1981 NBA Finals

The 1981 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s 1980–81 season, and the culmination of the season's playoffs. It pitted the 62–20 Eastern Conference champion Boston Celtics against the 40–42 Western Conference champion Houston Rockets. This series has the distinction of featuring for the third time in NBA history, and last to date, a team with a losing record in the Finals. They were the first team since the Minneapolis Lakers in 1959 to reach the championship round despite having more regular season losses than wins. This, along with 1986 (which was also played by the Celtics and the Rockets), was one of the only two NBA championships of the 1980s not to feature the Lakers.

Prior to the season, the NBA moved the Rockets and San Antonio Spurs from the Central Division of the Eastern Conference to the Midwest Division of the Western Conference. The Rockets and Spurs traded places with the Chicago Bulls and Milwaukee Bucks. The Midwest Division also took in the expansion Dallas Mavericks.

The Rockets that season were led by Moses Malone, who practically carried the Rockets to the NBA Finals. Meanwhile, Calvin Murphy, the shortest player in the league at the time, set two NBA records, sinking 78 consecutive free throws to break Rick Barry's mark of 60 set in 1976 and achieving a free-throw percentage of .958, breaking Rick Barry's record set with the Rockets in 1979. Other key contributors of the 1980–81 team were Rudy Tomjanovich, Robert Reid, Mike Dunleavy Sr., Allen Leavell, Billy Paultz, Bill Willoughby, Calvin Garrett, Tom Henderson, and Major Jones. The Rockets clinched the last spot in the playoffs on the final night of the regular season following a loss by the Golden State Warriors to Seattle, as Golden State had the tiebreaker over Houston. Houston tied with Kansas City for second place in the Midwest behind San Antonio with a regular season record of 40–42 (this would be only the second time that an NBA team with a losing record would make the Finals, after 1959).

Houston's playoff run began by drawing the defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers and Magic Johnson in the first round. The Rockets upset Los Angeles, two games to one, with the Rockets winning both games in Los Angeles. The Western Conference semifinals matchup featured the Rockets against the Spurs and multi-year scoring champion George Gervin in a Texas Shootout. The Rockets would win the series in seven games behind strong contributions from Murphy and Reid, including Murphy's career playoff high of 42 points in the climactic Game 7 at San Antonio. This set up an unlikely Conference finals matchup with Kansas City, being that both teams finished the regular season with identical losing records, together compiling just 80 total victories of 164 games played. The Kings, led by Otis Birdsong, Scott Wedman, and Phil Ford fell to the Rockets in five games, and the Rockets would break into the NBA Finals for the first time, the first of four in franchise history. It would be the only time two conference finalists in the playoffs both had losing records, and the second and last time to date a team with a losing record made it all the way to the Finals round (the first being the 1959 Minneapolis Lakers).

This was the Celtics' first appearance in The Finals since their 1976 championship winning team against the Phoenix Suns. The Celtics were not quite the same team as five years before, as they added the likes of Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale, a trio that would come to be known as "The Big Three." M. L. Carr, Cedric Maxwell, and Nate Archibald were also capable players off the bench, and key cogs in Boston's balanced offensive attack. However, the Celtics lost future Hall of Famers Dave Cowens and JoJo White to retirement. Still, the Celtics, led by Bird, won 62 games and managed to squeak past Philadelphia for the league's best record due to tiebreakers.

The Celtics's playoff run started with a first-round bye, straight into the conference semifinals. Despite the layoff, the Celtics easily swept the Artis Gilmore-led Chicago Bulls, and then faced the defending Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia 76ers for the right to advance to The Finals. After a hard-fought and physical series, the Celtics eventually came back from a three-games-to-one deficit to defeat the Sixers, repeating a feat they accomplished in 1968. Five of the games in the series ended with the winning team on top by two points or less, including a 91-90 nail-biter in Game 7.

Both teams had met in the playoffs the year earlier, when the Rockets were in their final season in the Eastern Conference. The 1980 Eastern Conference semifinal matchup had a slightly different Celtics team, with Hall of Fame center Dave Cowens still playing for the team, as well not featuring perennial stars Kevin McHale and Robert Parish, both of whom would not arrive in Boston until the 1981 season. Rick Barry for Houston was also in the final season of his career in 1980. The Celtics blew out the Rockets in a four-game sweep, by a total of 74 points in the 1980 Eastern Conference semis.

(*)The Celtics were tied with the Philadelphia 76ers for the NBA's best record, but the Celtics earned the division title and the overall top seed based on tie-breakers.