Greatest moment in each NBA franchise’s history

Washington Wizards: 1978 NBA Championship

The Washington Wizards are another team that has just one NBA Championship in their franchise’s history. While part of me wanted to put Paul Pierce’s trash-talk fueled late-game heroics against the Raptors in the postseason as the greatest Wizards moment, I couldn’t in good conscience put that ahead of Washington’s 1978 title.

Then the Washington Bullets, the team entered the 1978 postseason as tremendous underdogs in postseason play. They had gone a mediocre 44-38 in the regular season and didn’t seem like a team that the top-tier teams in the league would have to be worried about. They were wrong in thinking that about the Bullets.

Washington mowed through the top-two teams in the conference to make it to the Finals to ultimately take on the Seattle Supersonics for the championship. With two teams who had clawed over “better teams” to get to that point, they had a drag-it-out type affair in the Finals, alternating wins until Game 7.

Washington jumped out to a big lead early on in Game 7, being up by 13 heading into the fourth quarter. However, Seattle mounted a furious charge to try to get back in the game. They got it to within six points, but that was as close as they could get as the Bullets held on and one their first and only NBA Championship.

It may not be an iconic NBA moment or anything of the sort, but it’s a moment huge in the lore of the Wizards and their history. Even if they aren’t too exciting, you can only sleep but so much on a title.