The Top 100 Things About the 2013-14 NBA Season: 20-11
With the draft wrapped up and Summer League already less than a week away, we decided that it's time for one last extended look at the moments that defined everything that was great about the NBA during the 2013-14 season. Join Andrew Unterberger over the next week as he counts down his list of the 100 best things about the year that was in the Association, including all of the best games, highlights, performances, images, memes, bloopers and other ephemera that made last season such a joy to follow.
Check out Nos. 100-81 here.
Check out Nos. 80-61 here.
Check out Nos. 60-41 here.
Check out Nos. 40-21 here.
20. LaMarcus Aldridge owns the Rockets
LaMarcus Aldridge isn't really anyone's go-to idea of what a dominant scorer looks like. Usually the most prodigious bucket-making types are triple-threat guards and low-post beasts, but with the occasional exception of Dirk Nowitzki, you just don't see too many big men who operate mostly out of the high post put up 40-point scoring nights with any kind of regularity.
But during the first two games of the Blazers-Rockets series, there was nothing more unstoppable in the NBA than LaMarcus throwing up midrange, toasting any defender the Rockets put on him and just generally making it look like a turn-around 18-footer was one of those Sudoku puzzles that already has all but like five of the numbers filled in. "Lunchmeat," teammate Thomas Robinson would call LMA's overmatched defenders this season, and nobody must have felt more Oscar Meyery than the Rockets over Games 1 and 2.
19. Wade-to-LeBron
Every Wade-to-LeBron alley-oop this year basically inspired the same train of thought.
"Uh-oh, Wade and LeBron on the break, here comes an alley-oop."
"Oh no, Wade threw that too high and too far behind him, there's no way LeBron gets to that."
"Well...he is LeBron..."
"Yeah, but nobody could get to that, I mean look how far..."
"OASDKJWALERAJASMVSKTJAKDFML"
18. The Sixers' 3-0 start
The closest the NBA had to a Linsanity-type phenomenon this season - unless you count the Phoenix Suns starting off good and somehow staying good all season - was easily the 76ers' super-inexplicable 3-0 start. Coming against three playoff-bound teams, including a season-opening home victory over the defending champion Miami Heat, the wins were so beautiful, so dramatic (two went down to the last minute), and so ridiculously unexpected that Sixers fans who'd prepped themselves for a year-long tank had no idea what to do with themselves at the prospect of the team actually being good.
They'd course-correct soon enough, but that incredible start already gave us more joy than we expected to get from the team over the course of the whole season, and the memories kept us warm over a whole lot of cold nights during that 26-game losing streak in 2014.
17. Kyle Korver's three-point streak
It was one of the more fun subplots of the NBA season around the beginning of the season, where whenever you watched an Atlanta Hawks game - even that blowout loss they took from the Nets in England - you had to watch long enough to make sure that Kyle Korver hit at least one three, keeping his streak of games with a three-pointer going.
He would break Dana Barros' record of 89 straight games with at trey early in a game against the Cavs in December, then keep it going for another month or so after that, eventually ending with a 127-game streak, over a season-and-a-half total, which might not be matched for some time to come. Celebrate Kyle, and poor one out for poor Dana Barros, who at least still has that random-ass 50-point game against the Rockets to be remembered by.
16. Spurs vs. Thunder, Game 6
When a team is able to close out a Game 6 on the road with its nominal best player missing the entire second half with injury, you know that maybe it's just that team's year. Not that the Thunder rolled over for the Spurs, by any means. But Manu and Timmy helped force overtime, and then proved to be just too much for the Thunder in OT, who were back to being a year away for the fourth straight postseason. Still, in a game of inches like that, there was really no shame to be had on either side - just crippling, devastating disappointment.
15. Kevin Durant against the Raptors
Sometimes, you just have to give it up to a superlative player at the very top of his game. The Raptors absolutely played well enough to beat the once again Westbrook-less (He left the game with another knee scare) Thunder in this one, forcing a hard-earned second overtime and then going up seven with just over a minute to go in the second OT period.
But Kevin Durant would not be denied, and after a couple free throws, a dime to a wide-open Derek Fisher and a couple missed John Salmons (SALLLLL-MOONNNNNS!!) free throws later, KD had the ball, down two, with 10 seconds to go and the chance to win it. And win it he did, with his biggest dagger three of the season, straight into the hearts of Raptor fans, the capper on a historic 51-point, 12-rebound, seven-assist night. A brutal loss, but even the devastated ACC crowd had to feel a little honored to have witnessed such a display from the soon-to-be MVP.
14. Tony Allen kicking Chris Paul in the face
From anyone else (and maybe to anyone else), this probably would've seemed considerably malicious - especially coming in the midst of a rivalry as bitter as Clippers-Grizzlies. But there was something about Tony Allen's boot to Chris Paul's dome that gave it an air of innocence, of almost childlike wonder. Maybe it was the kind of pirouette move T.A. did as he extended, or the confused reaction he had after the fact, like even he was completely unsure how he could've just kicked Paul in the face.
Or maybe it was just how reflexively hilarious it was to watch the endless replays of foot-to-face, complete with CP3's utterly perfect "...what the f---??" reaction. In any event, if there was a better moment of NBA slapstick this decade, I can't think of what it possibly could have been.
13. LeBron 61
Poor, poor Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Not an easy thing being tasked with defensive-stopper on the wing responsibilities in the Eastern Conference, home to Carmelo Anthony, Paul George and LeBron James, and on March 3rd, MKG was victimized as the primary defender in a 60-plus-point performance for the second time in 2014 alone.
Of course, when LeBron is going off like that, it tends to not really matter who's guarding him, and he'd never in his life gone off quite like he did against Charlotte this March, getting to the hole, popping from behind the arc, and getting buckets on buckets on his way to a career-high (and Miami Heat franchise high) 61 points. Dominique Wilkins tried to say that it coming against the Bobcats gave it an asterisk, but c'mon, Nique - you know that LeBron might've torched your '87 Hawks for even more that night.
12. "F--- BROOKLYN!"
And with two words, Raptors GM Masai Ujiri officially kicked off a new chapter in Raptors history, one which saw the ACC as the postseason's rowdiest playoff atmosphere, and the Raps as every late-to-the-party NBA fan's bandwagon team of choice for the playoffs. Some folks may have hand-wrung about a front-office dude being so foul-mouthed and needlessly provocative, but it's hard to imagine there were more than a handful of fans in the T-Dot this May who didn't get as pumped for their franchise as they'd ever been when their Ninja GM went for the jugular. Those handful of fans also had Drake lint-rolling his pants courtside, anyway.
11. Vince Carter's buzzer-beater against the Spurs in the playoffs
The first round was already pretty chock full of drama, excitement and general awesomeness, but it wasn't until Vincent Lamar hit his game-winning fadeaway three in the corner with 1.7 left and the Mavs down two that it was on its way to being the Best First Round Ever.
From where and when he took it, it seemed like VC's shot had next to no chance of going in, but as the thing dropped to give Dallas an improbable 2-1 series lead against San Antonio, the gauntlet had clearly been dropped: Oh, it is ON. It is so on. Apparently, Vince practices that specific shot with relative regularity - largely to make up for that one time he missed it - and for that, and the post-season craziness it marked and then preceded, we NBA fans are grateful.