Now more than ever, if you want to win the NBA title, you need superstars. Steph Curry, LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook (theoretically) — if you don’t have a player from that tier of greatness, you probably don’t have a shot at winning it all. Yet as KD and Russ proved, you need more than stars to guarantee a title. Every so often, if the stars aren’t shining, you need an out-of-nowhere performance from a role player to push you over the top. Not all of these came in the Finals, but every single guy on here rose above his station for a glorious moment (or series) to help take his team to the NBA Championship.
HONORABLE MENTION: Sleepy Floyd, 1987 Western Conference Semifinals Game 4
Sure, the Warriors (coached by young George Karl!) weren’t much more than a speed bump to possibly the best incarnation of the Showtime Lakers in 1987, but for one charmed night in the Bay Area, no one was a bigger star than Sleepy Floyd, who embodied the term “single-handed” — as in, he single-handedly won this game by scoring 51 points, 29 of them in the fourth quarter, when the Warriors went on a massive comeback thanks to Sleepy’s relentless series of drives. He started off nailing a couple of three pointers, but the plays that took and kept the lead for Golden State were fearless drives into the heart of the Lakers, taken early and decisively enough to catch A.C. Green and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar flat-footed. For one night, Sleepy was invincible — remind you of another skinny Warriors guard?
7. Shawn Marion, 2011 NBA Finals
Since 2011, the rule of winning the NBA Finals has been that you either have to have LeBron or have someone who can slow down LeBron. In 2011, the latter took the form of Shawn Marion, who held LeBron to 8 points in Game 4, hounded him all series on defense and punished him for helping on Dirk Nowitzki, defensively. The Matrix averaged nearly 14 points a game, as well, without shooting much from the three-point or foul line — he just consistently found creases in the Heat’s swarming defense and knocked down those little floaters in the lane. The next defender good enough to prevent LeBron from winning the title was Kawhi Leonard, so history should remember Marion fondly.
6. Vinnie Johnson, 1990 NBA Finals Game 5
Scoring 15 points in the fourth quarter isn’t Sleepy Floyd material, but on a grander stage and to close out the title, Vinnie Johnson’s Human Microwave act deserves a place here. You have to admire the chemistry of a team that had such a dominant point guard in Isiah Thomas, but was still willing to play the hot hand and let Vinnie take over, even when behind. They even ran the final play for him, which is to say Isiah handed Vinnie the ball and let him cross Jerome Kersey over and drill a long jumper in his eye to win the series with under a second left. For a guy with such a hot nickname, Vinnie sure was ice cold.
5. Toni Kukoc, 1998 NBA Finals Game 5
It was one of the Bulls’ two losses in Michael Jordan’s last NBA Finals, but it was perhaps Toni Kukoc’s finest hour in a Chicago uniform. 30 points, 11-13 from the field including 4 of 6 from long range. Before Manu Ginobili, Kukoc was the foreign player with unique flair and audacity, and he shone on the biggest stage. To help the Bulls get to the Finals, Kukoc might have been even better in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Indiana Pacers. He averaged 14.5 points (no mean feat when you’re sharing the ball with MJ and Scottie), and in Game 4 of that series, had 19 with seven assists and five rebounds for the kind of well-rounded game that made Jerry Krause salivate so much over him — while under-paying Pippen — when he was still in Europe.
4. Mario Elie, 1995 Western Conference Semifinals Game 7
Charles Barkley can blame Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets almost as much as Michael Jordan’s Bulls for preventing him from ever getting a ring. The 1995 Western Conference Semis were between two of the very best teams in the NBA with two of the very biggest stars. And yet, with the series on the line at the end of Game 7, it was reserve guard Mario Elie, not even the best outside shooter on the team (that would be Kenny Smith), who found himself launching the deciding shot from the corner. And when it flicked the bottom of the nylon, Elie’s now-famous “Kiss of Death” sent the Suns home and was the climax to overcoming a 3-1 series deficit in an NBA playoff series; we saw this year’s version Monday night.
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That wasn’t the end of Elie’s heroics in those playoffs, either: he averaged over 16 points per game in the Rockets’ sweep of the Orlando Magic in the Finals.
3. Byron Scott, 1988 NBA Finals
Magic Johnson and James Worthy were at the height of their powers in 1988, but as any LeBron stan knows, you need a big three to win a title. In 1988, that was Scott, who was the third-leading scorer in the series against the tough-as-nails Detroit Pistons. That adjective isn’t incidental, either — Scott was also a big part of the Lakers’ toughness, willing to stand up to intimidators like Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Dennis Rodman. He averaged nearly five boards a game when the paint was a place likely to get you mugged, and shot 45 percent from three while he was at it.
2. Boris Diaw, 2014 Western Conference Finals Game 7
Diaw’s unique blend of low-post size, passing dexterity and shooting touch was on full display throughout the 2014 playoffs, as he led one of the greatest bench units in NBA history. A lineup with him, Manu Ginobili and Marco Belinelli had so much flair, it completely redefined the Spurs’ image from the “boring” accusations of the previous decade. But Boris’ finest hour wasn’t in the Finals, though he did have a great series — it was to close out the Oklahoma City Thunder with a team-high 26 points. Diaw drew Serge Ibaka out of the lane with his three-point shot and embarrassed any guard who switched onto him in the post. Boris was exactly the kind of unsung hero the Spurs have always been geniuses at using.
1. Tayshaun Prince, 2004 NBA Finals
Chauncey Billups was the leader, Ben Wallace was the anchor and the Shaq-stopper, but Tayshaun Prince’s defense on Kobe Bryant was absolutely critical to the Detroit Pistons’ upset of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2004. He was only in his second year in the league and 23 years old, but Prince was impossibly long and lived in Kobe’s jersey that series. Of course, to get there they had to get past the Indiana Pacers, and in that series Prince bent space and time to save Game 2:
Tayshaun’s game was never pretty, but Detroit needed a whole lot of ugly to shut down Kobe and Shaq.
