[Western Conference Finals] (1)Golden State vs. (3)Oklahoma City

You don't need a reliable supporting cast with Durant, he's that damn good. Rockets without Dwight>>>>>>OKC without KD. A line up of KD/Harden with the guys we already have on the roster is champion material already.

 

Seriously. I can't quote myself quoting Kwame enough. How many people put themselves out there and hit like this? Winner effing winner.

 

Unbelievable game by the MVP steph curry. he single handedly kept them in the game in the first half, by making huge buckets or creating easy baskets in the pick and roll. urthermore he got Thompson going by setting him up on several wide open three pointers in the scond quarter after thompson started out cold.

Then the inferno that was the third quarter and of course the clutch baskets and answers in the th. Steph literally made the biggest or toughest shots look possible if not inevitable and for the first time since the third quarter of game 2, looked like the MVP version of himself.

Despite losing the series and blowing a 3-1 lead, I thought OKC for much of the series was the better "team." Their defense, length and athleticism dominated the warriors for much of the series. The individual talents of Durant, Westbrook, Adams and Ibaka was in many ways far superior to GS. The only problem was, in the closing quarters, minutes and under pressure, Curry, Iggy, Thompson and the warriors were just superior. Curry/Thompson continually made incredible shots against great defense. Iggy/Draymond and others played with grit/poise and unrelenting confidence as the pressure increased.

OKC proved that they can be a great team, first by defeating the 67 wins spurs and pushing the 73 win Warriors to the brink. If Durant stays in OKC, with another year under donovan, & the experiences gained, they have the potential to be the best team in the NBA next year.

But lastly, Curry reminded the NBA once again, why he is the MVP and why the warriors are the best team in the NBA.

 

LOL ridiculous
Okc supporting cast(minus Westbrook) is much better than the Rockets supporting cast (minus Harden)

Right now we're not even sure Harden > Westbrook

 

You seem to be ignoring the primary reason, OKC was able to beat the Spurs and nearly beat the Warriors, and that is defense and athleticism. Their length, athleticism and speed allowed them to switch, congest and deter in the paint as well as on the perimeter.

I've watched nearly every minute of every warriors game and nearly half of the spurs games and seldom have I've seen their offense that constricted for that long of a period.

Yes Durant is an amazing player. But merely putting him with Harden would not make the Rockets championship material. They'd also need Ariza to regain his 2014 defense, Beverley to stop getting injure and improve, as well as a 4 and a 5, aside from Beasley and Capella.

 

Sorry if this has been mentioned already, but I think the series turnaround boils down to rebounding. The last couple of games they were basically even on the boards, which is a real change from their earlier meetings.

What the Heck did the W's do to turn that around, or were the Thunder just gassed?

 

Well the Thunder bricked so many shots in the last few games that maybe there were simply more rebounds for the Warriors to grab.

Really it came down to the inconsistent and occasionally awful play by Durant and Westbrook, the inability of anyone to hit an outside shot(they were looking like a bunch of Brewers out there), and countless blown layups in the 2nd half of Game 7.

 

Not just rebounding imo, Warriors schooled OKC in every facette of the game in last night's 2nd half. They're clearly a tier above OKC and a much better functioning team (OKC went complete hero-ball mode in the 4th and chucked up horrible shots, while GSW always moved the ball).

 

You can't spell CHOKE without the letters O K and C

 

Who cares about the cast without Harden and WB? Rockets obtained players who fit with Harden so obv they would suck without him, guys like Bev and Ariza and Brewer are specialists and only work well when you have a dominant offensive presence like Harden.

