Did anyone else find these playoffs to be incredibly disappointing and boring?
I built it up in my head this year that 2023 would be an epic playoff year because of how deep the talent pool is and how close in talent I perceived the teams to be.
Oh, well. At least the dark ages of 2015-18 are long gone where we were subjected to GSW vs CLE year after year..
I thought the Finals just lacked buzz. Sorry but Denver vs. Miami isn't really a marquee matchup in terms of popularity, and that only went 5 games too. Injuries definitely killed the vibes as well. Embiid, CP3, Brogdon, Herro, etc. etc. all around.
Funny enough I thought this year, the best parts of the playoffs were literally the first two rounds. Especially some of those fun West matchups (Suns-Clipper, Lakers-Warriors, Warriors-Kings, etc.). Even Bucks-Heat, Sixers-Celtics, etc. That's usually not the case, but there were some upsets even in the first round.
I enjoyed the Finals a lot. One of the more fun Finals in the last 5+ years.
It was a tad one sided though. It wasn't so much a question of who will win as rather how will Denver win. It reminds me some of the Iverson vs Shaq & Kobe Finals. There was never any doubt that LAL was going to win but the games were strangely competitive and close for most of the series and quite fun to watch despite the winner never being in doubt.
I also enjoyed the Miami Heat run. I love the way they play. I love Bam. I love that high post action they run with him. I love all the off ball screening and cutting. Fantastic stuff. I also enjoy a lot of their role players. Duncan Robinson. Great to see Kyle Lowry have some good games in the Finals. He has struggled a lot as he has gotten older. Fun to see him rewind the clock a bit and give us one more memory of him. Also fun to see a defensive guard like Gabe Vincent seemingly come from nowhere to make a huge number of clutch shots for the Heat throughout the playoffs. Jimmy as usual was very good to watch.
They were one of the weaker Finals teams and never should have gotten that far but it was fun to see them make it happen.
Also, I was very happy MIL got knocked out in the 1st round and I didn't have to watch Giannis bulldoze his way to the basket time and time again. Do not like watching that team play because of Giannis. So that made me enjoy the playoffs more.
The West was up and down. Sucked that a few teams got hurt with injuries. MEM was banged up otherwise they would've handled LAL in the 1st round. LAC lost Kawhi again. No P George. Phoenix lost CP3 and fell apart although they were at least fun to watch and played DEN tougher than anybody else did even without CP3.
GSW was a disappointment. They had a fun series with SAC but it sucked watching them put up such a weak effort vs LAL. Sucked that LAL made the Conference Finals but at least we saw some stellar AD defense along the way. And DEN beat them which helped.
BOS was a big disappointment in the East. Underperformed in the first round, underperformed again in the 2nd round and again underperfomred in the ECF. That put a blemish on my enjoyment of things.
Probably helped my enjoyment of the Finals that I was no longer angry how badly BOS had played the previous day. Got a bit of distance between that disappointment and the enjoyment of watching DEN and MIA compete.
The rest of the East wasn't interesting to me. Miami was fun. No real interest in CLE or NY series or NY vs MIA 2nd round series. PHI vs BKN was over before it started. PHI did alright in the 2nd round but were always lacking in depth / balance. BOS should've made shorter work of them but their own heads weren't right.
