Skip Bayless said “Shannon you picked them, and they self destructed”.
1st round: They swept KD and Kyrie. A team that the Bucks and other teams wanted to avoid playing in the 1st round. Smart even said they wanted to face them and did not want to duck/dodge no one and said they would eventually have to see them in the playoffs so they may as well just get them outta the way.
2nd round: No Middlleton for the Bucks but everyone else was there. Went to 7 games, and they won a Game 6 at Milwaukee who were still the reigning defending champs. Holiday did make big defensive plays in Game 5, but they blew them out in Games 6 & 7.
3rd round: They couldn’t stop Butler when he had those big games, but managed to find a way to win. The Heat could have also made the Finals that year, they were also knocking on the door.
Finals: Now the first 4 games, we could tell that no team had the advantage. They came back from being down or something if I remember. Then JT just shrank I guess. How do they do all of that in the previous rounds, and just not show up vs the Warriors? Was it just based on experience, or maybe fatigue?
I don’t think that the team was built to win that year, they were a couple of years too early for their own good. That first round series was a couple of shots missed from going the other direction. I think that you might be revisionist in your perception of that second round series, I think anybody watching that series knew it was Celtics vs Giannis, that became even more abundantly clear in games 6 and 7. Game 7 of the ECF against the Heat ended with Jimmy Butler missing a 3 that could have changed the outcome. I never saw them as favorites in most of their series.
This year however they do seem to have a lot of tools available to take it all, they probably have the best defensive back court in the league, their bench is their weakest point and I would like for them to maybe move Horford for a usable big. Horford turns 38 at the end of the year and if they have him at the 5 he will be getting abused all year by bigger guys for sure, will he be able to withstand all the minutes they will demand from him during the regular season and then carry that into the postseason.
Also the Warriors were better at that point, their players just unlocked themselves, like who the fuck would have thought Wiggins was going to show up that huge in the playoffs when his track record in the playoffs before playing with the Warriors was nonexistent with the Wolves.