Winner Take All: A History of Nets Elimination Games

Ed. Note: this originally ran on May 4, 2013, and has been updated.

This won’t come as a surprise, and if it does you don’t even have a rudimentary understanding of the NBA, but the Nets don’t have as illustrious a history as the Los Angeles Lakers. Shocker. The Lakers are an NBA team from the league’s second season in 1947, while the Nets are a 1960s ABA team turned NBA expansion franchise in the late 70s. The Lakers have Wilt, West, Kareem, Magic, Kobe and Shaq. The Nets have Jason Kidd and three seasons of Dr. J in the ABA.  The Lakers have 16 NBA championships and the Nets have 2 ABA titles.

So when you learn that the Nets have only been in seven “Winner Take All” games in franchise history to the Lakers’ 26, it shouldn’t surprise you. By “Winner Take All,” we mean the final game of a series, that the winner of the game wins the series. That’s either the fifth game of a best-of-five series, which the NBA used to decide first round series from 1984-2002, or the more popular seventh game of a best-of-seven series.

Starting with game seven of the 1970 ABA first round against the Kentucky Colonels, here’s a history of all seven “Winner Take All” games in Nets franchise History, in which the Nets have a 4-3 record overall.