The Most Inspirational Moments and Performances in NBA History

Image via Complex Original

Shortly after Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls completed their first back-to-back-to-back titles in 1993, Jordan’s father, James Jordan, was tragically gunned down when he pulled off to the side of a North Carolina road to take a quick nap. A few short months later MJ retired from professional basketball at the age of 30, citing his father’s death as one of his reasons for hanging up his shoes.

MJ couldn’t stay away from the game for long, however, and after setting an all-time best with a 72-10 regular season record in 1995–96, the Bulls knocked off the Seattle SuperSonics in six games to capture the franchise’s fourth title. Fittingly, Jordan, the regular season and Finals MVP, led his team to a clinching victory on Father’s Day. MJ’s display of raw emotion following the victory was something almost never seen from the cerebral superstar, and this deeply humanizing moment serves as an enduring reminder of how much the game means to even the greatest players.

Everybody already knew that LeBron James was really good before Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals. Despite never winning the award, he had been an MVP candidate for several years already and was single handedly carrying the Cleveland Cavaliers through the playoffs. Still, criticism remained; LeBron passed too much in the clutch, they said. He had never won a truly big game, they said. Clearly, LeBron had heard enough.

In a transcendent performance that marked James’ rise from supremely talented young player to once-in-a-generation superstar, the King torched the perennial contender Detroit Pistons in a way nobody had done before. He scored 29 of the Cavaliers’ final 30 points, bringing his team back from a seven-point deficit with 3:15 left in regulation, during a contest that ultimately took two overtimes to settle. LeBron’s 47th and 48th points came on a layup with 2.2 seconds to play in the second overtime, and James was rewarded for his transcendent play with a much-deserved victory, and the even more deserved label of “greatest player alive.”

It’s hard to put into words the sadness and grief that enveloped the entire sports world when Magic Johnson announced on Nov. 7, 1991, that he was HIV-positive and would be retiring from the NBA, effective immediately. It was a disease that, at the time, was pretty much a death sentence, an epidemic that we could do nothing to stop. And here was a living legend, one of the league’s signature players announcing that he was going to be the next victim.

Despite that sorrow and disbelief, NBA fans around the globe voted Magic as a starter for the 1992 All-Star game. And while there was some consternation around the league about whether Johnson should play in the game, there was no denying the huge emotional lift that came with once again watching Magic running an electrifying fast break and delivering his signature no-look passes to waiting teammates. Of course, he got a few buckets of his own too, scoring 25 points in addition to his nine assists and five rebounds. Johnson was named the game’s MVP and was mobbed by All-Stars from both conferences after hitting a three in the game’s closing seconds.

One of the saddest, truest adages in sports is that great players are often the last to realize when it’s time to retire. The end came quickly for Larry Bird, whose back began to betray him in the late ’80s and who, in the early part of the 1990s, spent nights in traction in the hospital just so he could play the next day. And while Larry Legend didn’t try to hold on for too long, it was still tough to watch him try to haul himself up and down the court at Boston Garden in the waning days of the Big Three era.

Taking on the brash, young Pacers in the deciding Game 5 of the 1991 Eastern Conference first round, the Celtics looked like they were completely done after an already-hampered Bird knocked himself unconscious on the parquet floor during the first half. And yet, in a scene seemingly out of a movie, the Legend emerged from the locker room during the second half and immediately lifted up his team—delivering a vintage performance en route to 32 points and a Celtics win. For just one inspiration-filled day, the Larry Bird of old had returned. 

Before the Utah Jazz’s Western Conference Semifinal series against the Golden State Warriors had even begun, Jazz guard Derek Fisher announced that one of his children was seriously ill and that tending to her was going to be his No. 1 priority. Proving his point, Fisher missed the start of Game 2 while he was traveling back to Salt Lake City from New York, where his daughter was having an emergency operation to treat retinoblastoma, a rare form of eye cancer. 

While Fisher was in the air, however, starting point guard Deron Williams got into foul trouble and backup Dee Brown got hurt. You know how, after you get off a cross-country flight, all you want to do is eat some junk food and take a nap? This was basically the exact opposite situation; as soon as Fisher’s plane touched down, a police escort was waiting to take him to the arena so he could sub into the game ASAP.

With his daughter on his mind and having gotten absolutely no time to warm up, Fisher jogged out of the locker room and went straight into the game, eventually hitting the game-clinching three in overtime to help his team toward a critical win.

While quite a bit of mythology surrounds this game (Reed only scored four points), it may be the single greatest example of how an emotional lift can make an enormous difference in a basketball game. While no player should have any trouble getting up for an NBA Finals Game 7, the 1969–70 Knicks were reeling, knowing that not only would they have to beat Jerry West, Wilt Chamberlain, and the Los Angeles Lakers without the league’s reigning MVP, but also that they had gotten completely blown out playing without Reed in Game 6.

