Did you know that three players that are seeing action in the ongoing best-of-seven National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals have visited the Philippines at least once?

They are Boston’s Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics and Kobe Bryant and Luke Walton of the reigning NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers.

Pierce first set foot on local soil on September 1, 2000 to do promotional work for Nike.

Not known to many Filipino NBA followers, Pierce was stabbed 21 times in a Boston nightclub 25 days later (September 25, 2000) after figuring in an altercation with the brother of a woman with whom he was speaking. He was stabbed in the neck, chest and back. He also underwent surgery for collapsed lungs.

Pierce returned to Manila in June 2004 for a four-day stay.

Bryant has visited the Philippines on three occasions.

He was here in August 1998 as part of a promotional tour for Adidas.

A son of former NBA journeyman Joe (Jelly Bean) Bryant, the Lakers superstar returned to our beloved country in September 2007 and July 2009 (for one day) to promote his latest Nike brand of shoes each time.

Walton, a son of Hall of Fame center Bill Walton (who earned NBA title rings with Portland in 1977 and Boston in 1986), toured Manila in June 2005 as part of NBA Madness, an interactive basketball lifestyle event for fans. He came with Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic.

Here are some more facts and figures in NBA Finals history.

• Backcourt starters Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher each own four NBA titles (2000-02 and 2009) with the LA Lakers.
  
  Defense-minded forward Ron Artest, who is in his first-ever NBA Finals, is the only player on the Lakers’ 13-man playoff roster not to own a championship ring. The other 12 were members of the Lakers team that whipped the Orlando Magic, 4-1, in the 2009 Finals.
  
  
• Eight members of Boston’s 2008 NBA championship team are currently in the Celtics’ playoff lineup. They are starters Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins and substitutes Glen Davis, Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine (who has yet to appear in the postseason for the Green).
  
  
• Boston reserves Rasheed Wallace and Michael Finley hope to join the elite list of NBA players who have won a title with different franchises.
  
  Wallace was a starting forward on the Detroit Pistons’ 2004 NBA championship squad. In that year’s NBA Finals, the underdog Pistons scored a 4-1 decision over a Lakers unit that included superstars Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Karl Malone and Gary Payton.
  
  Finley played for the San Antonio Spurs during their most recent NBA title finish in 2007. To gain the fourth overall NBA championship in franchise history, the Spurs blanked LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
  
  
• No team in NBA Finals history has ever overcome a deficit of 3-1 or 3-0 to capture the championship series.
  
  
• Only once in a title series has a team won three consecutive games after being down three games to none.
  
  During the 1951 NBA Finals, the title-bound Rochester Royals (the predecessors of the Sacramento Kings) moved ahead, 3-0, against the New York Knicks. The Knicks, though, took the fourth, fifth and sixth games to force a decisive Game 7 in Rochester, where the Royals nailed the crown.
  
  
• In 1955, in the inaugural season of the 24-second shot clock rule, the Syracuse Nationals defeated the Fort Wayne (Indiana) Pistons in a seven-game series that saw the home team win each contest.
  
  It marked the first and only time that has happened in NBA Finals history. Syracuse took the first two and last two games while Fort Wayne grabbed the three middle contests.