Legitimately, how much did the loss of Beverley and D-Mo impact our playoff run? Does Beverley allow Austin Rivers to become mini Damian Lillard? Do D-Mo's post ups swallow up help defense to allow for better shots? We lost by 4 points and 1 point in Games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference Finals, respectively. Do our missing starters impact the game so much that we actually steal those two wins? Let's really get a good discussion here...
its over. what-if's probably dont mean much. but losing d-mo had a bigger impact overall than losing bev, imo.
The loss of Bev and DMo devastated this team. Bev being out forced Terry to play too much. When Terry isn't nailing a bunch of threes, he's a massive liability. At least Bev could give some defense out there, rebounding for a guard, tenacity, etc. DMo though was the one that KILLED us. He was THE guy who we could go to when the offense was bogging down to get us points in the paint. Without him we had horribly inconsistent and quite frankly bad finishers in the paint trying to get buckets. DMo was nice as a stretch four, but his real value was that when things were breaking down you could just run post plays for him and let him score on that hook shot. Without Dmo the entire offense relied on Harden and Josh Smith.