As for WB> Harden that only happens in 1-on-1 contest. Thankfully though bball is a team game and there is no indication WB leads to more wins than Harden, the only chance he had to show everyone what he's got his team failed to get to the playoffs and OKC lost more games than they won whenever WB exceeds 40 pts. WB is not a player conducive to winning, the only reason OKC has been a contender all this time is KD has been around to do the actual winning games thing, WB just keeps putting empty stats which has all these anti-analytics crowd salivating with his hero-ball antics. They hate Curry who shoots 3 pts at an efficient clip but just love Westbrick bricking iso-ing and bricking shot after shot and freezing out his obviously better teammate. 7-21 ftw! To add insult to injury apart from clanging all over the place he couldn't even guard Curry properly and let him go off and hit daggers during game 6.

How is WB vs Harden even a question? Harden gets his team to the playoffs every single damn time WB can't even do that on his own.

 

Defense is due to coaching, Spurs had one of the best defensive teams during the season and they're one of the least athletic teams in the league since everyone is so old already and guys like Parker and LMA aren't known for D. Not sure how defense would work out under D'Antoni but the offense of having KD and Harden in his offensive system would put us on the same level as GSW...maybe more since Harden is a way better shooter than WB.

Just look at OKC last year without KD, they were lottery material. This year they almost made the Finals and the only addition was a healthy KD. He makes everyone better, and if he chooses HOuston he's gonna make Harden, Capela and whoever remains on the team better too.

 

okc without kd were 45-37. that's not exactly what people would call a true lottery team.

 

The Warriors also convincingly out-rebounded the Thunder in game 2, as I recall. Basically, when they won, they were playing well in all facets. Mostly, they fell into a two-game funk. They did drop game 1, but I feel like that was more of a Warriors let-down than the Thunder being too much to handle.

The Thunder are a fantastic team when they're playing near elite defense like they did against the Spurs and Warriors in the playoffs, and when their backups provide something...anything. The question is whether that defense is there for good and whether they can get more consistent role-players.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant have lowest and 4th-lowest FG percentages in elimination games since 2009-10: <a href="https://t.co/9HkaETt8SV">pic.twitter.com/9HkaETt8SV</a></p>&mdash; ESPN Stats &amp; Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) <a href="https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/737705462951346177">May 31, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Warriors say 86 people came to last night's Game 7 with tickets that turned out to be fraudulent. Team says most came from StubHub.</p>&mdash; Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) <a href="https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/737703758398816256">May 31, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<iframe src="https://vine.co/v/iVhWqQwwXUl/embed/simple" width="600" height="600" frameborder="0"></iframe><script src="https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js"></script>

 

Also, glad we won't have to see any more of that scrub tool dancing with Westbrick before games.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Winner!!! <br><br>Credit - <a href="https://twitter.com/TotalProSports">@TotalProSports</a> <a href="https://t.co/prOEE4QGkC">pic.twitter.com/prOEE4QGkC</a></p>&mdash; Crying Jordan (@CryingJordan) <a href="https://twitter.com/CryingJordan/status/737491626461794304">May 31, 2016</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned data-instgrm-version="7" style=" background:#FFF; border:0; border-radius:3px; box-shadow:0 0 1px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.5),0 1px 10px 0 rgba(0,0,0,0.15); margin: 1px; max-width:658px; padding:0; width:99.375%; width:-webkit-calc(100% - 2px); width:calc(100% - 2px);"><div style="padding:8px;"> <div style=" background:#F8F8F8; line-height:0; margin-top:40px; padding:50.0% 0; text-align:center; width:100%;"> <div style=" background:url(data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACwAAAAsCAMAAAApWqozAAAABGdBTUEAALGPC/xhBQAAAAFzUkdCAK7OHOkAAAAMUExURczMzPf399fX1+bm5mzY9AMAAADiSURBVDjLvZXbEsMgCES5/P8/t9FuRVCRmU73JWlzosgSIIZURCjo/ad+EQJJB4Hv8BFt+IDpQoCx1wjOSBFhh2XssxEIYn3ulI/6MNReE07UIWJEv8UEOWDS88LY97kqyTliJKKtuYBbruAyVh5wOHiXmpi5we58Ek028czwyuQdLKPG1Bkb4NnM+VeAnfHqn1k4+GPT6uGQcvu2h2OVuIf/gWUFyy8OWEpdyZSa3aVCqpVoVvzZZ2VTnn2wU8qzVjDDetO90GSy9mVLqtgYSy231MxrY6I2gGqjrTY0L8fxCxfCBbhWrsYYAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC); display:block; height:44px; margin:0 auto -44px; position:relative; top:-22px; width:44px;"></div></div> <p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"> <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BGDoGfTy6zv/" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">#kevindurant concedes #mvp to #stephcurry #game7 #nbaplayoffs</a></p> <p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A video posted by PH Media &amp; DJ Steve Porter (@porterhousemedia) on <time style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;" datetime="2016-05-31T03:32:45+00:00">May 30, 2016 at 8:32pm PDT</time></p></div></blockquote>
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Imo, yes, for most of the series, OKC looked like the better team by far. I still think that has to do with dubs being out of sync and Curry not finding his groove back from injuries until end of game 6.

