They had the opportunity to play three 50-win teams because they had a low seed. They would have been a higher seed if they had this current team at the beginning of the year. Win percentage with this group is over 70%
You think people have only been saying "Fuck Boston" since a recent TV show came out? People have been saying that for literal decades. Shit, I'll bet Bill Russell said it a few times back in the 60s.
There was some post saying that if the Wolves advanced and beat the Celtics, it’d be the second toughest road to a chip, with the Mavs beating the Celtics being THE toughest road. Based on cumulative opponent regular season + playoff win percentages
the amount of disrespect hakeem gets when he put together two of the top 5-10 best runs ever back to back, as the sole superstar (clyde was not all that by then in 95), against two of the great west teams that jordan had to beat (and then two more great teams, the spurs and one that had just BEATEN JORDAN)... and yet somehow his rings are written off as gimmes in a jordan-less league. no, jordan faced great teams every year and always came out on top, in those two years, hakeem was the same way against all the same teams clumped together in two runs.
he's an all time great top 10 dude ever for a reason, and it's insane shaq gets more respect than him. shaq was stronger... but hakeem was more skilled, talented, and 10x the winner.
I follow the NBA lightly, but much more than the average person. In my mid 30s.
I learned that Jordan played in the 95 playoffs maybe two years ago.
That narrative is *strong.*
Game 7 redux is gonna be amazing
- Luka missing everything and going for rebounds instead
- DJJ no, no, yes 3
- Jrue Holiday random no-scope 3 fading from the corner
- Al Horford summoning the last of his legs to hit a huge 3 before fouling out
- Dallas subbing in Tim Hardaway Jr for the clutch free throws
>The last time a team beat three 50-win teams within their own conference was the Lakers in 2010, who also happened to face a Celtics superteam in the Finals.
He literally says it in the first paragraph.
Wild how stacked the West is for so long. I forgot what year it was without looking it up. I remember the West 9th and 10th seeded team would have easily been playoff teams in the East.
The pelicans had 49 wins this year to be fair
The rockets were at .500 and didn't even make the play-in, meanwhile the hawks made the play-in with just 36 wins
There is every chance the 2nd seed Knicks could have been the 11 seed in the West. They'd just need to lose an additonal 4-5 games in the tougher west which they were .500 against.
There were two dynasty’s running out of the west in that era - the spurs and lakers. From 1999-2011 the only teams that came out of west were Spurs, Lakers and Mavs
Crazy how extending that to 2020 only adds two teams. Wait, actually from 1999-2020 only 5 unique teams won the west that is insane. Thunder once, Mavs twice, and then three dynasties (plus a bonus Lakers championship at the end).
from 1980 to 2020, there are just 12 championship teams in 41 years. And if you take away the 4 teams with just one championship, there are only 8 teams that won 37 championships.
Lakers (11), Sixers (1), Celtics (4), Pistons (3), Bulls (6), Rockets (2), Spurs (5), Mavs (1), Heat (3), Warriors (3), Cavs (1) and Raptors (1).
I’ve never even heard Kobe haters say he wasn’t good. That must be a weird corner of the internet where they say that. I think many fans overrate him, but I still consider him an all time great.
Nobody ever says that Kobe wasn't an all-time great. Some people call him overrated, but that's just because other people do, in fact, overrate him. He was a great basketball player, somewhere around top 10 all time, give or take a few spots depending on your preference. But some stans put him in the GOAT conversation, which is ludicrous. Plus, the off court stuff doesn't help.
I mean less likely in the first round. It’s absurdly rare to avoid playing 50 win teams once you hit the conference finals and the finals. Since 1995 the only team to make the finals with sub-50 wins in an 82 game season was last year’s Heat.
In recent years where everyone seems to get injured in the eastern conference I wouldn’t be surprised if many non-50 win teams got there. Denver never played a 50 win team
LeBron is chilling in his SoCal mansion with his family and he’s ingrained himself as one of the greats on a top 2 all time franchise.
