10 best teams that fell short of winning NBA title

3. 1971-72 Milwaukee Bucks

By his third NBA season, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was already an NBA champion, an NBA MVP, a scoring champion and regarded as the league’s best player.

He did nothing in the 1971-72 season to deter from that, winning his second straight MVP award while averaging a league- and career-high 34.8 points per game while leading the Milwaukee Bucks to the second of three consecutive 60-win seasons at 63-19.

But the 1971-72 season was all about the team Milwaukee had pasted in the Western Conference Finals the previous season, as the Los Angeles Lakers ran off a record 33 straight wins (a streak ended by the Bucks) en route to a then-record 69 victories on the season. The Lakers took four of their five meetings with Milwaukee along the way.

But the Bucks had piled up wins against the lesser lights of the NBA, going 41-4 against the league’s sub-.500 teams and just 16-15 against the five of the other clubs that finished better than .500.

Besides their dismal work against Los Angeles, Milwaukee was just 3-2 against the Boston Celtics, 4-2 against the Chicago Bulls, 2-2 against the Golden State Warriors, 2-3 against the New York Knicks. They were, however, 6-0 against the Seattle SuperSonics, who missed the playoffs despite 47 victories.

Against the Warriors in the Western Conference Semifinals, the Bucks lost the opener at home before rolling to four straight wins. Milwaukee then went to L.A. and stunned the Lakers in a lopsided 93-72 Game 1 victory, but the Lakers came back for a 135-134 win in Game 2 and won Game 3 in Wisconsin by a 108-105 count.

Another Bucks blowout in Game 4 was followed by 115-90 and 104-100 wins by the Lakers, who rolled to their first title since moving to California by belting the Knicks in five games.