1) 2016 NBA Finals: Cavaliers vs. Warriors (Draymond Green)

For Cavaliers fans, the 2016 NBA Finals likely evokes game seven memories of the LeBron James “block,” the Kyrie Irving “shot,” the Kevin Love defensive stop on Stephen Curry, and the resultant championship parade winding through downtown Cleveland. Warriors fans are more apt to recall the Green suspension that arguably set up that dramatic deciding contest and 3-1 series lead collapse more than any other factor. The infraction that led to Green’s suspension happened late in game four, as the Warriors were putting the finishing touches on an easy win to take a commanding 3-1 lead, when he took a couple swings at James after the players made incidental contact. Though this likely wasn’t enough outright for a suspension, it was Green’s third flagrant foul of the postseason which triggered an automatic one game ban. The Cavs easily won game five with Green sidelined, then continued on to victories in games six and seven to complete the comeback. Not only did the suspension potentially swing the series itself, it also had a lasting impact on the legacy of the 73-win Warriors, who could have gone down as the greatest all-time team if they won these Finals, James and the Cavaliers, who brought Cleveland its first pro title in 52 years, and potentially the addition of Kevin Durant to the Warriors, which swung the league completely for three seasons.

2) 1997 Eastern Conference Semifinals: Heat vs. Knicks (Patrick Ewing, Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, and John Starks)
3) 1998 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals: Knicks vs. Heat (Alonzo Mourning)

The late ’90s and early ’00s Knicks-Heat rivalry was marked by intense play and regular on-court altercations. In back-to-back postseasons, those led to the league office meting out punishment that swung the series one way or the other. The 1997 playoffs are an especially sore spot for Knicks fans who are used to disappointment. They held a 3-1 series lead on the Heat in the Conference Semifinals when game five exploded into a blowup. It started when Miami’s P.J. Brown shoved New York’s Charlie Ward into the stands while battling for a rebound late in the game. Ward bounced back up and shoved Brown, leading to the Knicks bench clearing to defend their point guard. Unfortunately, a rule had been implemented in 1994 that triggered an automatic one-game suspension for any player who leaves the bench during an on-court altercation. Thus, Knicks stars Patrick Ewing, Larry Johnson, John Starks, and Allan Houston all received suspensions, in addition to Ward and Brown. The penalties were so cumbersome on the Knicks that they had to be staggered just to allow the team to field at least nine players for games six and seven. With Ewing, Houston, and Ward missing game six, then Johnson and Starks sitting out game seven, the Heat easily won both contests to advance to the Conference Finals. One year later, the teams matched up in a first round series and this time it was the Heat feeling the bigger brunt of suspensions. The Knicks won game four at home to tie the series at 2-2, but the bigger news was a late-game tussle between Mourning and Johnson. Both players were suspended for game five but this was a much bigger deal for Miami, for whom Mourning was an offensive and defensive centerpiece. The Knicks won the decisive game five easily in Miami but went on to lose in the second round to Indiana.

4) 2007 Western Conference Semifinals: Spurs vs. Suns (Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw)

While the 1997 Knicks-Heat series was the first and largest application of the player bench leaving suspension rule, the 2007 Suns-Spurs series was the most impactful. Though this was only the Conference Semifinals, most observers saw this as a virtual NBA Finals, as the Spurs and Suns were clearly the two most talented teams left in the playoffs. Phoenix was in the midst of securing a huge game four win in San Antonio to even the series at 2-2 when Robert Horry committed a flagrant foul on Steve Nash. If you ask Suns fans, it was an egregious, violent hip check and if you ask Spurs fans, it was a light touch that Nash sold by flopping into the scorer’s table. What’s undeniable is that in the resulting fracas, Stoudemire and Diaw walked away from the Phoenix bench towards the action until coaches held them back. They were suspended for one game each while Horry was punished with a two-game ban. Stoudemire had been nearly unstoppable in the first four games of the series and his missing presence was felt strongly in game five, as the Suns had no answer inside for Tim Duncan and dropped a close one at home, 88-85. Horry, meanwhile, had been playing minor minutes off the bench in the series anyway (he was 36 years old by then), and the Spurs were able to finish the series off in game six without him, despite a dominant returning performance from Stoudemire. San Antonio then crushed the Jazz and Cavaliers in subsequent series to claim the fourth title of the Duncan era. There’s little doubt that if the Suns had been able to avoid the suspensions and take home this series, they would have had a similar ensuing result. Instead, the Nash/Stoudemire era ended soon after without a single NBA Finals appearance. Even though it completely changed the fortunes of the ’96-’97 Knicks and ’06-’07 Suns, the bench leaving suspension rule is still on the books in the NBA. 

5) 2014 Western Conference Quarterfinals: Thunder vs. Grizzlies (Zach Randolph)

Following their first Conference Finals appearance in franchise history in 2013, the Grizzlies looked poised to kick off another deep playoff run in 2014 when they took a 3-2 series lead on Oklahoma City in the first round. It was a shocking turn of events, as the #2 seed Thunder had both reigning MVP Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook fully healthy and were heavy favorites in the series. Not only did Memphis miss a chance to close it out at home in game six, they also lost their anchor, Randolph, to a suspension in the process. Late in the contest that ended as a 108-84 Thunder victory, Randolph was run into by then rookie center Steven Adams, and retaliated with a shove that appeared to include a punch to the face. He was suspended the next day and the undermanned Grizzlies, for whom Randolph was the leading scorer and rebounder in this series, fell in game seven, 120-109. It was an especially tough pill to swallow for Randolph, who had garnered a reputation as a hot head early in his career but had shed it and become a beloved star for the Grizzlies in his later years. Though Memphis did make it back to the Conference Semifinals in 2015, this suspension and the resulting loss was essentially the beginning of the end for the “grit n’ grind” era.