When Reed hobbled onto the floor to play in Game 7, however, the Madison Square Garden crowd went into a complete frenzy. Their raucous cheers immediately broke the tension in the building and instilled a sense of confidence in the Knicks that had been absent in the buildup to the game. Indeed, Walt Frazier later said, “The scene is indelibly etched in my mind because if that did not happen, I know we would not have won the game.” With Reed’s emotional lift and Frazier’s incredible 36 points (including 22 in the first half), seven rebounds, and 19 assists, the Knicks ran the Lakers off the court en route to their first NBA title.

Whether you love him or loathe him, you cannot deny that Kevin Garnett plays with more raw emotion than any player in today’s NBA. Whether he’s screaming at himself or an opponent, KG’s frothing intensity has been unparalleled in the last several decades of professional basketball. So would you have expected anything less when Garnett won his first NBA championship? 

He spent years carrying many sub-par Minnesota teams, and upon being traded to Boston prior to the 2007–08 season, imposed his desperate hunger for victory on what had been a struggling Celtics franchise. Along with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen, Garnett transformed the Celtics overnight with his talent and will to win—and his guttural, visceral “anything is possible” scream upon clinching the championship is the kind of passion rarely seen today out of professional athletes. 

How does a flubbed national anthem become a signature moment in basketball history? Because even in the most competitive of environments, basic human decency and compassion is always present. 

It was April 25, 2003. Maurice Cheeks, then head coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, clearly had a lot on his mind; his Blazers trailed the Mavericks 2-0 in the first round of the NBA playoffs and were facing a must-win game at home. It’s safe to assume that figuring out ways to stop Dirk Nowitzki was on his mind far more than the lyrical stylings of Francis Scott Key. But when 13-year-old Natalie Gilbert—an eighth grader who won a Portland-area contest to perform the national anthem—started to lose track of the words in front of 20,000 people, Cheeks immediately went into action.

Putting his arm around the clearly flustered Gilbert and offering his (one must say, astonishingly tone-deaf) assistance, Cheeks led the young lady and the rest of the Rose Garden crowd in one of the most stirring renditions of the Star Spangled Banner for a pro-sports game ever. While the good karma that Cheeks earned wasn’t enough to save his team, it will always be remembered as one of the most truly kind moments in league history.

While sports are not always considered at the forefront of social change, the NBA has, in recent years, become a place where players have felt increasingly compelled to speak their minds and to publicly share their feelings on pressing issues. Perhaps the greatest example of that is with Jason Collins, the long-time defensive stalwart who, in April 2013, came out as gay and declared his intention to continue his career in the NBA.

While it took Collins some time during the 2013–14 season to land a spot on a team, he became the first active and openly gay athlete to play in North American professional sports when he took the court for the Brooklyn Nets on Feb. 23, 2014. For the rest of the season, Collins played exactly as advertised: physical and tough in the post, and very limited on offense. While Collins’ courage and achievement earned well-deserved praise, perhaps the most uplifting part of the whole story was how much of a non-story Collins’ sexuality became after a couple of games.

When Wilt Chamberlain somehow managed to score 100 points in a game back in 1962, the mark immediately went into the history books as one that could probably never even be approached, let alone broken. But Kobe Bryant has spent his entire career proving people wrong, and on Jan. 23, 2006, the incomparable Lakers shooting guard proved once again why he is one of the all-time greats by single handedly demolishing the Toronto Raptors, as he put up an astonishing 81 points. 

Bryant was already well on his way to a fine night after logging 26 points in the first half, but when the Lakers fell behind by 18 points early in the third quarter, Kobe did what Kobe does best: He got mad. In a barrage of baskets that grew increasingly improbable as the second half pressed on, Mamba torched the visiting Raptors for 27 points in the third quarter, followed by 28 more in the fourth. The Lakers' double-digit deficit turned into a double-digit win, and by the final buzzer Kobe had scored the second-most points in a game in NBA history.

It's very rare indeed that you can look at a Hall of Fame career and have your first question be “What if?” But that is the case with Alonzo Mourning, a center whose run of dominance was interrupted by focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a kidney disease that first began to affect Zo prior to the 2000–01 season. After being limited by the condition over the next several years. Mourning was forced to retire early in the 2003 season when he could no longer reliably play.

Just as anyone who dared enter the paint against him learned, though, a little kidney disease couldn't hold Mourning down for long. After receiving a transplant from his cousin, Zo worked feverishly to make it back onto an NBA court and in less than a year worked his way back into the Nets' lineup. As if Mourning simply making it back at all from a condition that could have killed him weren't amazing enough, he would go on to play four more seasons and win an NBA title in 2005–06, as an essential member of the Miami Heat frontcourt.