2004 NBA Finals Game 4: Lakers vs Pistons
17-time NBA champions with a legacy of dynasties and superstars.
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. They compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Pacific Division of the Western Conference. The Lakers play their home games at Crypto.com Arena, an arena they share with the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL).
- Series Status
- Lakers trail 1-3
- Final Score
- Detroit Pistons 88, Los Angeles Lakers 68
- Location
- The Palace of Auburn Hills
- Key Defenders
- Chauncey Billups, Tayshaun Prince, Ben Wallace
- Lakers Leading Scorer
- Kobe Bryant (17 points)
- Series Outcome
- Detroit wins 4-1
Lore & Background
The Lakers are one of the most successful teams in the history of the NBA with 17 championships, second to the Boston Celtics. The franchise began in 1946 as the Detroit Gems of the National Basketball League (NBL). After one season, a new owner moved the team to Minneapolis and renamed it the Minneapolis Lakers. The Lakers won the 1948 NBL championship before joining the BAA, where they won the 1949 BAA championship. After the merger into the NBA in 1949, the Lakers won four of the next five NBA championships. They moved to Los Angeles before the 1960–61 season. The Lakers made the NBA Finals six times in the 1960s but lost every series to the Celtics. In 1972, they won their sixth NBA title. In 1979, Jerry Buss purchased the Lakers and the team drafted Magic Johnson. The franchise won five championships in the 1980s. In 1996, the Lakers traded for the draft rights to Kobe Bryant and signed Shaquille O'Neal, leading to three consecutive championships between 2000 and 2002. After trading O'Neal, the Lakers returned to the Finals after trading for Pau Gasol, winning championships in 2009 and 2010. The team won its 17th championship in 2020. In February 2025, the team traded Anthony Davis to acquire Luka Dončić.
In Their Own Story
The air inside The Palace was thick with tension, a suffocating silence hanging over the Lakers' huddle during a timeout. Shaq stared at the hardwood, his legs heavy, realizing the foul trouble he had accumulated was not just a statistic but a death sentence for their strategy. Across the court, Ben Wallace crouched low, eyes locked on Kobe, ready to contest every shot with brute force. The ball moved sluggishly among the Lakers, each pass met by a Detroit hand. As the fourth quarter clock wound down, the roar of the home crowd drowned out the squeak of sneakers. It wasn't just a loss; it was an erasure of their legacy in real-time.
Reader's Guide
The Lakers hold the record for NBA's longest winning streak, 33 straight games, set in 1971–72. 26 Hall of Famers have played for Los Angeles, while four have coached the team. Abdul-Jabbar, Johnson, O'Neal, and Bryant won a combined eight NBA MVP awards with the Lakers.
Did You Know?
- The Lakers' 68-point total in Game 4 of the 2004 NBA Finals is not the lowest scoring output by a team in an NBA Finals game since 1954; the lowest is 54 points by the Chicago Bulls in Game 3 of the 1998 Finals.
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