Ranking The Last 10 NBA Finals

With the NBA Finals set to tip-off next week between the Dallas Mavericks & Boston Celtics, let's see how the last ten Finals matchups go up against each other in this ranking.

10. 2018: Warriors Beat Cavaliers 4-0

By this time in the Cavaliers-Warriors saga, the teams were completely unbalanced, with Kevin Durant joining Golden State in 2016 and Kyrie Irving requesting a trade out of Cleveland in 2017.

Game 1 indicated that this series could have been closer than we thought going into this rendition of the matchup, but then J.R. Smith happened. Any momentum the Cavaliers could have had was gone after blowing a chance to win game 1 behind perhaps the best game of LeBron James' storied career. The Warriors took that game in overtime and then proceeded to sweep the Cavs and send LeBron packing for Los Angeles.

9. 2023: Nuggets Beat Heat 4-1

The eighth-seeded Miami Heat's improbable playoff run came to a halting end when they ran into the buzzsaw who were the Denver Nuggets in last year's finals.

The Nuggets outmatched the Heat in almost every aspect of the game in this series. After years of disappointing playoff exits, Nikola Jokic was finally able to capture the first title of his career, which put him into the pantheon of all-time greats in NBA history.

8. 2014: Spurs Beat Heat 4-1

In 2013, the Heat and Spurs put on one of the best Finals series in NBA history where Miami won the title in a 7 game thriller.

When the two teams faced off in a rematch in 2014, the basketball world could not wait for the teams to put on another classic. Unfortunately, the Heat did not get the memo. San Antonio dominated the series from start to finish and captured the fifth championship of the Tim Duncan-Greg Popovich era avenging their loss the year before and this was the true coming out for a young wing defender at the time named Kawhi Leonard who won his first career Finals MVP.

7. 2020: Lakers Beat Heat 4-2

A lot of fans would make the argument that this should be ranked at ten because of the strange circumstances this series endured with the series taking place in a bubble environment with no fans. Although it was a bit mind-boggling to watch a Finals in an open gym essentially, the basketball itself still was fun to watch and the Lakers winning the title the same year the franchise lost a legend of the game in Kobe Bryant was a fitting way to honour the icon.

6. 2019: Raptors Beat Warriors 4-2

After years of getting Cavs-Warriors in the Finals, it was fun to finally see Golden State take on a new opponent in the championship series. Unfortunately, we did not get to see the teams go at full strength as the Warriors did not have their two-time Finals MVP in Kevin Durant except for a quarter in game 5 before he tore his Achilles, and then in game 6, Klay Thompson was putting on a show as the Warriors were looking to force a game 7 but then he tore his ACL while driving to the basket in the third quarter.

What made this series for me was the environment in the arenas. The Raptors were making their first appearance in the Finals in franchise history, while the Warriors were playing their final games in the iconic Oracle Arena.

Because of the Warriors injuries, the Raptors were able to take the series and bring the first championship to Toronto in the team's history capping off their magical run that post-season.

5. 2022: Warriors Beat Celtics 4-2

2022 saw two of the most iconic franchises in NBA history do battle in the finals which was awesome to see. In my opinion, this was the crowning achievement of Stephen Curry's legendary career took place in this series. Curry supplanted himself as one of the two greatest point guards in NBA history as he finally captured his first Finals MVP while leading the Warriors to their fourth championship of his run in Golden State.

4. 2017: Warriors Beat Cavaliers 4-1

Even if this series ended in five, I would argue this was the most skilled display of basketball I have ever seen played. We got to see true legends of the game go at it on the game's biggest stage in this matchup and both rosters were completely loaded with depth on the bench. At the end of the day, Kevin Durant was just too much for Cleveland to handle and Golden State took back the championship after having to hear jokes at their expense after blowing their shot at history the year before.

3. 2015: Warriors Beat Cavaliers 4-2

We had no idea what we were in for the next four years when we got this matchup in 2015. I wish we could have seen both these teams healthy for this series because I believe this would have been the best installment of the Cavs-Warriors Finals matchups.

Game 1 was a thriller much like 2018 but after already not having All-Star forward Kevin Love for the post-season after he got injured in round one, Cleveland lost another All-Star when Kyrie Irving broke his knee cap in overtime of the first game of the Finals and LeBron James was on his own for the rest of the series. Games two and three saw James arguably have the best two back-to-back games of his career but he just did not have enough around him. After taking games two and three, the Cavs did not win another game in this series and the start of the Golden State dynasty was born.

2. 2021: Bucks Beat Suns 4-2

Looking back, this was such an underrated matchup. Two teams who had not been on this stage in years, with two legends making their first appearance in the NBA Finals in Chris Paul and Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The games were extremely competitive and featured some iconic finals plays such as; Giannis's block on Ayton in game four, Jrue Holiday's steal in game five, and it was all capped off by Giannis's fifty-point masterpiece in game six to clinch the championship.

We need to discuss this matchup more often.

1. 2016: Cavaliers Beat Warriors 4-3

Game-by-game, is the series slightly overrated historically as there was only one nail-biting game? Yeah, probably, but as we all know, this was the last finals series to go the distance and game seven provided two historic Finals plays with LeBron's block, and Kyrie Irving's shot to finish off the Cavaliers 3-1 series comeback against the 73-9 Warriors to complete the greatest comeback in NBA history. This title was the first championship to be brought to Cleveland in fifty-two years and James' fulfilled his promise of ending his hometown's championship drought.