The NBA Wants You To Forget About This Playoff Series 

Crazy how much of Allen Iverson's all time ranking is dependent on this Finals run. This is despite AI never getting even close to the finals either before or after this year.

The NBA Definitely had it out for the Bucks. A small market team like them making the finals definitely would’ve been bad for the league and for David Stern. If you have the MVP and one of the most influential players in the league at the time in Allen Iverson making the finals, it definitely makes for a more compelling NBA Finals.

the Bucks and Ray Allen got the last laugh. AI is ringless while Ray Allen isn’t + bucks won a chip before Philly did

I love how you point out not just the fouls, but the TIMING of the fouls. We're going through this now in the NFL with the Kansas City Chiefs. It's not that they get more flags than their opponents.....it's just they all come in the final minutes of a close game. Every. Time.

I remember this series. It Definitely was rigged against the Bucks. Its a shame too because that title run is AI's crowning achievement and it was completely manufactured. I dont know if rings really matter when the outcome is so slanted like this.

The 2001 ECF is a weird one since the Bucks probably should have made the finals, but it doesn't feel as consequential as the Kings vs Lakers in 2002 because it was a competition to see who gets spanked by Shaq.

This version of Ray Allen was scary, walking around cheating making every shot

Hot take I have: The conference finals have an underrated history to them in my opinion if only because of how often one conference has been considered better than the other. In this case, the Sixers and Bucks were good, but I wouldn’t expect either one to beat the Lakers. Though I do find it interesting that the Bucks won both games they played against the Lakers that year, and I would expect a hypothetical Bucks-Lakers finals to be closer than what we got.

Bucks got hosed Milwaukee actually matched up very well vs the Lakers that season (I know it’s only the regular season but still), a Lakers-Bucks finals would’ve been interesting. But Stern wanted Iverson vs Kobe because 💰💰💰💰💰but it backfired because it was over in 5 😂😂😂😂😂😂

definitely resonate with that George Karl theory. i felt that way during the 2018 Cavaliers/Pacers matchup with that Goal Tending on Oladipo. Evan Turner said something relating to this theory recently in an Interview.

Dikembe taking 19 free throws in a game is wild.

After the 2000 season, nba filed paperwork to be considered sports entertainment. This used to easily looked up on the Internet but good luck finding it today.

There are so many examples that can be pointed to. The Blazers v. Lakers Game 7. The Kings v. Lakers Game 6. This series between the Bucks and Sixers. And most definitely the series between the Heat and Mavs. Not just about the amount of fouls, but definitely the timing of them and who they are against. I think if we are honest, anytime humans and money are involved, there is a chance for corruption. The LOVE of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

This series broke my heart years ago. I'll never forget the gut punch I felt when Sam Cassell fouled out in Game 7 and I knew our season was over. The crazy thing is - we were 2-0 against the Lakers (the '01 eventual champs who beat the Sixers in 5) that season.

As a Bucks fan, this series hurt badly, but all has been forgotten somewhat since the Bucks won in 21

bro rly included stern choking on his water 😂

Good to see someone upload a video about this shady series which was almost lost in history. I was there in Philly and supported the Sixers but man, those bs calls just snuffed out the fun in watching. The NBA should've investigated all their refs after that fucked up season and could've prevented the fucked up series of Lakers and the Kings.

Great video as always Andy!! Thanks!!

Great video. I watched that series. Was def fixed. Ratings much higher with AI in the finals. AI was such a historically inefficient scorer he needed help to win games. Also the 2000 Western Conf Finals was prob fixed also.

I have been waiting for this video for ages! Thank you for contextually bringing the abnormalities of this series your audience.

I'm liking some of the new music/background music you've implemented the last couple videos, it is noticeable.

Congrats on 500k brotha been watching you for 5 or 6 years now apreciate it

A precursor, a warm-up if you will to the greatest travesty in all of sports: the 2002 Western Confefence Finals

Sacramento and Milwaukee The NBA really did not love them

Congrats on the 500k subs, Andy!

Nice topic, I love you man

Andy using footage of spanish TV commentator legends Andrés Montes and Antoni Daimiel 😍

Congratulations on 500k subscribers Andy Hoops

Congratulations on 500,000!

