The 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron Takes His First Team To The NBA Finals
The 2007 Cleveland Cavaliers: LeBron Takes His First Team To The NBA Finals
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The 2007 Cleveland Indians: One Game Short Of The Pennant
Cleveland’s start to the season met the promise, as they won 17 of 25 and had a two-game lead over Detroit. At a time when the NBA had the city’s attention, the Tigers-Indians promised a baseball corollary to the impending battle between the Cavaliers & Pistons, as well as the ever-present Ohio State-Michigan football rivalry.
The 2007 Cleveland Browns Sniff The Playoffs But Miss…Again
The organization that chased Marty Schottenheimer after the 1988 season because he only made the playoffs, but not the Super Bowl, was desperate for anything even resembling those excellent Brown teams of the late 1980s, coached by Schottenheimer and led by quarterback Bernie Kosar.
Jason Kidd Takes The 2003 New Jersey Nets Back To The NBA Finals
They’d never reached a conference finals. Then Kidd came to town in ’02, the team won 52 games and won the Eastern Conference title, before being eaten up by Shaq & Kobe’s Lakers, who won their third straight title. The 2003 New Jersey Nets came into the season knowing that they could win.
The 2003 New Jersey Devils Win A Third Stanley Cup In Nine Years
The New Jersey Devils had grown into one of the NHL’s best franchises. They’d won the Stanley Cup in 1995, sweeping the favored Detroit Red Wings. In 2000, the Devils won another title and in 2001 they reached the Finals before losing to the Colorado Avalanche. Expectations were now high and when 2002 ended in a first-round playoff loss, a coaching change was made, with Pat Burns brought in to run the show for the 2003 New Jersey Devils and put the team back on top.
The 2002 Sacramento Kings: Rightful Champions That Got Robbed
The Sacramento Kings had been one of the NBA’s historically inept franchises. In 1999, they enjoyed a breakthrough year in the strike-shortened season of 1999 and began a slow ascent. 1999 saw them go 27-23 and take Utah to a decisive fifth game in the first round of the playoffs. One year later they went 44-38 and squared off the Lakers, again going to a fifth before coming up short. In 2001 the Kings broke the 50-win barrier, winning the franchise’s first playoff series since relocating. The Lakers were again the roadblock. The 2002 Sacramento Kings had to feel like their time had come.
A Redemptive Super Bowl Run For The 2002 Oakland Raiders
The 2002 Oakland Raiders were hoping for some redemption. They’d won the AFC West in 2001 before suffering a controversial loss in the divisional playoffs against the New England Patriots. Playing in a Saturday night blizzard in Foxboro, the Raiders led by three late in the game when Tom Brady appeared to fumble on a sack with Oakland recovering. Upon replay, the officials ruled Brady’s arm had been moving forward.
The 2002 Oakland A’s: The Moneyball Year
…in the offseason the Yankees raided them in free agency to get their best player, Jason Giambi, while the Boston Red Sox stepped in and helped themselves to centerfielder Johnny Damon. It was Oakland’s attempt to replace these players on a shoestring budget, and the innovative methods applied by GM Billy Beane that provided the basis for the movie Moneyball.
1975 Notre Dame Football: Dan Devine’s Trying First Year
The 1975 Notre Dame football team has been immortalized in Hollywood, as the climactic year of Rudy, the partially true/partially mythical story of undersized Dan Ruettiger, who fought for a roster spot with the program he loved. On the field, 1975 Notre Dame football didn’t quite meet expectations.
The 2004 New England Patriots Finish Off A Dynasty Run
New England made a surprise run to win the Super Bowl in 2001, an upset of the heavily favored St. Louis Rams. Two years later they won it again, beating Carolina. The 2004 New England Patriots came into the season riding a 15-game winning streak.
1980 Notre Dame Football: Devine’s Destiny Comes Up Just Short
The 1980 Notre Dame football team began the season with some built-in motivation. Head coach Dan Devine, who had led the school to a national title in 1977, and enjoyed prior success coaching Missouri and the Green Bay Packers, announced he would retire at the end of the season. Notre Dame looked like it might ride the motivational wave all the way to another national championship, before coming up short in the end.
The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks Ride The Stars To A Title
…Schilling and Johnson each won 20 games, they each logged about 250 innings and they finished 1-2 in the Cy Young voting, with Johnson winning it. It was a big dropoff from these two to Brian Anderson or Albie Lopez, other regular parts of the rotation. And while the bullpen was respectable, including spot starter Miguel Batista and closer Byun-Hung Kim, who had 19 saves with a 2.94 ERA, it was clear Schilling and Johnson had to dominate or Arizona wouldn’t be championship-caliber