It's always easy to call the favorite (especially if you get to be wrong twice on the numbers of games it will take).
? Game 1: 2 points (OT) Game 2: 11 points Game 3: 3 points Game 4: 12 points I think if you lose 4 basketball games in a row (two by double digits), you can't consider it anything but a blow out in terms of how you performed in the series. Those Cavs teams didn't belong in the same building as the Spurs, and it showed. Couldn't even pull out a pity win at home. If all you have to hang your hat on is that you didn't get utterly embarrassed in any one particular game, that's not something to be particularly proud of, IMO. Game 1: 9 points Game 2: 11 points Game 3: 3 points Game 4: 1 point *edit: Mind you, the Rox-Magic series was much more high scoring than the Spurs-Cavs series. So, the margins of victory would be expected to be smaller for Spurs-Cavs.
Definitely didn't belong in the same building, that Cavs roster was a joke. I wouldn't consider those point margins a blowout, 15-20 point wins to me is a blowout.
That doesn't take into account what happened in game 1. Game 4 was very close until the end. Pretty evenly matched teams where we were just more clutch. The Cavs series, those first 2 games only avoided being blowouts because the Spurs let off the gas in the 4th.
We're all Rockets fans, so I don't think I need to explain game 1 to anybody (I noted it with OT, anyway). You don't lose 4 games in a row (two by double digit margins) and consider yourself "pretty evenly matched". Edit: I can't find a minute by minute account of game 4, but the Rockets outscored the Magic 66-50 in the 2nd half... IIRC that game was sealed up somewhere around the 3-5 minute mark.
It happens. It isn't anything like the Knicks series for sure, but it was closer than it seems today. Doesn't really matter though.
Please, show me a close sweep in the NBA playoffs. I can't find one nor think of any. Dead serious, I'm wondering if it's ever happened.
It wasn't sealed up by then, but your memory is serving you better than mine. We opened up the lead about midway through the quarter, and basically maintained about a 10 point game the rest of the way.
To me the Magic series was close. If Nick Anderson can make 1/4 at the FT line, who knows what happens.
That's too much projection for my taste. He missed those free throws and the Magic folded like a cheap card table. Not going to try and extrapolate what happens over the course of 3 more games based on 1 free throw.
We know it should have went at least 5 though (Not that 5 is close). How about the first round between the Thunder and Mavs this season? 3 of the 4 games were decided in the final minute.
It's not the reg. season where you move on from one game and go to the next one and play a different opponent. The reason the playoffs is so great is you see how teams do under adversity, and how they respond. Some teams won't and fold b/c things don't go their way; some teams respond in a positive way. The Magic were young and inexperienced, and losing a game 1 like that basically destroyed their confidence in the series. If you saw that year's playoffs, the Magic won the first game in EVERY series to establish their presence. And that was key for a very very young team. And that was their first year in the Finals under the brightest of lights. If they won game 1 (sure, it's a big if, but it was theirs for the taking if they made their FTs, and a decent FT - 70% that year missed them all basically), it would be a completely different series. Percentages say team who wins first game usually wins series. And if you're the home team, you prefer to lose game 2. Going down 0-1 with HC is a terrible way to start a series.
Or they could've gone on to get skunked 4-1 and run out of the gym. But the fact remains, they shat the bed and got handled by the Rockets the rest of the series. It wasn't "close". I'm not interested in hypotheticals. The Thunder-Mavs is probably the best example (or at least modern) there is, 2 final possession games, 1 blowout, and 1 final minute game.
This is one of those nonsense stats. Percentages say that because (1) the better team usually has home court advantage and (2) the team that wins the series is going to win any particular game more often than not. I'd guess that the percentages also say that the team that wins games 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 are also more likely to win their series, because you're giving them one of the four games they have to win.