Congrats on 500k

Kobe vs Ray Allen in the finals when they was both in they prime it would’ve been fire

Hey Andy, I love your videos really wish you would do a Udonis Haslem video I think it’s very interesting none Hall of Fame roll player was able to have a 20 year career on one team that’s completely insane to think about

I’m glad you brought up the Scott Williams incident. Not a lot of people bring that up

David Stern once said, this Lakers versus Lakers, was his dream NBA matchup

Man I never heard about this series… this new era of replays and social media definitely shows and proves this happens and still goes on to this day unfortunately, But it’s all about the money it’s a business at the end of the day 🤦🏽‍♂️

Some interesting tidbits in conjunction with this - In the first five games of this series, Allen Iverson - the Sixers' lone scoring threat - shot 33/120, or 27% from the field, yet the Sixers somehow came out of this with a 3-2 lead. Astonishing, really. In the Game 4 highlighted in this video, Dick Bavetta was the lead official. He also officiated the infamous Game 6 Kings/Lakers the year later, as well as the Blazers/Lakers Game 7 the year before, in both of which the whistles were heavily lopsided. Even more 'coincidentally' Bavetta was also the ref for that Sonics/Suns 1993 Game 7 that George Karl remembered. Strange, huh? It gets even better though. A Bucks fan went back and looked at games over this period. The Bucks were winning about 60% of their games with this team, much better than at any time between the 1980s and the modern day rise of Giannis becoming a perennial MVP candidate. Somehow, the Bucks lost SIXTEEN consecutive games when Bavetta reffed them during this period, which as a mathematical probability comes out to 0.00000001% chance. Bavetta also reffed Game 6 of the 1999 ECF, when the Pacers were called for 35 fouls to the Knicks' 16, and shot just 9 free throws compared to New York's 33. It's an uncanny pattern. Finally, between 1997-2002, the Lakers had an 89% win rate in playoff games when Bavetta reffed, compared to 61% overall playoff win rate. The Kings meanwhile won 60% of their playoff games when Bavetta wasn't involved, but were 0 for 6 when he was assigned. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

Glenn Robinson not shooting a single free throw until Game 4 is insane. Probably one of the only examples of a crucial player not being on the line for the majority of the series. The only other example I can think of is Wes Unseld in the 1978 Finals who didn’t go to the line until Game 4 of that series. The difference though is that the Bullets won that series.

I've long believed the NBA was rigged especially during David Stern's tenure. Consequently, I lost interest in basketball decades ago.

David Stern was a devil in disguise.. 😂😅😂

As a Milwaukeean, I will never forget this

Hey Andy, i just wanted to tell that i like your videos man keep on that work

I was at game 6 of that series, crazy ruckus atmosphere, so much fun. That Bucks team was good. The whole city was so mad, we knew they got robbed. Would they have beaten the Lakers, most likely not. But The spacing and shooting the Bucks had was a good counter to that Lakers team. Whenever I meet a 6ers fan old enough to remember that series I ask them what they thought. They usually say nothing, which for a Philly fan says a lot cause those fools never shut up.

I remember that one with the bucks and sixers them foul calls was wild

Finally people are talking about this i remember as a kid i was heartbroken know this shit was rigged

David Stern destroyed the NBA. Change my mind.

I still feel bad for Ray ray because he balled the fck out in that series

Bring the old background music back, it’s more calming and intriguing!

You should make this a series about teams that were robbed !!! Please .

I was the biggest 6ers and AI fan i def didnt notice this. I remember when they finally beat the Bucks I was going crazy!!

seems sketchy for sure. Thanks for shining some light on it dude!

Man that 2001 ECFs were especially weird and definitely one of the weirdest matchups for sure that era

Walter Ray was NICE nice. If you knew basketball, you weren’t surprised that Ray was getting the best of A.I.

My Bucks definitely got screwed in this series and they definitely would’ve stood a better chance against LA than Philly

Oh boy that game 7 in 1993 was BS 64 FT’s But also Eddie Johnson was killing the Suns and he conveniently fouled out 🤔

my dad completely stopped watching the nba after this series and im not even making this up, as a kid he told me "never spend money on this league'

It's not fair to a low market teams to be so underappreciated because free agent destination teams like Lakers,Clippers,Heat, Celtics, Knicks and Nets would be pushed buy NBA itself.I know sport these days are all business, commercials, globally cities but come on nobody wants to see similar franchises every year in the Finals.

timing of the fouls was the key, when your on the verge of having a commanding 3-1 lead then u lose due to foul calls, that saps the confidence out of the players specially on tightly contested games and instead of focusing more on the game, the players will focus more on the calls of the referees, even though the other team is being favored with more ft still if they dont convert it it wont help them at all. AI that time was the next big thing after MJ and the referees are corporate guys so they would prefer to have the MVP play for the finals as they were also the most popular team with the most popular player globally.

