The Los Angeles Lakers completed the franchise’s return to the pinnacle of basketball as they sealed a record-equalling 17th NBA Finals crown with a victory over the Miami Heat. The Lakers, who returned to the finals this season after missing the post-season for six consecutive years, clinched a series victory in game six in Orlando on Monday. 

Superstar LeBron James fueled the Lakers with a triple-double of 28 points, 14 rebounds and 10 assists, capturing his fourth NBA title with a third different team.

Anthony Davis added 19 points and 15 rebounds as the Lakers completed a four-games-to-two triumph in the best-of-seven championship series in the NBA quarantine bubble in Orlando

“It means a lot to represent this franchise,” James
said, recalling that he told team owner Jeanie Buss when he arrived in Los
Angeles in 2018, “I wanted to put this franchise back where it belongs.

“For me to be a part of such a historical franchise is
an unbelievable feeling.”

Anthony Davis, playing in his first title series after years
of frustration in New Orleans, added 19 points and 15 rebounds as the Lakers
completed a four-games-to-two triumph in the best-of-seven championship series
more than eight months after the death in a helicopter crash of team legend
Kobe Bryant — who led the Lakers to their last title in 2010.

The series in the NBA’s quarantine bubble in Orlando,
Florida, capped not only an emotional season for the Lakers with the loss of
talisman Bryant but a season of uncertainty and upheaval for the NBA as players
grappled with the coronavirus pandemic and the demands for social and racial
justice sweeping across the United States.

The Lakers out-hustled, out-muscled and out-played Miami,
making sure it wouldn’t come down to any last-gasp effort as it did when they
were denied in game five on Friday.

Los Angeles had blown it open by halftime, their 36
second-quarter points equalling the Heat’s entire first half total as the
Lakers took a 64-36 lead into the break.

Four Lakers players had scored in double-figures by halftime.
Rajon Rondo was a perfect six-for-six from the floor in the first half as the
Lakers built the second-largest halftime lead in NBA Finals history. Rondo, who
won a title with the Celtics in 2008, scored 19 points off the bench.
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope added 17, Danny Green scored 11 and the Lakers pulled
level with the Boston Celtics for most titles all-time.

The Heat, who had stunned the Lakers on Friday on the back of
Jimmy Butler’s gritty triple-double, couldn’t produce another miracle in the
face of Los Angeles’ stifling defense.