[1]: 166 The Lakers won their first NBA championship since the franchise moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
[3] The 1971-72 Lakers won a then NBA-record 69 regular season games, including 33 wins in a row—a record that still stands.
Guards Gail Goodrich and Jerry West were each among the NBA's top ten scorers.
Los Angeles swept a solid 57-win Chicago Bulls team in the playoffs' opening round, then defeated the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks (record of 63–19) in six games to win the Western Conference Finals.
[4] They had defeated the 38-win Baltimore Bullets and then upset the 56-win Boston Celtics to win the Eastern Conference Finals.
The high-scoring Lakers backcourt of Jerry West and Gail Goodrich shot a cold 11 of 37, and no Los Angeles players took up their slack.
Knicks forward DeBusschere, straining in position battles against the gigantic Chamberlain, hurt his side and did not play after the first half.
The loss of DeBusschere, a key New York rebounder and defender, would badly hurt the team's chances from this point forward.
Chamberlain took advantage of DeBusschere's absence and pulled down 24 rebounds, controlling the middle at both ends of the court.
A New York rally in the fourth quarter could not stop a 106-92 Los Angeles win to even the series.
[15][16] Despite injury issues, New York fans were optimistic as the series now headed to Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks went 5-0 vs. the Bullets and Celtics in route to the Finals.
West made a clutch basket to give the Lakers the lead with seconds left, but a Frazier tip-in over Chamberlain evened the score.
The Lakers would outscore New York 15–10 in the extra frame to win 116-111 and take a commanding 3–1 series lead back to Los Angeles.
All five Los Angeles starters played at least 45 minutes in Game 4, with Lakers coach Bill Sharman using just seven players total.
After playing to a 53-all tie at halftime, The Lakers finally pulled away from the tired Knicks in the second half.
Chamberlain dominated the middle, flirting with what would've been a quadruple-double with 24 points, 29 rebounds, eight blocks and eight assists in 47 minutes.
Blocked shots were not an official NBA stat at that time, but ABC announcer Keith Jackson counted them up during the broadcast.