Summary
Even as the Lakers were celebrating their championship win over the Celtics in 1987, Coach Pat Riley was guaranteeing a repeat. His team responded by winning 62 games, tops in the NBA.
The Celtics were second best during the regular season, with 57 wins, but other teams were emerging as serious challengers. Six other clubs posted 50 or more victories: Detroit, Atlanta, and Chicago in the East, Denver, Dallas, and Portland in the West.
Michael Jordan of the Bulls led the NBA in both scoring and steals, but Chicago was eliminated in the semi-finals by the Detroit Pistons, who went on to beat the Celtics in six games for the Eastern Conference championship.
In the West, the Lakers had to get through two tough seven-game series, against Utah and Dallas, to reach the championship round.
The emerging Pistons were built mainly for defense and rebounding, although point guard Isiah Thomas was their leader. They held the Lakers below 100 points in four of the first five games, winning three of them. But the last two games of the championship series were at Los Angeles and the Lakers managed to pull out both of them, by the total of four points, to fulfill their coach's prediction.