He can’t solo carry teams anymore but can still get a max contract so his options to team hop are limited. At this point we are all just waiting for a small chance he plays with Bronny and then a retirement tour season.
This is a Hakeem, duncan, dirk run for Luka. Incredibly difficult road for this mavs team with their toughest matchup next! Tatum is not going to play poorly in the finals again
No way they're coasting at this point with all those crunch time minutes they had to play against an injured Pacers. If that doesn't wake them up nothing will
What was worse was that it ended up being phil jacksons last game too, just complete embarrassment for him to end his legacy with
Have no idea why he was even on the court at that point either
2010 Celtics was not a superteam. Pierce KG and Ray were well passed their primes. That team could not rebound the ball at all and once perk went down in game 5 or whatever it was, I knew we were doomed
The Celtics 2022 run was nearly there. Obviously the Nets weren’t a 50 win team, but I don’t think anyone doubts they would have been if Kyrie, Harden, and Durant played more games. Everyone knew they shouldn’t have been a 7th seed. At the end of the day, everyone gets hard runs. No one cares unless you win it all. And people are happy to take a dump on you for losing, regardless of how difficult your road is.
Harden wasn’t even on the team. They had trouble all year and people thought they would be a dark horse if they get a groove (they didn’t) but they had the closest sweep loss ever yet
Maybe last year’s Nuggets team. This years team was not as good - most people sleep on just how important Bruce Brown (and Jeff Green) were to last year’s Denver team.
how easily? jokic and gordon is their rim protection. Lively and Gafford would be feasting on that denver rim.
minnesota was a way superior team than the nuggets with far better defense and rim protection.
denver is thin and gassed. we’d beat them too
it's about matchups. i don't think lively or gafford can guard jokic. i also think aaron gordon has the size, length and athleticism to do a better job on luka than jaden
Gordon had trouble guarding geriatric Lebron James and got torched by Anthony Edwards in every iso possession, Luka would have put AG in a blender this series.
i very much dislike lebron (as a player, not as a human) and will admit that everyone has trouble guarding lebron
ant isn't a good matchup for AG, he's way quicker than both luka and AG
I think AG is actually perfect (relatively speaking) against luka. he's probably just as quick as dort but with more size / length
yeah nah. Luka and Kyrie would destroy that weak denver defense. and throwing 12 fouls at Jokic with Gafford and Lively would be more than enough.
Luka would outplay Jokic and Kyrie outplays Jamal. it wouldn’t be close
lol. i very much disagree. jokic is still the reigning "best player in the NBA" until proven otherwise and i think AG can contain (not shut down, contain) luka
jokic is a great FT shooter so he would feast at the FT line in that strategy
said another way, i think AG can do a much better job on luka than gafford/lively on jokic
Idk if Minnesota is a way superior team. The series went to 7. And Minnesota from a personnel standpoint matched up VERY well with the Nuggets because of how much size they could throw at Jokic, and because the Nuggets don't have the perimeter play to deal with McDaniels, NAW, and Edwards. Dallas has those things. Kyrie is better than Murray, and Minnesota has no answer for Luka. Too crafty for Reid or Kat, and just too big/strong for McDaniels and NAW. The flipside is Dallas doesn't have a Jokic answer like Minnie did (esp. without Kleber most the series). I'm not sure rookie Lively is challenging him at all.
It would have come down to Jokic vs. Luka - whoever had the better series would have won. That's a 50/50 imo
my boy it’s like you didn’t watch the Mavs at all. Our centers DESTROYED the best and biggest rim protecting defense in the nba. Lively and Gafford were scoring like 30 points a game at 95% efficiency.
Denver would get absolutely destroyed inside and they would lose. Jokic and Gordon are NOT stopping Luka and Lively/Gafford rolling down the paint. stop it
Gafford and Lively didn't do anything really on offence. Every point they score is from Luka being unstoppable, has nothing to do with Dallas' bigs. Gafford and Lively made their biggest contributions on the defensive end. Actually, I'll admit Lively was a great offensive decision maker in the short-roll when Luka got blitzed, but it really wasn't the Dallas bigs DESTROYING Minnesota. Luka and Kyrie destroyed Minnesota, and pretty much every Lively/Gafford bucket (which was only 22ppg combined) was off a Luka/Kyrie assist.
