Bad surprise: the series on the Lakers is canceled after season 2
Winning Time will not have a season 3.
Eliminated at the buzzer. After an unexpected move, HBO has decided to cancel Winning Time. The season 2 finale of the 80’s basketball drama came to an abrupt end Sunday night after two seasons. A bad surprise for the fans, who will never see the Lakers get back on track.
Fortunately, the producers had been warned in advance that the series could end there. “As early as January while we were still in production“, confides executive producer Kevin Messick to Vulture. “They said to me, ‘Think about it. Try to figure out how this could end if, unfortunately, it was the end.’ So we had the opportunity to prepare, which we appreciated.”
The finale ended with the Los Angeles Lakers’ heartbreaking loss to the Boston Celtics in the 1984 NBA Finals, so the producers added an upbeat epilogue, in which Jerry Buss and his daughter, Jeanie, toast their good fortune , as well as a montage that tells us where all the key players ended up. “To be clear, we never creatively planned to end at the 1984 finale.”underlines Messick, adding that they had prepared two different versions just in case: one ending with the defeat of the Lakers, and another with the epilogue in question, in case of cancellation.
The scene with Jerry and Jeanie “was a new scene created to directly answer the question HBO asked us. This montage could have taken place at the end of any season actually.”
In France, Winning Time can be seen on Prime Video with the Warner Pass.
Not the ending that we had in mind.
But nothing but gratitude and love. #winningtime— Max Borenstein (@MAXBORENSTEIN) September 18, 2023