. San Antonio swept the series in four straight games, and Tony Parker, not Cleveland's young star, was named the series' Most Valuable Player. This was the first trip to the Finals in the history of the Cleveland franchise. It was also the first for that young star, LeBron James, in his own career. San Antonio, by contrast, was already making its fourth Finals appearance. Two teams arrived by very different roads to reach the same four games. What carried San Antonio there, what took Cleveland so long to arrive, and why, once they got there, did the series end so fast?

• 2. The Spurs' Grueling Road

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  A year earlier, San Antonio's season had ended at home in a seventh game against their rival, the Dallas Mavericks. Dallas rolled through the regular season on the way to a franchise-best 67 wins. Attention centered on Dallas and the Phoenix Suns, leaving the Spurs largely overlooked. The Spurs themselves struggled into January before a late surge produced a 58-24 record, good for the third seed in the West.

  Denver's duo of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony stole Game 1 of the first round. San Antonio answered with four straight wins to close out the series in five games. San Antonio's next opponent was the second-seeded Phoenix Suns. That matchup suddenly mattered more than expected once the top-seeded Mavericks fell to the Golden State Warriors in the first round.

  Phoenix held home-court advantage, but lost it in Game 1, when Tony Parker and Steve Nash collided head to head. A gash opened along Nash's nose, and medical staff could not stop the bleeding. He was forced to sit out the final 45 seconds as San Antonio won, 111-106. Game 2 saw the Suns blow the Spurs out, 101-81, after which Phoenix center Amar'e Stoudemire bluntly called San Antonio a dirty team. Game 3 shifted to San Antonio, where Manu Ginóbili took a bruised, bloodied eye and Bruce Bowen kneed Nash in the groin. Tim Duncan led the Spurs to a 108-101 win.

  With 18 seconds left in Game 4, and San Antonio's 11-point fourth-quarter lead down to two, Robert Horry bodychecked Nash into the scorers' table. Nash's teammates rushed to his defense, and Amar'e Stoudemire and Boris Diaw left the bench during the scuffle, violating NBA rules. League commissioner David Stern suspended both Stoudemire and Diaw for Game 5, and suspended Horry for two games over the flagrant foul. In Game 5, in Phoenix, the short-handed Suns built an early 16-point lead. San Antonio came back in the final seconds to win, 88-85, taking a 3-2 series lead. San Antonio closed out the series with a 114-106 win in Game 6, its fifth trip to the Western Conference finals since 1999. The Spurs then beat the Utah Jazz in five games to advance to the NBA Finals.

• 3. Cleveland's Breakthrough

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  Cleveland's opening round looked like a replay of the year before, except this time the Cavaliers held home-court advantage over the Washington Wizards. The Cavaliers swept the Wizards after Washington lost both Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler to season-ending injuries. In the second round, Cleveland again had home-court advantage, this time against the New Jersey Nets, and needed six games to close out the series.

  Cleveland then advanced to the conference finals for only the third time in franchise history, against the Detroit Pistons. Detroit was the East's top seed, held home-court advantage, and had eliminated Cleveland in the second round the year before. Expectations were high after a seven-game series between the two teams the previous year, and this matchup did not disappoint.

  Cleveland lost the first two games by an identical score, 79-76, falling behind 0-2 in the series. With the spotlight back on LeBron James, the Cavaliers won their next two games at home, 88-82 and 91-87.

  Game 5 shifted back to Detroit, and Cleveland trailed 79-78 with 6:14 left in regulation when James took over. He scored 11 of the Cavaliers' final 12 points to send the game to overtime tied at 91. In the first overtime, James scored all nine of Cleveland's points, and the period ended tied at 100. In the second overtime, he scored all nine of the team's points again, this time winning the game, 109-107. Over the final 16 minutes and 14 seconds, James scored 29 of Cleveland's last 30 points, including all of the final 25.

  Cleveland beat Detroit at home in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. In doing so, the Cavaliers became just the third team in NBA history to win a best-of-seven conference finals series after trailing 0-2.

• 4. Four Games and Done

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  The NBA restored the 2-3-2 format for the Finals in 1985, after experimenting with other arrangements in earlier years. Under that format, the first two and final two games are played at the team with home-court advantage. San Antonio held that advantage over Cleveland because of a better regular-season record, and the series began on the 7th of June 2007.

  Game 1 belonged to San Antonio's trio of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili, who combined to hold LeBron James to 14 points on 4 of 16 shooting. San Antonio won the opener, 85-76.

  San Antonio led by as many as 29 points in the third quarter of Game 2, playing what looked like a rout. A furious 25-6 rally by Cleveland in the final quarter fell short, and San Antonio won, 103-92, taking a 2-0 series lead.