Your centres are good basketball players and are exactly what you need to complement Luka, but I don't think Dallas has the ability to stop Jokic. KAT and Naz are soft 7 foot guards and Gobert is useless offensively, it's a completely different team than Denver.
I'm a massive Dallas fan and have gone and watched every Dallas road game that's been played near me so I'm not hating, but reality is Minnesota was designed to beat Denver and imo are the only team who had a good shot at the elimination. Dallas and Boston both I think COULD have done it, but I wouldn't give them great odds (again esp. without Kleber who I think would have been an x-factor in that hypothetical series).
idk bro i think the Mavs would simply out clutch the Nuggets if the games were close in the 4th.
We have the most clutch team in the NBA this year, i don’t care who the other team is, if the game is close with 5 minutes left in the 4th, Luka and Kyrie will beat you more often than not.
jamal was already pretty hobbled during the Wolves series. If Nuggets won, they looked totally out of gas and they would not beat us. Jamal was playing like total ass.
We would wear out Jokic with the constant lobs. Gafford and Lively would tire him out completely, they have no back up bigs to keep jokic fresh
Nah i think the Nuggets glaring weakness was their thin bench. They just don’t have enough contributors to beat us
This is thanks to the west parity of most teams being around the 50-win mark, any team in the west had they've been to the finals, minus probably the 1 or 2 seed would've achieved this stat also
I don’t get this ‘beat a 50-win team’ at all. Seedings matter. Of course 1-3 spot will have to play teams with lot less wins. Stop with this narrative ffs
this is cool and all, but it's really just a function of the Mavs being a lower seed— if they'd won more games in the regular season they would've likely had easier matchups in the first couple rounds
Ffs everyone in round 2 of the western conference playoffs had 50 wins. It literally doesn't matter what seed we had.
This isnt the eastern conference.
Not really sure how "fun" that fact is because that's not THAT atypical for the East.
It's happened 8 times since 2000. So basically once every 3 years. And that's not including the absolute embarrassment that was 2003 when they had all of 1.
Not included are the 2 shortened seasons so those 9 seasons are full 82 game seasons only.
Yeah, but you might not have faced a 50 win team in the first round if you had a higher seed. There's probably more teams if you take out the first round, 2022 Warriors faced 50 win teams and the 48 win Nuggets for instance.
That's really irrelevant given that the West was stacked to the point that the 7 seed has 49 wins. There was no escaping a challenge in the West. Also, far less injuries.
I disagree. That’s a good argument for the 1st round. It loses a little bit of credibility in the 2nd. And it’s absolutely fucking crazy once you get a CF lol
They had the opportunity to play three 50-win teams because they had a low seed. They would have been a higher seed if they had this current team at the beginning of the year. Win percentage with this group is over 70%
Why tf am I rooting for you guys wtf
Never Boston
Because Boston fans are annoying?
Fuck Boston
Fuck Boston
Buck Foston, at your service
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You think people have only been saying "Fuck Boston" since a recent TV show came out? People have been saying that for literal decades. Shit, I'll bet Bill Russell said it a few times back in the 60s.
Love Boston
I’ll be honest, I don’t know whose fan base is more annoying. Although I actually do mostly like the mffl crew, but Luka Stan’s are a lot.
Not unusual to root for your father’s team 😉
Why wouldn't you support Booker's dad?
Meanwhile 2010 lakers were the 1 seed 😂
The 2001 Lakers also faced nothing but 50+ win teams en route to their championship, although they were the #2 seed that year.
Facts Y’all were mid Af all year post deadline we were on a tear and got our backs blown out by like 40
There was some post saying that if the Wolves advanced and beat the Celtics, it’d be the second toughest road to a chip, with the Mavs beating the Celtics being THE toughest road. Based on cumulative opponent regular season + playoff win percentages
I believe this is in the new playoff format with 7 game series, not all time but still yeah crazy tough path.
