Greatest Finals performances: No. 1

The NBA Finals have produced a ton of incredible performances in the three decades since the NBA-ABA merger, starting with Bill Walton's supreme effort against the Sixers in 1977 and going all the way through to Dirk's heroics against the Heat in this year's series.



But inevitably, some of them made more of an impact than others, both on the stat sheet and in other, more subjective terms. And for that reason, some resonate much more than others when we talk about the great moments in Finals history.



That's where this project comes in. Using both numbers and a healthy dose of opinion, my task is to rank the top 50 individual NBA Finals performances since the merger. I've included the player efficiency rating (PER) of every player in the top 50 as a guide, but this wasn't my only measuring stick. Basically, everything counts: competition, defense, clutch play, winning, durability ... it all matters.



From that, we can whittle down a list of top performances. Subjectively, you may agree or disagree with where a given effort ranks -- this isn't the type of exercise where there are right and wrong answers. But in at least one man's view, here's how the 50 best performances since the merger go, from 1 to 50:


Name Team Year PPG RPG APG FG% PER
Dwyane Wade Mia 2006 34.7 7.8 3.8 46.8 33.8
Tim Duncan SA 2003 24.2 17.0 5.3 49.5 32.0
Michael Jordan Chi 1991 31.2 6.6 11.4 55.8 31.5
Shaquille O'Neal LAL 2002 36.3 12.3 3.8 59.5 31.4
Shaquille O'Neal LAL 2000 38.0 16.7 2.3 61.1 31.1
Michael Jordan Chi 1998 33.5 4.0 2.3 42.7 30.8
Tim Duncan SA 1999 27.4 14.0 2.4 53.7 30.7
Dwyane Wade Mia 2011 26.5 7.0 5.2 54.6 30.2
Michael Jordan Chi 1997 32.3 7.0 6.0 45.6 29.5
Shaquille O'Neal LAL 2001 33.0 15.8 4.8 57.3 29.4