The 1972 NBA World Championship Series was the championship round played at the conclusion of the 1971–72 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. The Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Eastern Conference champion New York Knicks in five games to win their sixth title. The Lakers got their first NBA championship since the franchise moved to Los Angeles from Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was a rematch of the 1970 NBA Finals that the Knicks had won in a full seven-game series. This season's team won a then NBA-record 69 regular season games, including 33 wins in a row -- a record which still stands. The 69 wins would remain a record for the most wins in a season until the 1995–96 Chicago Bulls (who were coached by former Knicks player Phil Jackson) broke it in route to a 72-win season that also resulted in a championship of their own. They were led by Wilt Chamberlain, the NBA's top rebounder that season. Guards Gail Goodrich and Jerry West were each among the NBA's top ten scorers that season, spearheading the NBA's top offense at 121 points per game. West also led the NBA in assists. The Lakers as a team led all NBA teams in rebounds and assists that season. Los Angeles had swept a solid 57-win Chicago Bulls team in the playoffs' opening round, then defeated the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks (record of 63–19) in six games to win the Western Conference. That historic series had matched Chamberlain against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and West against Oscar Robertson. Having defeated tough Milwaukee, 48-win New York figured to be an easy formality for the Lakers. New York was a top defensive team that allowed just 98.2 points per game and made 47% of their shots as a team. They had defeated the 38-win Baltimore Bullets and then upset the 56-win Boston Celtics to win the Eastern Conference final. This was the first of 23 consecutive championship series officiated by Jake O'Donnell. In the previous three seasons, O'Donnell could not work the playoffs due to his duties as an American League umpire. He resigned from umpiring after working the 1971 American League Championship Series to become a full-time NBA official, working through the second round of the 1995 playoffs. Series summary Lakers win series 4–1 Game-by-game summary Game 1 Willis Reed was out with a knee injury, but his replacement, Jerry Lucas, scored 26