NBA Playoffs Upsets: Bodog’s Top Five
NBA playoffs upsets happen more often than you might think. Losing teams playing for the title? Check: The 33-39 Minneapolis Lakers bounced the 49-23 St. Louis Hawks from what was then the Western Division Finals in 1959. And it happened again in 1981 when the 40-42 Houston Rockets eliminated the 54-28 Los Angeles Lakers in the opening round.
If only we knew what the odds were back then. Our top five list of NBA playoffs betting upsets only stretches back to 1989, but it includes some of the craziest moments in league history, and arguably the biggest upset of all time.
5. Orlando Magic (+550) vs. Cleveland Cavaliers, 2009
This is the only one of our NBA playoffs upsets special that wasn’t a first-round series, which underlines how dominant the 66-16 Cavaliers were. It was peak LeBron James, his first of four MVP seasons and statistically his best. Mo Williams made his only All-Star appearance that year, and they got solid play from the likes of Delonte West, Anderson Varejao and Zydrunas Ilgauskas.
The Magic were no slouches at 59-23, although that was only good enough to earn the No. 3 seed in the Eastern Conference behind No. 1 Cleveland and the No. 2 Boston Celtics. This Orlando team was led by Dwight Howard, the NBA Defensive Player of the Year, with ample help from Jameer Nelson, Rashard Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu, among others.
These two teams met in the Eastern Conference Finals, with Cleveland priced as –700 series favourites on the NBA odds board. The Cavs had swept their previous two rounds, but they lost Game 1 at home on a Lewis 3-pointer, and went on to drop the series in 4-2.
4. Golden State Warriors (+700) vs. Utah Jazz, 1989
The Warriors have been on both sides of this equation over the years, but in 1989, they were a mediocre 7-seed in the West at 43-39, in their first season under head coach Don Nelson. Their only standout player was Chris Mullin, who had yet to blossom into an All-Star. Mitch Richmond was a fresh-faced Rookie of the Year, and Ralph Sampson was already past his prime.
No. 2 Utah, on the other hand, was an emerging powerhouse at 51-31, one that had just replaced head coach Frank Layden with Jerry Sloan early in the season. This was the dawn of the Karl Malone-John Stockton Jazz, with Mark Eaton manning the middle and Thurl Bailey joining Darrell Griffith on the wing.
Nelson and Sloan would both go on to enjoy long careers with their respective teams, but on this occasion, it was Golden State sweeping Utah 3-0 in the first round, with Mullin scoring 41 points in the opener and 35 in the finale.
3. Philadelphia 76ers (+900) vs. Chicago Bulls, 2012
Basketball can be a cruel sport sometimes. The 2011-12 Chicago Bulls were the best team in the East during this lockout-shortened season at 50-16, led by breakout MVP point guard Derrick Rose. Joakim Noah was on the verge of greatness at center, and both Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver were there to fill the score sheet.
On the flip side, nothing much was expected from the No. 8 Sixers at 35-31. The Elton Brand experiment had largely failed; Philly’s best players were Andre Iguodala, Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young, although third-year guard Jrue Holiday showed plenty of promise.
Whatever advantage Chicago enjoyed heading into this first-round series disappeared in Game 1 when Rose tore his ACL late in the fourth quarter. Neither Rose nor the Bulls would ever be the same, and the Sixers ended up beating Chicago in six.
2. Golden State Warriors (+1200) vs. Dallas Mavericks, 2007
It’s nearly 20 years after their upset win over Utah, and Nelson is back in charge of the No. 8 Warriors (42-40) after stops in New York and Dallas, the latter of which saw some success with Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash and Michael Finley. This time, Nelson was working with a ragtag bunch led by Baron Davis, with Monte Ellis an inefficient volume shooter and Jason Richardson not much better.
Nelson made it work. By this time, Nash and Finley were both gone from Dallas, replaced by Jason Terry and Josh Howard. Nowitzki won his only MVP award as the Mavs earned the top seed in the West at 67-15, but Nelson knew their strengths and weaknesses, and after getting the best of Dallas in the regular season, the Warriors did it again in the first round, winning 4-2 in what many still consider the greatest NBA playoff upset of all time.
1. Denver Nuggets (+1400) vs. Seattle SuperSonics, 1994
This first-round series doesn’t have the same cachet as our No. 2 entry, but the odds were even more in Seattle’s favour that year after they dominated the West at 63-19. This was still early times for the electric duo of Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton, two years before they met Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the NBA Finals. Detlef Schrempf had just arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and Nate McMillan’s defense was Seattle’s secret sauce.
Some other big man would probably have burst their bubble, but Dikembe Mutombo had the first crack at it for the Nuggets, who squeaked into the No. 8 seed at 42-40. This was the youngest team in the league, with Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf (24), LaPhonso Ellis (23) and Bison Dele (24) among those surrounding the 27-year-old Mutombo.
At this point in time, there had never been a first-round series in NBA history where the No. 8 seed came out the winner. But the Nuggets had beaten Seattle both times they met in Denver during the regular season, and after dropping the first two games at Key Arena, they did it again at home before taking the decisive Game 5 in overtime – with Mutombo lying on the floor at the end, clutching the ball overhead and grinning ear-to-ear, forever etched into the memory of Sonics and Nuggets fans alike.
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