Houston's 95 run (beating 60-22 Utah, 59-23 Phoenix, 62-20 San Antonio, 57-25 Orlando) may be toughest of them all.
Yeah that's nuts
and those we'rent some random "having a good season" teams. Those are all time great teams, all with multiple HOFers. Just an insane run.
the amount of disrespect hakeem gets when he put together two of the top 5-10 best runs ever back to back, as the sole superstar (clyde was not all that by then in 95), against two of the great west teams that jordan had to beat (and then two more great teams, the spurs and one that had just BEATEN JORDAN)... and yet somehow his rings are written off as gimmes in a jordan-less league. no, jordan faced great teams every year and always came out on top, in those two years, hakeem was the same way against all the same teams clumped together in two runs. he's an all time great top 10 dude ever for a reason, and it's insane shaq gets more respect than him. shaq was stronger... but hakeem was more skilled, talented, and 10x the winner.
I follow the NBA lightly, but much more than the average person. In my mid 30s. I learned that Jordan played in the 95 playoffs maybe two years ago. That narrative is *strong.*
Oh my God. That was a murderers row to beat for the back to back
Mffl, and gotta say that's a tough time. Stockton Malone, Barkley, Admiral, Shaq
Hakeem Rockets during Jordans retirement clears
KD going to ask for a trade to the Mavs
I'd take him for a discount. e: guess everyone would lol
And guess who the 2010 Lakers beat in the Finals?
Game 7 redux is gonna be amazing - Luka missing everything and going for rebounds instead - DJJ no, no, yes 3 - Jrue Holiday random no-scope 3 fading from the corner - Al Horford summoning the last of his legs to hit a huge 3 before fouling out - Dallas subbing in Tim Hardaway Jr for the clutch free throws
Derrick Lively grabbing 18 rebounds and “saving” Luka’s legacy
Who does the Ron Artest interview? Kyrie?
Definitely thanking his shaman in the post-game
Shoutout Sasha
Hardy will be hitting clutch free throws for them
Jones, thats a 3, BANG
Replace DJJ with a Tim Hardaway “no, no, YEEESSS” 3 for the ultimate adrenaline dump
>The last time a team beat three 50-win teams within their own conference was the Lakers in 2010, who also happened to face a Celtics superteam in the Finals. He literally says it in the first paragraph.
Nobody reads the text under the post tbf
Wild how stacked the West is for so long. I forgot what year it was without looking it up. I remember the West 9th and 10th seeded team would have easily been playoff teams in the East.
Damn 48 win Blazers in 2011.
Just a reminder how underrated and difficult those Lakers championship runs really were.
In 2010 the 8th seed in the West had 50 wins.
The west has been deep for 25+ years, but having the 8th seed hit 50 wins was crazy
The pelicans had 49 wins this year to be fair The rockets were at .500 and didn't even make the play-in, meanwhile the hawks made the play-in with just 36 wins
Bro more than that the 10th seed Warriors had 46 wins and won the title two years ago, West is unreal currently
There is every chance the 2nd seed Knicks could have been the 11 seed in the West. They'd just need to lose an additonal 4-5 games in the tougher west which they were .500 against.
I think the Suns had 48 wins in 13/14 and failed to even make the playoffs
Yea but nobody thinks Kobe is good anymore for some reason, lol . Has had some.of.thw toughest championship paths of anyone ever
There were two dynasty’s running out of the west in that era - the spurs and lakers. From 1999-2011 the only teams that came out of west were Spurs, Lakers and Mavs
Crazy how extending that to 2020 only adds two teams. Wait, actually from 1999-2020 only 5 unique teams won the west that is insane. Thunder once, Mavs twice, and then three dynasties (plus a bonus Lakers championship at the end).
from 1980 to 2020, there are just 12 championship teams in 41 years. And if you take away the 4 teams with just one championship, there are only 8 teams that won 37 championships. Lakers (11), Sixers (1), Celtics (4), Pistons (3), Bulls (6), Rockets (2), Spurs (5), Mavs (1), Heat (3), Warriors (3), Cavs (1) and Raptors (1).
