Are The Golden State Warriors An All-Time Great Team?

The Postseason Run

In the postseason, the Warriors weren’t quite as blow-your-hair-back fantastic as they were during the regular season. They compiled a 16-5 record in the postseason and were never taken to a Game 7, but their elite point differential dipped to +7.8, they lost two of their 10 games at home and in two of their four playoff series, they actually trailed 2-1 at one point.

That being said, the Warriors also brought the first NBA championship to the Bay Area in 40 years with Klay Thompson virtually disappearing in the Finals. That’s not a bad accomplishment in and of itself.

Even though they weren’t as dominant as they were in the regular season, the Warriors were still the most impressive team in the postseason, even if they hadn’t won the title. Keep in mind, to get to the Finals, Golden State had to traverse through one of the most brutal Western terrains the NBA has seen in quite some time.

In other words, if you’re trying to take away from the Warriors because they had such great injury luck or because they avoided the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference playoffs, you’re missing the point.

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In the first round, the Warriors swept a tougher than advertised New Orleans Pelicans team, which was led by a player just as likely to devour a galaxy as he was to drop 30 points (Anthony Davis). In the second round, they faced a Memphis Grizzlies team that had the second best record in the West for most of the season.

In the Western Conference Finals, they handled the second seeded Houston Rockets, a resilient team that hit its stride at the perfect time and was spearheaded by the MVP runner-up, James Harden. In the Finals, though the Cleveland Cavaliers were missing Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, those All-Star absences actually boosted their defense and forced them to play a style of basketball that actually worked quite effectively as Warrior krypotnite for the first three games of the series.

Plus, the Cavs had the world’s greatest basketball player who put up 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game for the series. And even with that brutal path to the championship, the Dubs still had the best point differential, best defensive rating (97.4) and second best offensive rating (106.4) among all playoff teams.

The Dubs didn’t come close to the “Fo’ Fo’ Fo’ Fo'” feat that we keep waiting to see whenever a truly elite contender comes around, but with such a young roster, we might need to cut them some slack. To this point, neither Curry nor Thompson nor Green nor Harrison Barnes nor Andrew Bogut had ever made it past the conference semifinals in the playoffs. That’s Golden State’s entire starting five.

Furthermore, not a single player on the Warriors’ roster had ever played in an NBA Finals before, making them the first team to fit that qualification since Michael Jordan’s Bulls back in 1990-91. Those Bulls went on to win six titles in eight years and become the NBA’s greatest modern dynasty. Just saying.

Next: Uniqueness