Winning Time Cancelled At HBO

Winning Time's championship run is over: HBO has cancelled the 1980s basketball drama after two seasons, TVLine has learned. Sunday's Season 2 finale will now serve as a series finale.

Following the rise of the L.A. Lakers to NBA dominance in the '80s, Winning Time starred John C. Reilly as brash new team owner Jerry Buss, with Quincy Isaiah playing superstar point guard Magic Johnson. After Magic and the Lakers won the NBA title in Season 1 (which aired on HBO last year), they faced a new challenge in Season 2 in Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics, with the season covering three NBA seasons from 1981 to 1984.

Adrien Brody co-starred as Lakers coach Pat Riley, with Jason Segel as Riley's predecessor Paul Westhead and Jason Clarke as Lakers executive Jerry West. Solomon Hughes played Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with Sean Patrick Small as Bird and Hadley Robinson as Jerry Buss' daughter Jeanie. Max Borenstein served as co-creator, writer, executive producer and showrunner.

The cancellation is especially tough after Sunday's Season 2 finale, which saw the Lakers go down in defeat to Bird and the Celtics in the 1984 NBA Finals. A final montage informed us that the Lakers went on to beat the Celtics two of the next three years in the Finals... but unfortunately, we won't get to see their eventual triumph dramatized on HBO.

Borenstein alluded to the abrupt ending in a post mourning the cancellation on Sunday night: "Not the ending that we had in mind. But nothing but gratitude and love."

TVLine's Cable Scorecard has been updated to reflect the news. Were you hoping to hoop it up more with Winning Time? Hit the comments to share your thoughts on the cancellation.