Yeah, I still sad that Bucks didn't make a Finals, they deserved it

This series made me believe the bucks would never would never make a finals because of the clear bias against them. Thank god i was wrong

64 Free Throws ????!!! Crazy

I remember a lot of these 90’s refs too. Funny how much celebrity status they attained too especially if you watched enough games who knew who all the refs were.

Oh don't worry... We Bucks fans here in Milwaukee will NEVER forget. This series had me torn.. Bucks is my team, but AI was my guy. I wish they would've just let them ball straight up. Oan... THE BIG DOG Glenn Robinson was the leader of this squad.

Wow. You did mention this in the past but now you got a chance to make a video talking about it. A Bucks-Lakers Finals matchup would've been fun to watch though still they would get wallop by a 7'1" over 300 lbs guy.

Bucks Lakers would’ve been epic that year. Milwaukee was a team. Philly was AI and Mutombo at the end of his career

Heavy. Ps That Bucks team was stellar.

The nba is the worst when it comes to referee interference on the outcome of games. As a Suns fan I still believe they were robbed in 07. That whole series against the Spurs had so many calls going San Antonio's way, blatant fouls by San Antonio ignored, and that's without counting the ridiculous ejection on Stoudemire, and Diaw, from playing on game 5 of that series.

Unbiased Cavs fan here. I watched this series and stopped watching the NBA for a while after this. This series was so blatantly awful with the calls, it was disgusting.

Wait isn’t Ronny Nunn the guy from BBall breakdown

Philadelphia 2001 had the MVP, DPOY, 6MOY and COY. Are there any other teams with 4 major Awards in one year?

People only talk about the most 𝗢𝗕𝗩𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦 2002 WCF 🐂💩 , but if you watched the first of the Kings Lakers trilogy, when the Kings first started making noise as an 8 seed & played the #1 Lakers in the first rd best of 5 series. That was the first of the King's screwed jobs. You could easily say the Kings should've & would've beatin the Lakers. Then Shaq went to whining & that's when the 🐂💩 started. The invisible fouls called on the Kings while Shaq played straight up bully ball. I still say Sacramento suppose to won that series in 4. But everybody was high on the Lakers & Sacramento at least at the time, I felt that they felt Sacramento has some years left & since nobody expected anything from them no one would care or even notice. It's fkn Sacramento. plus the league had already had the teams picked to play in the Finals & it leaked out. A lot of people didn't see that because they recovered by covering it up as fast as it leaked, but I saw it & rember it well. But somehow the league was able to cover that slip up just like the help cover up or get rid of the Michael Jordan's gambling bein or allegedly was said to have been a big part of his father's murder. Next thing you know Michael allegedly retire if you want to call it that. Just completely swept it under the rug & nothing else was ever said about it again. Then the most recent fixed Finals being the 2022 Finals. I know yall Warrior fans don't want to hear this, but from day 1 of that season til the final game, that's all the media & the leavue talked about was Steph needing a Finals MVP. & they campaigned for him all season long. They wasn't suppose to get past Memphis. They campaigned for Green to not be suspended because it was the playoffs, but threw Brooks under the bus whom at least went for a block, not snatch a player by tbe neck of his jersey & slap a player a couple of times in the process. & GPJ broke his own wrist. But they gave Brooks the ole 2 for 1 by ejecting him early first quarter & suspended him for the next game. While Green who's well known for his dirty play gets nothing but a fine. Another 𝗢𝗕𝗩𝗜𝗢𝗨𝗦. The league is & has been fkn over these good small market teams & need to be called out. & to you Warrior fans, you sbouldn't utter a word because the league has had your back since 2015. I find it hard to believe that the best, second best, or lets just say all star player on your toughest oponent in the playoff that year gets injured against y'all & wounds up out for the series every year you've won a title. All 4 teams had you down or had a LeBron on the team. Kawhi & the Spurs were giving you the biz, LeBron & Kyrie would've gave you hell or the biz without Love, Then Kyrie gets i jured, Harden was bout to gentlemen sweep you then CP3 gets injured, & Brooks wasn't enough, so what happens? Ja is injured just to be on the safe side. All 4 out for the series all four title won seasons. Coincidence?! I think not. Conspiracy? I do believe so! 1 time maybe even 2 of those are possible. But 4? All leading to 4 titles I'm not that naive. I'm not buying that 💩. There's nothing they can tell nor show me to say otherwise. All sports are set up in some form depending on the teams, player/s, & money makers. C.Webb is the perfect example to this dumbASS ring/s determining how good a player is. C.Webb was just as good, if not better, & for surely would've been better had not been for early & later down the line injuries, KG, Dirk, & Tim. Without a ring his career stats is still higher than all of theirs overall. Only stat he trailed in was blks by KG & Tim. Which he should, they both 7 ft playing forewards. Now look up their career stats. & he definately would've had a ring in 2002. But since he was cheated out of one they get a higher ranking. 𝗔𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁'𝘀 𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗟!