However, OKC is never as good as dubs' peak. Who is? Impossible threes barrage, souls crushed. Offense that's indefensible generating the supreme confidence that spills over to their defense.

For this series, yes, if OKC just choked one less bit, they could have taken down the champs when the champs did not play to capacity for half the series. A good OKC team is almost as good as a normal dubs team. However, as the scripts go, everyone bow down to the dubs when they go supernova.

 

Friends and haters, here we are once again. I wasn't sure about this one. I thought I was going to be wrong, but I had placed a relatively large wager on GSW to repeat as champs when Curry went down injured earlier in the playoffs due to the odds being favorable and I stuck with it.

The Warriors really haven't played well for about a month now due to Curry's injury and a lack of continuity, but now I see signs of a team coming together at the right time. OKC was a tough match up for them and the Thunder were peaking, but GSW without playing consistently well just came back from 3-1 and knocked off a team that was at their apex. That is the sign of a champion.

In the end, OKC didn't have as much depth and talent as the Warriors to win a 7 game series against them. Playing 7 man rotations night in and night out takes its toll. Plus, they have nobody outside of their Durant and RWB that create offensively. Kanter can do some things, but he's one of the worst defenders in the NBA and Waiters can't really be trusted due to poor decision making. They had their chance in Game 6, but ultimately the better team won.

Also, this is important, one of the biggest excuses that people used to discredit the Warriors has been disproven in dramatic fashion. People said that GSW were going to lose this series, because this is the first healthy team they've played in the last two post-seasons. They've never been tested, they're going to struggle, they will ultimately lose, etc... people said. As a result of the Warriors' resiliency by coming back against the odds and winning after being down 3-1 against an elite team that was fully health, you can't use this excuse anymore.

A lot of people started popping up out of nowhere claiming this series was over once OKC went up 3-1, but let this be a lesson to many of you. Don't let your emotions cloud your better judgement. Curry hit over 400 3 pointers this season and this team went 73-9. These are things that have never happened before. This is a historically great team.

Yes, I do have a rooting interest as a result of taking GSW to repeat as champs, but I always try to maintain my objectivity as indicated by the post above where I essentially picked the Warriors to win, but bet on OKC to cover in Game of the 1 series. I don't get the GSW hate either though. They're a great team and fun to watch.

El gnomo, my brother, thanks for having faith. I'm not gonna lie doubt did creep in and I thought I was going to be wrong, but in the end, the prophecy was fulfilled. Blessed are those who haven't seen, but yet still believe. Now on to Cleveland and time to hopefully rip Lebron's heart out again.

Thanks my man.

 

Dude, it's not just that you called them coming back from 3-1, but you called them losing game 4 (with or without Draymond) and THEN coming back from 3-1. Incredible foresight.

Cavs series should be interesting. The Warriors have wanted them BAD, according to Stephen A Smith. This whole season has been about proving people wrong, which provided the enormous chip on their shoulders (and subsequent destruction of the regular season), and beating Cleveland at full strength would be the the perfect culmination to the quest.