During these chaotic times, a lot of aspects of our lives have changed, one of them being how professional sports are played, managed, and broadcasted. The NBA, possibly more popular than any professional sports organization, has taken drastic measures to ensure the health and well-being of its players and workers. The NBA recently finished up their 2019-20 season in Orlando, Florida in what they call the NBA Bubble. The Bubble was located on the Disney World campus, and each game was played on the same court, with no fans, limited staff, and limited employees allowed. At first, many were skeptical of this idea, to say the least, but in the end, it worked perfectly. Throughout three months in the bubble, not one player, coach, personnel, or NBA employee tested positive for Covid-19. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver played a huge role in the success of the NBA Bubble, as he managed and coordinated events, games, rules for the Bubble campus, and most importantly, implemented a daily Covid-19 testing system to make sure everyone was healthy in Orlando and nobody was at risk.

The bubble started with 22 NBA teams playing an 8-game regular season to give lower seeds a chance at making a final playoff push. Starting Aug. 9, the official NBA playoffs began. Every team played as expected, but of course, there had to be a few upsets along the way. In the Western Conference Semifinals, the Denver Nuggets came back from a 3-1 series deficit and beat the highly acclaimed Los Angeles Clippers to advance to the Western Conference Finals, where they would face the LA Lakers. Over in the Eastern Conference, the Cinderella story belonged to the Miami Heat. Coming into the playoffs as a 5-seed, the Heat weren’t expected to even make it past the second round, and some thought they might have even been sent home after the first.

The Heat had something else in mind though, as they swept the fourth-seeded Indiana Pacers first, then swept the first-seeded Milwaukee Bucks who were the favorites to come out of the Eastern Conference with the superstar and back-to-back MVP and 2019-20 Defensive Player of the Year, Giannis Antetokounmpo. Then, they faced off against the second-seed Boston Celtics, where they had a close battle, but ended up winning the series 4-2 to advance to their first NBA Finals since 2014. They would end up facing LeBron James, Anthony Davis, and the LA Lakers in the finals.

The Heat had everything going against them entering the series, but many people were rooting for them due to the pure fact that they didn’t want LeBron and the Lakers to win. The Lakers ended up taking game one, but Miami bounced back and won game two. The Lakers stepped up and won games three and four, making it a 3-1 lead in LA’s favor. The Heat were one game away from elimination but weren’t going down without a fight.

They came into game five with a killer mentality and ended up extending the series to another game. On Sun. Oct.11, the Lakers defeated the Heat by a score of 106-93, to take home the 2019-20 NBA Finals trophy. It was their 17th finals win, tying the Boston Celtics for the most championships in NBA History. LeBron James was named the Finals MVP, as he averaged 29.8 points, 11.8 rebounds, and 8.5 assists in the six-game series.