I think it’s so noticeable this year because of the varying levels of team strength, though. The NBA Playoffs — moreso than any other sport — can be extremely deterministic in that the better team almost always wins, due to a number of factors (the game of basketball is played with a high number of individual…

Yep. He played like a giant among dwarfs in game 3, for sure. It was as if he was just picking up where he’d left off from last year’s Finals.

Yup. What’s also disheartening is — as is pointed out in this article — the US was getting manhandled prior to Dempsey’s goal on the PK. I shudder to think of how the rest of the game would’ve gone had the US not gotten the confidence-booster/sigh-of-relief goal from the penalty. I’m not sure that the US was really tha…

I don’t think the 76ers are better than a paper bag, let alone Spain.

I mean, a significant portion of the Miami crowd left in the last minute of Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, during a close game with their team down 5. Fans are weird.

It’s not just the fact that Love barely sniffs “average” defense on his best days, it’s also just a terrible matchup for the Cavs. I don’t think that there’s another team in the league outside of GSW that can punish Love’s awful defense and expose him so completely. The entirety of their small-ball identity and the…

So, what’s the over/under on the Cavs being better without him and his horrible D (he’s trying, but he’s really not at all good, and the Warriors are straight-up abusing him) and actually winning more than one game this series?

Curt Schilling would disagree with you.

Not to mention they beat a fucking historically-great 67-win team along the way to the conference finals.

But this is my exact point. Cowherd’s take is reducing his abilities to nothing more than a sharpshooter — which isn’t true at all, and undersells the gravity he draws just as a shooting threat, whether or not he’s hitting shots.

Not that Burneko’s take was particularly great, but this is just stupid. You’re left with a guy that is extremely good at driving to the rim/finishing around the rim, backdoor cuts and screens, phenomenal passes, and someone that even when his shot is off, bends the defense towards him. That take is garbage and fails…

I think they’ve gotten better about it this year, for sure. But all the way to the ‘chip last season, it was really odd to not hear a single mention of Oakland.

“Lucky road” — sorry, I’m not a Golden State fan, and even I think that’s BS. Pretty much every champion has needed luck along the way — a suspension here or there, crazy owner/team scandal, missed or blown call by a ref, or of course, injuries — to hoist the trophy. Golden State played the competition in front of…

Haha. It’ll be in the Finals, don’t worry, the collapse has to happen on the biggest stage possible.

I agree — I grew up in the Bay, moved away a few years ago after college for work. I understand that’s how the team sells itself, but it really seems like once they move to SF, they’ll just stop acknowledging their history in Oakland altogether.

Except that it’s not at all the same connotation.

I think Durant/Westbrook against Kyrie/LeBron (because I don’t see the Raptors beating them to make the Finals) will be entertaining enough. But yeah, I’m worried too.

Charles Barkley abandoned the “jump shooting teams don’t win championships” mantra after the Warriors won last year. And no — flaming out in the WCF against a Thunder team that looks like the most dangerous 3-seeded team in years after they just took down a historically-great 67-win Spurs team does not validate…

Between Super Saiyan Westbrook and the Durantula out in full force, this series has been a joyous revelation to behold.

Don’t forget about Andre Roberson. The dude was legitimately unplayable on the offensive end of the floor, left for dead until Game 3 of this series, and last night he had a stat line that looks like it had been swapped with Draymond’s. The Ibaka turnaround on defense has been surprising — he hasn’t looked this good…