Sport: Court Choreography

James Naismith, who invented basketball in 1891 by tacking up two old peach baskets in a Springfield, Mass., gym, once said that he preferred lacrosse. Naismith would have changed his mind if he could have seen a game like the one played last week between the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The first game of the final play-off series for the National Basketball Association championship was basketball at its whirling, swirling, entertaining best. Skill not size, strategy not speed, and marksmanship not muscle were the dominant factors as the poised New...