The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the upper mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean through the Saint Lawrence River. In general, they are on or near the Canada–United States border. They are lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Hydrologically, there are only four lakes, because lakes Michigan and Huron join at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables travel by water between the lakes.
Lake Erie is the fourth-largest lake of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the eleventh-largest globally if measured in terms of surface area. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. At its deepest point Lake Erie is 210 feet deep.
Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume and the third-largest by surface area, after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that of Lake Huron through the narrow Straits of Mackinac, giving it the same surface elevation as its easterly counterpart; the two are technically a single lake.
Lake Superior is the largest of the Great Lakes of North America, the world's largest freshwater lake by surface area, and the third largest freshwater lake by volume. It is shared by the Canadian province of Ontario to the north, the U.S. state of Minnesota to the west, and Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the south. Superior is the farthest north and west of the Great Lakes chain, and the highest in elevation, draining through the St. Mary's River into Lake Huron.
Utah is a state in the western United States. It is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast. Of the fifty U.S. states, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, and with a population over three million, the 30th-most-populous and 11th-least-densely populated. Urban development is mostly concentrated in two areas: the Wasatch Front in the north-central part of the state, which is home to roughly two-thirds of the population, and Washington County in the south, with more than 170,000 residents. Most of the western half of Utah lies in the Great Basin.
Earvin "Magic" Johnson Jr. is an American retired professional basketball player and former president of basketball operations of the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Often regarded as the best point guard of all time, Johnson is also considered to be one of the greatest players in NBA history. He played point guard for the Lakers for 13 seasons.
Salt Lake City is the capital and most populous municipality of the U.S. state of Utah, as well as the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With an estimated population of 200,567 in 2019, the city is the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, which has a population of 1,222,540. Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City–Ogden–Provo Combined Statistical Area, a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along a 120-mile (190 km) segment of the Wasatch Front, comprising a population of 2,606,548, making it currently the 22nd largest in the nation. It is the larger of only two major urban areas located within the Great Basin.
Lake Baikal is a rift lake located in southern Siberia, Russia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast.
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Lakers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference Pacific Division. The Lakers play their home games at Staples Center, an arena shared with the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers, the Los Angeles Sparks of the Women's National Basketball Association, and the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League. The Lakers are one of the most successful teams in the history of the NBA, and have won 16 NBA championships, the second-most behind the Boston Celtics.
Lake Tahoe is a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the United States. Lying at 6,225 ft (1,897 m), it straddles the state line between California and Nevada, west of Carson City. Lake Tahoe is the largest alpine lake in North America, and at 122,160,280 acre⋅ft (150.7 km3) trails only the five Great Lakes as the largest by volume in the United States. Its depth is 1,645 ft (501 m), making it the second deepest in the United States after Crater Lake in Oregon.
Kobe Bean Bryant was an American professional basketball player. A shooting guard, he spent his entire career with the Los Angeles Lakers in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time, Bryant won five NBA championships, and was an 18-time All-Star, a 15-time member of the All-NBA Team, a 12-time member of the All-Defensive Team, the 2008 NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP), and a two-time NBA Finals MVP. Bryant also led the NBA in scoring twice, and ranks fourth on the league's all-time regular season scoring and all-time postseason scoring lists.
Jerome Alan West is an American basketball executive and former player. He played professionally for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). His nicknames included "Mr. Clutch", for his ability to make a big play in a clutch situation, such as his famous buzzer-beating 60-foot shot that tied Game 3 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the New York Knicks; "the Logo", in reference to his silhouette being incorporated into the NBA logo; "Mr. Outside", in reference to his perimeter play with the Los Angeles Lakers; and "Zeke from Cabin Creek", for the creek near his birthplace of Chelyan, West Virginia. West played the small forward position early in his career, and he was a standout at East Bank High School and at West Virginia University, where he led the Mountaineers to the 1959 NCAA championship game. He earned the NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player honor despite the loss. He then embarked on a 14-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, and was the co-captain of the 1960 U.S. Olympic gold medal team, a squad that was inducted as a unit into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.
Patrick James Riley is an American professional basketball executive and a former coach and player in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has been the team president of the Miami Heat since 1995, and he also served as the team's head coach from 1995 to 2003 and again from 2005 to 2008. As a player, he played for the Lakers' championship team in 1972. Regarded as one of the greatest NBA coaches of all time, Riley has won five NBA championships as a head coach, including four with the Los Angeles Lakers during their Showtime era in the 1980s and one with the Heat in 2006.
Dwight David Howard II is an American professional basketball player for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is an eight-time All-Star, eight-time All-NBA Team honoree, five-time All-Defensive Team member, and three-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Philip Douglas Jackson is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and executive in the National Basketball Association (NBA). A power forward, Jackson played 12 seasons in the NBA, winning NBA championships with the New York Knicks in 1970 and 1973. Jackson was the head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 to 1998, leading them to six NBA championships. He then coached the Los Angeles Lakers from 1999 to 2004 and again from 2005 to 2011; the team won five league titles under his leadership. Jackson's 11 NBA titles as a coach surpassed the previous record of nine set by Red Auerbach. He also holds the NBA record for the most combined championships, winning a total of 13 as a player and a coach.
The NBA Finals is the annual championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The Eastern and Western conference champions play a best-of-seven game series to determine the league champion. The winners of the Finals are awarded the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy, which replaced the Walter A. Brown Trophy in 1983.
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although like the much larger oceans, they form part of earth's water cycle. Lakes are distinct from lagoons which are generally coastal parts of the ocean. They are generally larger and deeper than ponds, which also lie on land, though there are no official or scientific definitions. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing in a channel on land. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams.
The 2020 NBA Finals is the championship series of the National Basketball Association (NBA)'s 2019–20 season and conclusion of the season's playoffs. This best-of-seven playoff series is being played between the Eastern Conference champion Miami Heat and the Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers. This is the first NBA Finals matchup between the two teams, and the first time both NBA Finals participants had missed the playoffs in the previous season. The Lakers' LeBron James had previously played with the Heat winning back-to-back NBA titles from four consecutive Finals appearances from 2011–2014, while Heat president Pat Riley was head coach of the "Showtime"-era Lakers from 1981–1990 leading them to four NBA titles from seven Finals appearances.
