Last year the Golden State Warriors went down 2-1 against both Memphis and Cleveland before winning. This year is different against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
As the Oklahoma City Thunder have taken a 3-1 lead against the Golden State Warriors, only one game in the series has even been close, the first game which the Thunder won by six points.
The next three games have been blowouts, the Warriors won Game 2 by 27 points before then being systematically dismantled by the Thunder by 28 points in Game 3 and by 24 points in game 4.
Last season against the Memphis Grizzlies in the second round of the playoffs, Golden State went down 2-1 before being able to shift around on defense, playing small ball and winning the next three games.
It was the same in the NBA Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers, riding on the back of LeBron James, took two games of the first three games before Steve Kerr made the big change, replacing Andrew Bogut with Andre Iguodala, and slowing James down enough to win the series.
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Now, this is where the point of difference is from last season. The Warriors were able to make that change onto James, and with no disrespect intended to the rest of the Cleveland team, this was enough to win the series.
For me, this brings up the question of would Cleveland won the title with a healthy Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving. Love had a shoulder injury thanks to an arm lock up with Kelly Olynyk, causing him to miss the rest of the playoffs.
Then Irving went down with his knee injury.
Had they of been healthy, would the Warriors have been able to make the lineup changes and win the title? We will never know and history tells us that Golden State are the 2014-15 champions.
You can only play the people who take the court against you and Golden State was better than Cleveland in that series.
Now, IÂ also do not want to take anything away from this Golden State team, their 73-win season tells us that they are a side who history will remember as being one of the best.
This series against Oklahoma City, however, is an entirely different story. Billy Donovan has already shown us that give him a series against an opponent who has re-written the history books and he will work out a way to compete and against the San Antonio Spurs, win the series.
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Oklahoma City has taken a 3-1 lead in the series. There would be no celebrating yet, however. The Warriors are so good that you cannot take them for granted. They have the talent and ability to take the next three games, there is no question about that.
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson cannot be written off until the fourth game is won.
How is it that Oklahoma City has not been able to be stopped by Golden State? Two superstars, not one.
Where Cleveland only had James, again, I mean no disrespect to Matthew Dellavedova, Tristan Thompson or Iman Shumpert, but none of them have the ability to hurt you like Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook have.
Durant has been important all series long, his 28.5 points per game are the most by any player on either team. Durant also has been everywhere on rebounds, collecting 8.75 per game.
Westbrook has been equally good. Second in the series for the Thunder, scoring 27.25 points per game, and leading the series with assists with an awesome 11.75 per game, Westbrook is also leading the series with 3.75 steals per game.
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These two superstars, doing what they are meant to for the team allows for the role players to step up.
is having another amazing playoff series with 11.0 points per game and 8.5 rebounds per game.
Serge Ibaka is also putting in 11.25 points per game and 8.5 rebounds per game, keeping the Golden State defense from being able to collapse on any one player.
As a team, Oklahoma City has out rebounded Golden State 196 – 167 in the series. The stat tells me that the Golden State shot is not falling and Oklahoma City have been good enough to keep them from getting many second chance points.
Durant and Westbrook have also been hiding their teammates deficiencies and keeping them on the court longer to do their role.
Who would have thought that Andre Roberson would have been able to play more than 40 minutes against Golden State in Game 4 and get a double-double with 17 points and 12 rebounds.
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Now the series moves back to Oracle Arena, a game that you would expect Golden State to win despite the past two results. However, if they don’t come out with something a little bit different, it is probable that Okalhoma City is moving onto the NBA Finals this week.
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