In last season’s triumphant Western Conference, 13 wins separated first-place San Antonio (62-20) from eighth-place Dallas (49-33), and ninth-place Phoenix, who won 48 games, missed the playoffs despite being, theoretically, better than all but two East teams.
As of Tuesday, 17 wins separate the first-place Warriors (57 wins) and the eighth-place Thunder (40), and the Pelicans, in tenth-place with just 37 wins, would only be the sixth-best team in the East.
Golden State is on pace to finish somewhere around 67 wins, something only nine teams have done in NBA history — just three teams have done it this century. If the Thunder stay on their current pace, they would claim the No. 8 seed with 47 wins, something like 20 games behind the Warriors. The Dubs are 33-8 against the Western Conference (24-5 against the East); only two other West teams, the Grizzlies (31-13) and the Clippers (30-14), have 30 conference wins, but at a significantly lower clip.
What’s my point? The Warriors are an all-time great regular season team, currently tops in the league in offensive and defensive efficiency, as well as pace, which could double as the plot of a terrible basketball science-fiction film. All year long we have celebrated the West for its superiority over the East; we search for more and more creative ways of saying the “Western Conference Gauntlet” is demanding, grueling and even unfair. It’s easy to get caught up in the West. It’s better basketball; we don’t mind staying up late on the East Coast because we can’t miss these games.
But over the past couple months things have changed. Talk of the West being impossible to predict — that all eight playoffs teams could win multiple playoff series or more — has faded away, pushed aside by game-changing injuries and season-altering mediocre moves. Pick a team, any team, in the West, and odds are they are dealing with some adversity. Outside of Golden State — and now, like clockwork, San Antonio — are any other teams in the West playing their best basketball? (Stay out of this, Utah!)
This is my point. Doesn’t the presence of a bonafide juggernaut change our perception of this year’s West? With Golden State rolling along, how many teams in the West can actually make the Finals — win three consecutive series, at least one of which is on the road — besides the Warriors?
(Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)
This conversation has been schlepping around for a few weeks, and was featured in the premiere episode of “Bill Don’t Lie” between Simmons and Tom Haberstroh. Bill and Tom settled on three teams that have a legitimate chance of winning the West: Golden State, San Antonio and Memphis. That list seems right to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if Golden State or San Antonio won the West. I’d be pleasantly surprised if Memphis did, but only because they would be settling new territory as a nucleus.
Every other team in the West? I’d be surprised (Los Angeles, Houston) to very surprised (Portland, Dallas) to “Did Russell Westbrook/Anthony Davis shed his skin to reveal his true alien/robot identity?” (Oklahoma City, New Orleans) to “Is this real life? Is this just fantasy (Phoenix)?”
But this doesn’t mean the West playoffs are doomed. Much of the entertainment factor, as always, is going to come down to seeding and who plays who. And, for what it’s worth, these Warriors have never even made it to the Western Conference Finals. This Western Conference isn’t as great as it was a year ago, or over the past few years, really. It is, however, still appointment television, with plenty of suspense packed into every scenario.
(Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
A couple final points on Memphis and San Antonio:
The Grizzlies couldn’t have a more outrageous three-game blip this week: Cleveland (Wednesday), Golden State (Friday), at San Antonio (Sunday). Memphis has been up-and-down since the All-Star break, just 11-7 since Marc Gasol started against his brother in New York. Their issue is a familiar one: they are scoring just 99.7 points per 100 possessions over those 18 games, the same rate as Orlando and Minnesota on the season, per NBA.com. If Memphis never makes the Finals with its Grit-N-Grind iteration, its destiny will be sealed as the defensive counterpart to the 7 seconds or less Phoenix teams — the former never scored enough points, while the latter gave up too many.
When the Grizzlies traded for Jeff Green in January, it was considered a proactive move, one that would push Memphis over the top offensively. Memphis is 24-10 with Green, far from terrible, but he hasn’t solved their scoring woes: Memphis is managing just a 101.9 offensive rating with Green on the floor.
Days ago Green asked coach Dave Joerger to move him to the second unit in order to spruce up a bench that was in desperate need of some juice. Tony Allen would then move back into the starting lineup, where his defensive chops and cutting game fits in nicely; last season the five-man unit featuring the starters, Courtney Lee, and Allen outscored opponents by 15.6 points per 100 possessions. Lee was inactive against New York on Monday, unfortunately, dashing Green’s request. It’ll be interesting to see how Joerger jiggers with the rotation in the short-term with three mammoth opponents coming up this week.
Memphis presents a challenge for Golden State in a 7-game series that no other team does: the Gasol/Randolph frontcourt will give Defensive Player of the Year favorite Draymond Green, everything he can handle at power forward (at 6’6″). Memphis will look to slow the game down, limit their transition opportunities, and punish the generally smaller Warriors. If the seeds hold, Golden State will cling to its home court advantage, and a potential Game 7 in Oracle Arena would be too much fun.
But will Memphis make it there? We know their history with the Spurs and it’s simply not a friendly matchup for the Grizzlies. Memphis is all but locked into the No. 2 seed, but we have no idea where the chips will fall between No. 3-8. The best break for Memphis would be Dallas in round one and to hope that San Antonio graduates into the No. 4/5 matchup — thus setting them on a crash course with Golden State early.
(Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images)
I wrote about the impact Kawhi Leonard has made for San Antonio since the All-Star break on Monday. He’s probably the most important player in the NBA: when he’s on the floor, the Spurs are basically the best two-way force in the Association. The Spurs are only 2.5 games out of third-place, which is unbelievable considering how willing many basketball fans were to bury them in the backyard as recently as late-January. If the Spurs lock up home court in round one, I’m not sure it matters who their opponent will be.
As I stated above, San Antonio is the only other elite team in the West — an unprecedented blend of organizational pedigree, championship experience (past and present), and top-end talent. In 2013, a much younger, naive version of Golden State tried to shoot their way past San Antonio, taking them to six games before Tony Parker said no. There are some serious “passing of the guard” vibes between these two teams, and their intersection at some point this spring seems almost necessary. Who would be the favorite in a Golden State/San Antonio conference finals? I don’t know dude, flip a coin.
