The (almost) unparalleled playoff runs of the Cavaliers and Warriors

The Warriors and Cavaliers are exhibiting dominance like we’ve never seen… almost.

When the Warriors swept the Jazz out of 2017 Western Conference Semifinals, they joined LeBron James and the Cavaliers as the first two teams to punch their tickets to the Conference Finals. Golden State also matched Cleveland with a perfect 8-0 record this postseason, making them the first pair of teams to go 8-0 over the first two rounds of the NBA playoffs.

Sweeping the first two rounds isn’t unprecedented, though.

In 1989, Magic Johnson’s Lakers and Isiah Thomas’ Pistons achieved the feat. Of course, the NBA playoff structure was much different then with the NBA’s first round being a best-of-five series, as opposed to today’s best-of-seven.

Read More: Is this LeBron’s easiest path to the NBA Finals ever?

Even then, the Pistons’ dispatch of the Celtics and the Bucks and the Lakers dismantling of Trail Blazers and Supersonics put those teams at a perfect 7-0 going into the Conference Finals. As fate would have it, both teams would make it to the NBA Finals but not unblemished. The Lakers ran through the upstart Suns in four games but the Pistons ran into a juggernaut-in-waiting with Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the Bulls.

Just a year away from hiring Phil Jackson to replace Doug Collins and two years away from setting off a decade of dominance, the Bulls scratched and clawed their way to a six-game series before bowing out with a nine-point loss in Game 6. The stage was set: A Finals rematch from the year prior (sound familiar?), the Pistons looking for revenge against the Lakers, who beat them in seven games the year prior (hmmm?). Series of the century, right?

Welp, not quite.

Worried the Lakers had too much time off between series, head coach Pat Riley decided to stage a mini-training camp of sorts for his two-time defending NBA champions. It was during said camp that guard Byron Scott suffered a hamstring injury that would keep him out of the Finals.

Things would get worse for the Lakers in Game 2 as Johnson would also succumb to a hamstring injury. With both Scott and Johnson out of the lineup, the Lakers struggled to generate any of their signature “Showtime” offense.

After years of frustration, the Pistons broke through the glass ceiling, swept the Lakers in four games and won the NBA championship.

The series was the first NBA Finals to end in a four-game sweep since the finals went to the 2-3-2 format in 1985. It would take until 1995 for another four-game NBA Finals sweep when Hakeem Olajuwon’s Rockets dispatched Shaquille O’Neal, Penny Hardaway and the Magic. Finals sweeps have been even more rare lately as we’ve seen only two sweeps since 1989: Lakers/Nets (2002) and Spurs/Cavaliers (2007).

The Lakers became one of the rare teams in NBA history to sweep the playoffs before losing in the NBA Finals — a very real possibility for this year’s playoffs. That year, they joined the 1957 St. Louis Hawks and 1954 Syracuse Nationals as teams to sweep the playoffs before losing in the finals.

Of course, the playoffs were a much different place in those years. The Nationals advanced from an Eastern Division Round Robin, then dispatched the Celtics in two games before losing to George Mikan and the Minneapolis Lakers in seven games.

The Hawks had to win two Western Division Tiebreakers — Lakers and Fort Wayne Pistons — before dispatching the Lakers again (the playoffs were a little weird then) in three games. They, like the Nationals three years prior, would lose the finals in seven games, this time falling to the Celtics in a double-overtime thriller.

The Hawks would get their revenge the next year, defeating Boston in the Finals. It would be awhile for anyone else to have fun in the finals, as Boston would reel off eight consecutive titles from 1959-66.

You’ll find little in the way of argument on this year’s NBA playoffs lacking in great games. The two existing superpowers — the Cavaliers and Warriors — have vaporized their competition this year. The Cavaliers to the tune of a 9.6 average margin of victory, while the Warriors have been destroying opponents to the tune of a 16.5 margin.

Again, though, this isn’t unprecedented. The 1989 Lakers, in sweeping the Trail Blazers and Supersonics, had a 10.8 average margin of victory. Only slightly behind them: The Pistons, who defeated opponents by an average of 8.4 per game.

It’s fair to think this year’s playoffs feel like nothing more than a formality but it’s important to know this isn’t unique. We saw the same thing in 1989. Two teams swept through their early conference rounds with one surviving all the way until the NBA Finals without a loss. One of the teams was a two-time defending champion. They faced off in an NBA Finals rematch. This isn’t a new phenomenon. It happens.

Next: The burden of being unbeaten in the NBA Playoffs

Let’s just hope for all of our sake, Mike Brown or Tyronn Lue don’t decide to hold a mini-camp between the Conference Finals and NBA Finals, then, maybe, we’ll have the series of the century we should’ve had in 1989.

If you’re interested in learning more about NBA history, check out our NBA history podcast, Over and Back, and the rest of our great podcasts hosted on The Step Back.