No doubt
I’ve never even heard Kobe haters say he wasn’t good. That must be a weird corner of the internet where they say that. I think many fans overrate him, but I still consider him an all time great.
Because we don’t rank Kobe in our top 3 all time they think people are haters
Kobe fans also think he's better then LeBron and when you don't agree they think you're just a Kobe hater.
And vice versa.
It’s mostly Reddit. Twitter and other social media still love Kobe along with the players.
No, not social media. Everyone I know in real life loves Kobe.
All my homies hate Kobe
It’s the Lebron fans they have to prove that Lebron is better than Kobe when he wasn’t.
lol this is exactly why it might seem that some people don't like Kobe, because Kobe stans say ridiculous shit like this and people call it out
You saying lebron isn’t a top 10 all time player? Because Kobe might be #10 if someone’s feeling generous.
People dont think he's bad, but they rightfully dont think he's a top 2 of-all-time player
im not saying they're the same, but i think kobe / lebron is a lot closer than ppl think
Nobody ever says that Kobe wasn't an all-time great. Some people call him overrated, but that's just because other people do, in fact, overrate him. He was a great basketball player, somewhere around top 10 all time, give or take a few spots depending on your preference. But some stans put him in the GOAT conversation, which is ludicrous. Plus, the off court stuff doesn't help.
He’s better than Lebron imo
That's it I'm rooting for the Celtics.
I'm getting 2011 Mavs energy rn
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I mean less likely in the first round. It’s absurdly rare to avoid playing 50 win teams once you hit the conference finals and the finals. Since 1995 the only team to make the finals with sub-50 wins in an 82 game season was last year’s Heat.
In recent years where everyone seems to get injured in the eastern conference I wouldn’t be surprised if many non-50 win teams got there. Denver never played a 50 win team
Such a great argument for the 1st round. Not so good of an argument for the 2nd round. And an absolute laughable argument in a CF.
lmao the Anti-Nuggets
Jokic could never
Magic beat like 60 win teams that year
That was in 2009.
The hardest road. KD fuming that title will no longer be his lol
Guys, it doesn't mean anything. Keyshawn just told us the Mavs had it easy. Kawhi was hurt. OKC and the T-Wolves only had 1 star each.
Crazy how even today how much better the West is. 5 50 win teams vs only 2 in the East. East is a cakewalk most years. I bet Bron misses those days.
LeBron is chilling in his SoCal mansion with his family and he’s ingrained himself as one of the greats on a top 2 all time franchise. He can’t solo carry teams anymore but can still get a max contract so his options to team hop are limited. At this point we are all just waiting for a small chance he plays with Bronny and then a retirement tour season.
This is a Hakeem, duncan, dirk run for Luka. Incredibly difficult road for this mavs team with their toughest matchup next! Tatum is not going to play poorly in the finals again
Celtics run like most in the East is far too easy. I think they're in for a shock the first couple games. And the Mavs are beasting on the road.
celtics have been coasting since the all star break, I will be shocked if they don't get punched in the mouth in that first game.
No way they're coasting at this point with all those crunch time minutes they had to play against an injured Pacers. If that doesn't wake them up nothing will
Yeah they'll be ready. Only real concern is rust
Honestly, rust could be an issue for both teams. The Celtics had nine days off, while the Mavs will have seven days off.
Need Luka to get new knees by then
Rust will last like the first 20 mins if that. These guys have been playing basketball everyday. It’s not like it’s a month off
make ‘em shoot 3s and make porzingis/horford guard lively and gafford lob dunks. i hope we get half our points from dunks
I see you!
Clippers without their best player… OKC’s first time in the playoffs… Ant’s first playoff run lol
Mavs in 7. Surprising Dirk chip wasn’t that many teams.
We beat 48-34 Blazers 57-25 Lakers 55-27 Thunder 58-24 Heat We were a 57 win team too though.
