This is only the second time an 8 seed has ever advanced to the NBA’s championship series. The New York Knicks did it in 1999 during a lockout season, but lost in 5 games to the San Antonio Spurs.
Caleb Martin, who had an impressive output in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Boston Celtics, played for Eric Musselman at Nevada for two seasons before Musselman took the Arkansas job.
The Nuggets’ head coach, Michael Malone, is the son of a former NBA head coach, Brendan Malone, whose most impressive work was as an assistant for Chuck Daly during the ‘Bad Boy’ Detroit Pistons run in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Musselman, of course, is the son of Bill Musselman, who coached the Cleveland Cavaliers and Minnesota Timberwolves and was a great assistant to Mike Dunleavy with the Portland Trail Blazers late in his career.
These two father-son coaching duos are the only two in NBA history.