Um, who exactly is taking out Atlanta in the East in the first round? Brooklyn? Charlotte? Or are you thinking the Bucks? The only team that is remotely likely to eliminate the Hawks in the first round as a lower seed is Miami, and I honestly don't think Wade or Bosh have the legs to play against Atlanta for a 7 game series. Miami isn't young or deep enough to defend Atlanta's ball movement for 48 minutes. As for the Spurs repeating, they need to get healthy first. If they're healthy, I'm not going to bet against them, GSW or not. Still, it would be foolish to ignore teams that are winning at a .800 pace... anything can happen in the West depending on injuries and match ups. And the East won't get really competitive until the 2nd round (Toronto, Washington, Chicago, Cleveland) as far as Atlanta is concerned... unless you think one of those teams is going to be a 7th or 8th seed?
Atlanta No, Golden State Maybe As for playoffs Atlanta won't beat the Cavs, and GS will be in the WCF.
Uh and you can guarantee GS would beat the Spurs? Or the Grizz? Or the Mavs? I mean it's the Western Conference, any playoff predictions would be silly especially at this point imo. Plus, no guarantee Bogut will even be healthy when the playoffs arive.
Hard to believe that Bulls team almost did it on back-to-back years. Didn't they had a record of 69-13 after the 72 win season? Just missed it by 3 games... But no, neither team can do that. We almost reaching the half-way point.
GSW have a killer schedule to end off the year, like 7 out of 8 teams in the playoffs. I think they will fizzle a bit but still end up with 60 - 63 wins. They just won't have that much momentum riding into the play offs. The schedule was built to make them look God Like for majority of the season and have a bump in the road towards the end. At least this helps them because they enter that stretch with so much confidence.
GSW players are not afraid of OKC, Warriors beat them 3-1. GSW should be more worried about Spurs and maybe even the Grizzlies because of their frontline's size.
hardly, since there were less teams (29 vs 30) there was less dilution and the overall talent was greater especially at Center, PF and SG. even SF and PG weren't that bad either. it was harder for teams to get 50+ wins; only 7 teams achieved it that season compared to almost 9 teams probably getting there just from the Western conference this year. also Toronto actually beat the Bulls for one of their 10 losses. the story goes that someone told MJ that his family wasn't at the arena and he was too distracted since he thought that something may have happened to them. they ended up losing by a point. they were also unbeataBull (see what i did?) at home unlike this year's Bulls who are under .500 at home . they won 37 straight before losing 2 of their last 4 by 1 point each. they also won every home playoff game that year. to prove 72-10 wasn't a fluke they almost did it the next year despite Rodman's 11 game suspension for kicking a camera man and missing the last month of the season due to spraining his MCL. Luc Longley missed almost 2 months in the earlier part of the season from injuring his shoulder body surfing. they lost 3 of their last 4 games. if they win out (9 games straight) they get 72 wins again. Rodman was actually very ineffective in the playoffs particularly against Utah. if the Bulls didn't sign Bison Dele/Brian Williams during the end of the season and playoffs, then maybe the Bulls don't beat Utah that year. almost every game was decided by less than 5 points.
Does it really matter if they're afraid of them? I wouldn't bet on the Warriors in a 7 game series vs them
GSW should be afraid of damn near every playoff team in the west. Outside of Barbosa, NONE of their players have advanced past the 2nd round. HCA can only do so much. Eventually experience triumphs in a gritty playoff series
no team is gonna beat that record in the foreseeable future unless another MJ was born into the league, book my word, i don't care how goooood any team is looking right now
I think both Golden State and Atlanta will finish with 58 to 62 wins. No way either one sniffs 72-10. It will be a long time before another team wins 70+.
Golden State has a shot at it if they can get half way through the season with less than 5 losses. 40-5 or better near the end of January. They'd have a shot at 72. I'm not surprised. They are just better machine, right now than all of the other teams. It's Curry playing out of his mind. It's the knockout defense. It's the unstoppable team ball movement and efficient shooting. OT: I'm surprised alot of people overlooked Atlanta, again. No one choose them to be among the top tier teams - Cleveland, Chicago, Miami, or Milwaukee.