The Bucks actually beat the Lakers overall during the regular season that year too. They knew it would've been better matchup wise. They just cared more about ratings 😒

500k subs

Refball is AI's legacy. He wasn't even a GOOD player, just a ballhog with a few flashy numbers. The problem was that Philly hadn't had anything of value on that team since Barkley left town so they were desperate for ANYTHING that resembled Dr. J. He was a streetball legend who couldn't play team basketball of any kind and ALL of his numbers reflect this.

David been sneaky

Slightly off-topic, but I've always had appreciation and respect for George Karl, despite being one of the more hated coaches out there. More on topic but still not quite: The Blazers-Lakers WCF series a year after the Kings-Lakers series has weirdly fallen out of being referenced and spoken about the last couple years, and instead, the Kings-Lakers one dominates, while that Blazers Lakers one almost never is mentioned even in passing. I don't get why either. It was so intensely obvious it was rigged hard, specifically game 7.

The Lakers are always the beneficiary of calls from the refs. You can tell the NBA was pissed the Nuggets swept them last year

Between this, 2002, or that vetoed Lakers-Chris Paul trade, I dunno which event I curse David Stern into hell with.

We recognized this back n the day. The NBA wanted AI vs Kobe

Same thing happened on 10 on the finals. Refs slaughtered Boston. We had completely ruined Kobe's game and he would only score with free throws. Refs gave everything to the Lakers.

As a bucks fan this really pisses me off. Stern cared more about bigger names and markets than fairness

They fined the bucks players for complaining about them rigging games when it has been proven that they in fact rig games. Disgusting

Feel like this kinda cursed the Sixers. That whole Bucks core won rings (Robinson in 05, Allen in 08 and 13, and Cassell had one already). AI didnt. Also the Bucks got Giannis and won while the Sixers haven’t made it out the second round since

Why that Iverson vs Stockton match up don't look right

NBA is a business and will always be a business

Unlike NFL and MLB, it's unlikely NBA would ever adopt robo-refs for games. There would be calls on every possession.

Imagine how different Ray Allens legacy is if the Bucks make the finals. Ir somehow even win them.

I believe that flagrant foul is deserving of a flagrant 2

id pick ray over ai........he took good shots and made them and actually passed and moved without the ball lol

….. I remember

This series and the Lakers/Kings series proved to me the NBA is rigged and I'll never change my mind.

AI was just a different breed!

#Sixersfan here. I always thought that if Bucks had beat us, they stood way better chance at beating or taking Kobe Shaq Lakers to 7 games. Ervin J at C was big and far from soft. Had just enough to make Shaq work. Ray Allen would've made Kobe work. Cassell wouldve done his thing vs Fisher. Tim Thomas would've worked Rick Fox and Big Dog woulda Smoked Horry at pf....

I definitely remember watching this series back in the day, and I was definitely in camp Iverson, but I certainly don't remember Stern or the refs liking him. He was getting plenty of Iverson Rules or Hack-a-Answer treatment throughout that entire run. That's part of what made it so impressive

also can you make a video a about D'Angelo Russell career, how a player that was drafted with the number two overall pick , with all the potential in the world ,end becoming a role player ?.

Wait wait doesn’t the rules state that the foul needs to be called on the floor. So that upgrade is 🐂shit

You should do a video on the 2008 finals where Leon Powe of the Celtics, who wasn't even getting off of the bench. all of a sudden got put into the game, fed the ball as a role player, and every missed shot resulted in a late call from a phantom foul. As a fan I was scratching my head at this. Coaches shorten up their rotation in the playoffs and they certainly don't feed touches to role players. Then at half time there was a "heart warming" story all about the poor little crack baby who over came the odds to be the star of the NBA finals. After I saw that it all made sense. The NBA ruined their most historic rivalry to create a piece of theater and as a Lakers fan I didn't watch another basketball game for nearly 3 years. At that moment, I knew exactly how all those Kings fans felt. All I want as a fan is just a fair game. Let the chips fall where they may. If I get heart broken because my team loses, then so be it. But it least I don't feel cheated.

Where there's smoke...

Ol Jesus Shuttlesworth

As a heat fan…it is what it is 😂

Scott Williams wasn't their starting Center.