The 1990 NBA Finals was the championship round of the 1989–90 National Basketball Association (NBA) season, and the conclusion of the season's playoffs. The series pitted the defending NBA champion and Eastern Conference playoff champion Detroit Pistons against the Western Conference playoff champion Portland Trail Blazers. This was the first NBA Finals since 1979 not to involve either the Los Angeles Lakers or the Boston Celtics, and one of two NBA championships of the 1990s won by a team other than the Chicago Bulls or the Houston Rockets (the other was won by the San Antonio Spurs in 1999). The Pistons became just the third franchise in NBA history to win back-to-back championships, after the Lakers and Celtics. Background Portland Trail Blazers The Trail Blazers last made the NBA Finals when they won the NBA championship in 1977. In between finals appearances, the Blazers made the playoffs every year except 1982, but most of the time were eliminated in the first or second round. Along the way, Portland built a core that would turn the team into title contenders, adding Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and Jerome Kersey through the draft while signing or trading for players such as Buck Williams and Kevin Duckworth. The addition of Williams cost Portland once-promising center Sam Bowie, whose career had been curtailed by a series of leg injuries after being drafted second overall in the 1984 NBA draft. Early in the 1988–89 season, the Blazers fired head coach Mike Schuler and replaced him with assistant Rick Adelman, who would go on to win over 1,000 regular season games in 23 NBA seasons. Entering the 1989–90 season with modest expectations, the Trail Blazers surprised the NBA by posting a 59–23 record, good enough for the third seed in the Western Conference. In the playoffs, they swept the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, defeated the San Antonio Spurs in seven games during the second round, and eliminated the Phoenix Suns in six games in the conference finals. Detroit Pistons The Pistons won their first NBA championship a year earlier. However, they entered the 1989–90 season without rugged forward Rick Mahorn, who had been selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the 1989 NBA Expansion Draft and was later traded to the Philadelphia 76ers. Despite the loss of Mahorn, the Pistons still managed to post a 59–23 record to lead the Eastern Conference. With Mahorn gone, Defensive