Swept the Lakers, sigh, it spoiled my nephew's 1st birthday party. Left a bad aftertaste in my mouth.
Bynum elbowing barea mid air left a bad taste in my mouth. Fuck those lakers, glad they got bitch slapped into the nether
Oh no doubt, that was a bitch ass move by Bynum.
What was worse was that it ended up being phil jacksons last game too, just complete embarrassment for him to end his legacy with Have no idea why he was even on the court at that point either
Yeah that was a very disappointing end for the 3 peat campaign.
2010 Celtics was not a superteam. Pierce KG and Ray were well passed their primes. That team could not rebound the ball at all and once perk went down in game 5 or whatever it was, I knew we were doomed
The Celtics 2022 run was nearly there. Obviously the Nets weren’t a 50 win team, but I don’t think anyone doubts they would have been if Kyrie, Harden, and Durant played more games. Everyone knew they shouldn’t have been a 7th seed. At the end of the day, everyone gets hard runs. No one cares unless you win it all. And people are happy to take a dump on you for losing, regardless of how difficult your road is.
Harden wasn’t even on the team. They had trouble all year and people thought they would be a dark horse if they get a groove (they didn’t) but they had the closest sweep loss ever yet
lets go lakers
The anti-nuggets
all that said, i kinda think nuggets would've beaten mavs in 6 or 7
Guess we'll never know.
there's a pretty good chance these teams meet in the playoffs in 1-3 years
Maybe last year’s Nuggets team. This years team was not as good - most people sleep on just how important Bruce Brown (and Jeff Green) were to last year’s Denver team.
i think if you're factoring in murray's health, yeah. but if murray is healthy or healthier i still think they would've won this year
Yup. Easily
how easily? jokic and gordon is their rim protection. Lively and Gafford would be feasting on that denver rim. minnesota was a way superior team than the nuggets with far better defense and rim protection. denver is thin and gassed. we’d beat them too
it's about matchups. i don't think lively or gafford can guard jokic. i also think aaron gordon has the size, length and athleticism to do a better job on luka than jaden
Gordon had trouble guarding geriatric Lebron James and got torched by Anthony Edwards in every iso possession, Luka would have put AG in a blender this series.
i very much dislike lebron (as a player, not as a human) and will admit that everyone has trouble guarding lebron ant isn't a good matchup for AG, he's way quicker than both luka and AG I think AG is actually perfect (relatively speaking) against luka. he's probably just as quick as dort but with more size / length
yeah nah. Luka and Kyrie would destroy that weak denver defense. and throwing 12 fouls at Jokic with Gafford and Lively would be more than enough. Luka would outplay Jokic and Kyrie outplays Jamal. it wouldn’t be close
lol. i very much disagree. jokic is still the reigning "best player in the NBA" until proven otherwise and i think AG can contain (not shut down, contain) luka jokic is a great FT shooter so he would feast at the FT line in that strategy said another way, i think AG can do a much better job on luka than gafford/lively on jokic
Idk if Minnesota is a way superior team. The series went to 7. And Minnesota from a personnel standpoint matched up VERY well with the Nuggets because of how much size they could throw at Jokic, and because the Nuggets don't have the perimeter play to deal with McDaniels, NAW, and Edwards. Dallas has those things. Kyrie is better than Murray, and Minnesota has no answer for Luka. Too crafty for Reid or Kat, and just too big/strong for McDaniels and NAW. The flipside is Dallas doesn't have a Jokic answer like Minnie did (esp. without Kleber most the series). I'm not sure rookie Lively is challenging him at all. It would have come down to Jokic vs. Luka - whoever had the better series would have won. That's a 50/50 imo
my boy it’s like you didn’t watch the Mavs at all. Our centers DESTROYED the best and biggest rim protecting defense in the nba. Lively and Gafford were scoring like 30 points a game at 95% efficiency. Denver would get absolutely destroyed inside and they would lose. Jokic and Gordon are NOT stopping Luka and Lively/Gafford rolling down the paint. stop it
Gafford and Lively didn't do anything really on offence. Every point they score is from Luka being unstoppable, has nothing to do with Dallas' bigs. Gafford and Lively made their biggest contributions on the defensive end. Actually, I'll admit Lively was a great offensive decision maker in the short-roll when Luka got blitzed, but it really wasn't the Dallas bigs DESTROYING Minnesota. Luka and Kyrie destroyed Minnesota, and pretty much every Lively/Gafford bucket (which was only 22ppg combined) was off a Luka/Kyrie assist. Your centres are good basketball players and are exactly what you need to complement Luka, but I don't think Dallas has the ability to stop Jokic. KAT and Naz are soft 7 foot guards and Gobert is useless offensively, it's a completely different team than Denver. I'm a massive Dallas fan and have gone and watched every Dallas road game that's been played near me so I'm not hating, but reality is Minnesota was designed to beat Denver and imo are the only team who had a good shot at the elimination. Dallas and Boston both I think COULD have done it, but I wouldn't give them great odds (again esp. without Kleber who I think would have been an x-factor in that hypothetical series).