  Daniel Gibson started Game 3 in place of the injured Larry Hughes and finished with a series-low 2 points on 1 of 10 shooting. Cleveland shot just .367 as a team but out-rebounded San Antonio, 48-41, with Zydrunas Ilgauskas grabbing a season-high 18 rebounds. On the game's final play, James missed a potential game-tying 29-foot three-pointer. San Antonio won, 75-72, in what was the lowest-scoring Finals game since 1955, with Tim Duncan's 14 points marking the lowest total of his NBA Finals career.

• 5. A Broadcast Nobody Watched

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  ESPN produced the coverage, which aired on ABC in the United States. It also reached TSN in Canada, Sky Sports in the United Kingdom, Canal+ in France, Premiere in Germany, and more than 100 other broadcasters across over 200 countries.

  The local ABC affiliates were KSAT-TV in San Antonio and WEWS-TV in Cleveland, making this the smallest paired television markets in Finals history until the 2025 Finals between Oklahoma City and Indiana. The broadcasts also carried the new ESPN on ABC branding, which had replaced ABC Sports in September 2006.

  Mike Breen called play-by-play alongside analysts Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, the former Houston Rockets head coach, with Michele Tafoya and Stuart Scott reporting courtside. On radio, Mike Tirico called the action with color analysts Jack Ramsay and Hubie Brown. This was the first of what became a record 15 NBA Finals assignments for the Breen, Jackson and Van Gundy booth. That run was interrupted only during the seasons when Jackson coached the Golden State Warriors. The Pussycat Dolls' song 'Right Now' played throughout that year's playoffs, while The All-American Rejects' 'It Ends Tonight' closed the pregame promo before Game 4.

  According to ESPN, the series was a ratings bust in the United States. Nielsen Media Research reported on the 15th of June 2007 that the sweep finished with a record-low 6.2 television rating and an 11 share on ABC. That was down 27 percent from the 8.5 rating and 15 share for Miami's six-game win over Dallas the previous year. It was also 5 percent under the prior low, a 6.5 rating and 12 share set by San Antonio's six-game win over New Jersey. San Antonio's series-clinching win on Thursday night drew a 6.5 rating and 12 share. That was down 17 percent from the 7.8 rating and 14 share for Game 4 in 2006. Despite the low ratings for the series overall, Game 2 of the 2003 series between San Antonio and New Jersey remains the single lowest-rated game in NBA Finals history.

• 6. The Spurs, Briefly on Top

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  San Antonio won 56 games in the 2007-08 season but lost the Southwest Division title to the New Orleans Hornets on a tie-breaker. The Spurs beat the Hornets in seven games in the playoffs, then fell to the Los Angeles Lakers in five games in the conference finals.

  Age and injury then caught up with the roster. San Antonio won only one playoff series over the next three years, beating Dallas 4-2 in the first round in 2010, before the Memphis Grizzlies upset them in the first round of the 2011 playoffs despite a 61-win regular season.

• 7. Cleveland's Long Wait

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  Cleveland won 45 games in the 2007-08 season despite contract standoffs involving center Anderson Varejão and guard Sasha Pavlović, plus a mid-season trade for Ben Wallace. The Cavaliers fell in the second round to the eventual champion Boston Celtics in seven games, in a hard-fought duel between James and Paul Pierce.

  Cleveland then posted the league's best record for two more seasons, 66 wins and then 61, with James as the NBA's Most Valuable Player. Even so, the Cavaliers lost to the Orlando Magic in six games in the 2009 Eastern Conference finals. They then lost to the Celtics in six games in the 2010 Eastern Conference semifinals. That let the Lakers beat the Magic and then the Celtics in the Finals in successive years. That 2010 loss cost head coach Mike Brown his job, though he was later re-hired, and fired again, during the 2013-14 season.

  As a free agent after that season, James left for the Miami Heat, reaching four consecutive NBA Finals and winning more than once, including in 2013. Cleveland, meanwhile, sank to a league-low 19 wins in the 2010-11 season, a season that included a 26-game losing streak.

  In July 2014, James announced his return to Cleveland following the hiring of coach David Blatt, who was later fired and replaced by Tyronn Lue during a season. Cleveland reached the conference finals against the Atlanta Hawks with a 4-0 sweep, then fell to the Golden State Warriors in the Finals, 4-2.

  The following season, Cleveland beat the Warriors in a Finals rematch, winning 4-3, with James named Finals MVP and delivering the city's first sports championship since 1964. The 2007 sweep by San Antonio had remained the only sweep in Finals history until 2018, when the Cavaliers reached the Finals again and lost in a sweep of their own.