Get out the brooms: These are the teams that have been swept in the NBA Finals

The San Antonio Spurs are in a tough spot heading to New York after dropping the opening two games of the NBA Finals to the Knicks. Their focus should be on winning the series, but before they can do that they just need to win a game to avoid joining an infamous list of Finals failures.

Spurs up against the wall vs Knicks

No team has ever climbed out of the hole San Antonio now faces. Overall, teams that have built a 2-0 Finals advantage have gone on to win the championship 32 times in 37 attempts. The odds become even steeper with the series now shifting to New York.

Wembanyama put the team on his back in game two. He played 40 minutes, scored 29 points with nine rebounds and four blocked shots, but it wasn’t enough in the end.

Finals Sweeps and sweepers

There is a long way to go and a lot of basketball to be played before we go crowning the Knicks champions. All of the pressure is on the Spurs now as they head to Madison Square Garden and city that has been waiting for this moment since 1973.

In the history of the of the NBA, there have been nine sweeps in the NBA Finals. The first one came all the way back in 1959 when Bill Russell and Bob Cousy led these same Boston Celtics to a 4-0 sweep over the Minneapolis Lakers. Since then there have been eight sweeps in the Finals with the last one coming in 2018 when Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors swept LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in four games.

1. 1959: Boston Celtics defeat Minneapolis Lakers
2. 1971: Milwaukee Bucks defeat Baltimore Bullets
3. 1975: Golden State Warriors defeat Washington Bullets
4. 1983: Philadelphia 76ers defeat Los Angeles Lakers
5. 1989: Detroit Pistons defeat Los Angeles Lakers
6. 1995: Houston Rockets defeat Orlando Magic
7. 2002: Los Angeles Lakers defeat New Jersey Nets
8. 2007: San Antonio Spurs defeat Cleveland Cavaliers
9. 2018: Golden State Warriors defeat Cleveland Cavaliers

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