NBA Finals: The Golden State Warriors…Lucky?!?
By Yoni Pollak
First of all, congratulations and much props need to be given to the Golden State Warriors. They were dominant all season long and deserving the of winning the NBA Finals.
Now that we got that out of the way…
Let’s talk about their road to the NBA Finals. The Warriors dominated the regular season. They lost just 15 times all year long and had a whopping 11-game lead on the #2 seeded Houston Rockets. They were simply outstanding from opening tip of the regular season until the clock hit 0.0 in mid-April.
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You see, I gave them credit. What you haven’t seen yet, and what I’m about to do…get ready… is call them lucky. They’re not mutually exclusive. You can be both dominant and lucky. As a matter of fact, most teams need that equation to win championships. It’s a recipe that often needs both ingredients to come out as victors.
The Warriors never had a major injury. You knock out Stephen Curry and this team’s win total is likely in the 50’s. You knock out Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, or even Andrew Bogut, and there’s likely a very similar effect.
If you look at the rest of the Western Conference, we see that almost every other team had big injuries. The #2-seeded Rockets, they lost Dwight Howard for exactly half the season. Starters Terrence Jones (33 games) and Patrick Beverley (56) games also missed huge chunks of the season. As a matter of fact, the Rockets only played with their projected starting lineup TWICE the entire season. Yup, the first two games of the season and that’s it.
The #3-seeded Clippers missed their second superstar for a little more than a month down the stretch. The Trail Blazers were without their key role player, Wesley Matthews, from the 60-game point all the way until the end of their playoff run. The Grizzlies were without Zach Randolph, Mike Conley, and Tony Allen for small stretches of the season.
We look towards the bottom of the West and it didn’t get better. Besides Boris Diaw, Tim Duncan, and Cory Joseph, no other Spur played in more than 73 games for them. The 2014 Finals MVP, Kawhi Leonard, missed 18 games this season while Tony Parker missed 14. The Mavericks were effectively done when Chandler Parsons‘ back gave him issues. The Pelicans were also beat up by injuries all season long with only two starters (Omer Asik and Tyreke Evans) playing in more than 70 games this season.
Call it skill, call it a championship-caliber trainer’s group, or call it basketball gods. I’m going to call it lucky.
Now let’s look at the playoffs.
The Pelicans were never expected to win the series and didn’t really come close, save for that game 3 almost win. They fought hard, were relatively healthy, but the Warriors were the better team. An expected series win.
The Grizzlies presented the Warriors with a tougher challenge, even coming out of game 3 with a 2-1 series lead. However, Tony Allen, a crucial member of the Grizzlies and a 1st team All Defense player, was only able to play 16 minutes in game 4, missed all of game 5, and only 5:29 in game 6. Why? Injuries. Allen’s absence cost them a chance at the series.
And then the Western Conference Finals. The Rockets came into the series with healthy active players, but without two key players in Patrick Beverley and Donatas Motiejunas. Those two would have been HUGE in the series, specifically in games 1 and 2, when the Warriors won by 4 points and 1 point respectively. Beverley’s defense would have been crucial in both games as Curry went bonkers. Motiejunas would have had a large impact when Terrence Jones struggled all game one, and Josh Smith struggled all game two.
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The NBA Finals had a similar story. The Cavaliers three-headed monster was down to one as both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love had to watch from the sidelines. LeBron did his best to put his team on his back, and somehow was able to pull away with two impressive wins, but it was not enough as the Warriors took them in six.
Again, I don’t mean to drag on the Warriors season. From start to finish they were dominant. They made NBA fans believers in them quickly as they splashed their way to convincing wins early and the season and never took their feet off the gas pedal.
They were fantastic. They were extremely exciting to watch, played great basketball, and deserving of the ring. But they were also lucky.
Let’s just call it as it is.
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