NBA playoffs 2017

[PAOerfulone]

Nuvendil said:

PAOerfulone said:

Because last night, the Cavs were hounding Curry like a dog and were all over him the entire night. They were cool with Durant going off the way he did, but they absolutely refused to let Curry go off, which is the way every team tries to play the Warriors. Because everything the Warriors do starts with Stephen Curry. Coincidence that when Steph went off in Game 3 of the WCF, the Warriors utterly destroyed the Rockets by over 40 points. Or Game 7 when Steph went off in the 3rd quarter, that was the end of it? Or Game 2 in this series when he broke the record and lit the Cavs up like a Christmas tree in the 4th quarter, it took a relatively respectable, striking distance game, and turned it into a blowout.
He's the engine that makes them GO.
And I kind of can't take Durant seriously as an alpha male/leader of a team when he joined the team, led by Stephen Curry, that beat him after he was leading them 3-1 with Russell Westbrook.

I can't take any of the big 4 seriously.  Durant because of what you stated and the other three because for two finals in a row now they have needed Durant to change their diapers when they crapped the bed in a critical game.  Said it before, will say it again, no Durant, no 2017 ring.  Cause all the same flaws that were exploited in their 2016 loss persist and outside Durant they have improved none.  They just have Durant to cover for them when they screw up.

BullShit with two capitals. 

The flaw the Warriors had in 2016 was their HEALTH. They weren't 100%. If they had all their pieces in 2016, they would have closed that series and won back-to-back titles. It took Draymond Green getting suspended, Andrew Bogut (their starting center and defensive anchor) getting injured in Game 5, the same game Draymond was suspended, and sitting the rest of the series, Iguodala suffering back spasms, and Steph already being injured for the Cavs to manage the comeback and just barely win Game 7 at the last minute to pull it off. If Draymond doesn't get suspended, if Bogut or one of those guys were healthy, if just one or two of those things went the Warriors' way, they would have finished the repeat. Because when both rosters were complete and healthy, the 2016 Cavaliers were absolutely no match for the 2016 Warriors.

Curry and Thompson were just as subpar and below average in the first two games of that series as they were in Game 3, and the Warriors blew the Cavs out of the building in those first two games because while they didn't have Durant, they had a deep, deep, DEEP roster of skilled and smart veterans coming off the bench that could step up and get the job done. Their bench/supporting cast wasn't just Iguodala and Livingston + whoever decides to show up on certain nights. Leandro Barbosa, Marreese Speights, Brandon Rush, Harrison Barnes, Festus Ezeli, Ian Clark, and Andrew Bogut. They were a strong 11-12 guys deep. You can't compare that cast to Nick Young, Jordan Bell, Zaza Pachulia, Patrick McCaw, Kevon Looney, JaVale McGee, and David West and say they are even. There is no comparison. The former supporting cast FAR exceed the latter. I'll take that supporting cast all day, every day, over this one.
The narrative is has become so popular that Durant joined the 73 win team. 
But what everyone continues to fail to realize is; this is not the same team. They had to give up every last one of those guys, minus Clark, just to get him. That leads to a total makeover of the team, and new chemistry that has to be figured out.  It also created a problem with their depth that was exploited by Houston in the last series when Iguodala went down.

If there was no Durant in 2017, hard to say on who would have won that series, or if that would have been the series in the first place with how strong the Spurs and Rockets were last year. But they'd still have the same exact team that won 73 games and likely healthy, coming off back-to-back titles. Making them the automatic favorites. I can say that much.

Last edited by PAOerfulone - on 08 June 2018