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Or take the Warriors, who completed one sport higher than the Lakers. Their common season was warped by a number of components: prolonged absences by Stephen Curry (26 video games missed) and Andrew Wiggins (45 video games); an ill-fated effort to offer main roles to their youngest gamers, and a wonky street document (11-30) that continues to be inexplicable. However they ultimately bought wholesome, deserted the youth motion, reacquired a key veteran (Gary Payton II), and located their footing in time for the playoffs. They had been a unique workforce by the point they “upset” the third-seeded Sacramento Kings—a workforce with nearly zero playoff expertise on the roster.
Or take the Warmth, who appeared like colossal underachievers once they gained simply 44 video games this season—a nine-game dropoff from their (conference-best) document the prior season. Their underwhelming season was due partially to the lengthy absences of Jimmy Butler (18 video games), Tyler Herro (15 video games) and Kyle Lowry (27 video games). And Miami, too, added a key participant midseason: the veteran Kevin Love, who was signed in late February (after being minimize by Cleveland) and is now entrenched as a starter.
Miami was a a lot sounder workforce by mid-April. Nonetheless, the Warmth misplaced their first play-in sport (to Atlanta), dropping them to the eighth seed, the place they had been anticipated to get rolled by the Bucks. True, Milwaukee misplaced Antetokounmpo for 2 video games within the sequence (to a again harm), however the already-thin Warmth misplaced their second-best scorer (Herro) and a key playmaker (Victor Oladipo) within the sequence, and beat the Bucks in 5 video games—with Antetokounmpo on the court docket for the finale.
Nonetheless, these obvious underdogs simply aren’t the identical groups that meandered via the common season. Nor are the Phoenix Suns, who made a blockbuster commerce for famous person Kevin Durant in early February…then bought simply eight regular-season video games out of him because of harm. The Suns have discovered their stride within the postseason, ousting the Clippers in 5 video games, then rebounding from a 2-0 deficit to tie their second-round sequence in opposition to the Denver Nuggets within the second spherical. (Till chaos agent Nikola Jokic gave his Nuggets a 3-2 lead.)
In an alternate universe—the place the Lakers repair their roster in October, the Suns have Durant all season, the Warmth keep wholesome and the Warriors keep complete—these groups nearly actually end within the prime 4 of their conferences. (You may say the identical for the injury-riddled Clippers, who performed a lot of the season with out Kawhi Leonard and/or Paul George.) Which might make all of them favorites, not scrappy upstarts.
Oh, and the way about this: How totally different would these playoffs look had the Brooklyn Nets, a believable title contender, not been pressured to commerce their two superstars (Durant to Phoenix, Irving to Dallas) at midseason?
Why, precisely, is all this occurring proper now? Begin with the play-in event, a latest innovation that, amongst different issues, has muddled the postseason. With out it, the Warmth would have been the seventh seed, pitting them in opposition to a deeper, harder Celtics workforce, and the Hawks would have been first-round fodder for the Bucks, who would nearly actually nonetheless be taking part in now. Budenholzer would nonetheless be teaching. Giannis wouldn’t, as of but, have been moved to philosophize concerning the which means of “failure.”
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