2003 Detroit Pistons, East first round, Orlando Magic: The was the first year that the opening round was a best-of-seven series. The Magic were led by scoring champion Tracy McGrady, who had been bounced from the first round in each of the three previous seasons. After Orlando won Game 4 at home to take a 3-1 lead, McGrady famously said, “I’m finally out of the first round.”
Uh, not quite. With Tayshaun Prince helping limit McGrady to 26-of-72 shooting, the Pistons won the next three games by a combined 61 points. With Gordan Giricek, Jacque Vaughn and Andrew DeClercq among his fellow starters, McGrady should have known better.
1997 Miami Heat, East semifinals, New York Knicks: The Heat and Knicks met in the playoffs four straight years in the late 1990s, and the animosity was palpable. Every series went the distance but this was the only one claimed by Miami, and it got plenty of help from an unlikely source.
Trailing 3-1, the Heat had a firm grasp on Game 5 at home when Knicks guard Charlie Ward low-bridged Heat forward P.J. Brown on a boxout attempt. Brown picked up Ward and body-slammed him along the baseline, and when a handful of Knicks wandered off their bench to intervene, suspensions were handed out by the NBA – which less than a year earlier had prevented the Heat from signing Juwan Howard, claiming they had violated salary cap rules.
Brown was suspended for the remainder of the series. But the Knicks had so many one-game suspensions – five – that they had to be served in alphabetical order over the final two games so they could have the minimum number of players in uniform. New York returned home for Game 6 but was without Ward and top scorers Patrick Ewing and Allan Houston and lost. For Game 7 in Miami, New York was without Larry Johnson and John Starks and lost again.