For 65 days during the 1971–72 season, the Los Angeles Lakers did not lose a basketball game. Their run reached 33 consecutive victories, creating an NBA record that remains untouched more than half a century later.
The streak began on November 5, 1971, with a 110–106 win over the Baltimore Bullets. According to the NBA’s official history of the run, Los Angeles then won every game for more than two months, by an average margin of 17 points.
An aging team found a new formula
The achievement becomes more surprising when the roster’s situation is considered. Wilt Chamberlain was 35, Jerry West was 33, and 37-year-old captain Elgin Baylor retired early in the season because of knee problems. New coach Bill Sharman reorganized the team instead of relying on its stars exactly as before.
Gail Goodrich took on more scoring responsibility, allowing West to concentrate on playmaking. Chamberlain reduced his scoring role and focused on rebounding, defense and passing. The NBA’s 1971–72 season review records that Chamberlain led the league in both rebounding, at 19.2 per game, and field-goal percentage, at 64.9%, while Goodrich and West averaged 25.9 and 25.8 points.
Records fell along the way
On December 12, the Lakers collected their 21st straight win and passed the previous NBA mark of 20. Ten days later, victory number 27 moved them beyond the 26-game run of baseball’s 1916 New York Giants, then regarded as the longest streak in major American professional sports.
The schedule offered little comfort. An NBA retrospective from the streak’s 50th anniversary notes that the Lakers won on three consecutive days four separate times. They also completed the run before private flights, modern recovery equipment and routine rest management transformed professional basketball travel.
Win number 33 arrived on January 7, 1972, when Los Angeles defeated the Atlanta Hawks 134–90. Two nights later in Milwaukee, the defending champion Bucks finally stopped the Lakers 120–104. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar produced 39 points and 20 rebounds in the loss that ended the streak.
The streak led somewhere bigger
The Lakers did not peak too early. They finished 69–13, which was then the best regular-season record in NBA history, and defeated the New York Knicks in five games in the Finals. It was the franchise’s first championship since moving from Minneapolis to Los Angeles.
The closest single-season challenger remains the 2012–13 Miami Heat, who won 27 in a row. A Los Angeles Times anniversary account confirms that the Lakers’ 33-game mark still towers over every later attempt. It was not merely a hot month: it was more than two months of perfect results, followed by a championship.
Sources and further reading
- NBA — Lakers set the record with 33 consecutive wins
- NBA — Bucks end the Lakers’ streak
- NBA — 1971–72 season review
- Los Angeles Times — 50 years after the 33-game streak