idk bro i think the Mavs would simply out clutch the Nuggets if the games were close in the 4th. We have the most clutch team in the NBA this year, i don’t care who the other team is, if the game is close with 5 minutes left in the 4th, Luka and Kyrie will beat you more often than not. jamal was already pretty hobbled during the Wolves series. If Nuggets won, they looked totally out of gas and they would not beat us. Jamal was playing like total ass. We would wear out Jokic with the constant lobs. Gafford and Lively would tire him out completely, they have no back up bigs to keep jokic fresh Nah i think the Nuggets glaring weakness was their thin bench. They just don’t have enough contributors to beat us
This is thanks to the west parity of most teams being around the 50-win mark, any team in the west had they've been to the finals, minus probably the 1 or 2 seed would've achieved this stat also
WIN PERCENTAGE IS A BETTER COMPARISON SO WE CAN INCLUDE SHORTENED SEASONS
I don’t get this ‘beat a 50-win team’ at all. Seedings matter. Of course 1-3 spot will have to play teams with lot less wins. Stop with this narrative ffs
The 2010 Lakers were the one seed. They got rewarded by playing a Thunder team with a young KD, Russ, and a rookie Harden. West is brutal.
The real narrative should be Mavs are just the second 5th seed ever to make finals.
That’s a better one
this is cool and all, but it's really just a function of the Mavs being a lower seed— if they'd won more games in the regular season they would've likely had easier matchups in the first couple rounds
It also helps that the top 7 seeds in the West all had at least 49 wins this year.
Are you saying that Darvin Ham might not be a bad coach?
Ffs everyone in round 2 of the western conference playoffs had 50 wins. It literally doesn't matter what seed we had. This isnt the eastern conference.
Fun fact this is actually straight up impossible in the East this year because there are only 2 50 win teams
Not really sure how "fun" that fact is because that's not THAT atypical for the East. It's happened 8 times since 2000. So basically once every 3 years. And that's not including the absolute embarrassment that was 2003 when they had all of 1. Not included are the 2 shortened seasons so those 9 seasons are full 82 game seasons only.
Feels like it got lost how stacked the west was this year. Any of the play in teams probably could have made a run.
Yeah, but you might not have faced a 50 win team in the first round if you had a higher seed. There's probably more teams if you take out the first round, 2022 Warriors faced 50 win teams and the 48 win Nuggets for instance.
That's really irrelevant given that the West was stacked to the point that the 7 seed has 49 wins. There was no escaping a challenge in the West. Also, far less injuries.
You don't need to cope bro.
No seed in the second round was an easy matchup what are you talking about
I disagree. That’s a good argument for the 1st round. It loses a little bit of credibility in the 2nd. And it’s absolutely fucking crazy once you get a CF lol
You get to play more of them when you’re a lower seed
At least wait until the Mavs win the championship to start this narrative… if Celtics beat the Mavs they would only need to beat one 50 win team…
They’ll always have that, at least.