If we once again overachieve this year by shocking the Horford-less Hawks and 8th seed 76ers in the playoffs... it will mainly be because of Kevin Garnett.
And taking the Heat to 7 when they were down 3-2.
That's about as impressive as the 8th seed 76ers taking us to 7 in round 2. In other words, not impressive. You don't get credit for losing... which is why I left that irrelevant bit out. Still... we wouldn't have squeaked by the lowly 76ers in 7 games had it not been for KG's brilliant play.
That series was just a tough matchup. Team sports and basketball more prominently are about match ups.
Igoudala has always been hard on Pierce and when you add his knee into it it made it very difficult for the Captain to be consistent. Avery Bradley was playing tremendous defense on Holiday. He goes down and Rondo has to move over and defend him. Holiday took advantage of that. It forced Ray on a bad ankle to play more and Turner took advantage of that.
Those specific match ups were tough on the squad. KG played so well because he exploited his matchup with Brand when he was in there. Lavoy comes in and he was a better matchup on defense for defending KG. Kg didn't produce at the same rate against Allen.
Matchups are what it's all about. Not seeding. Seeding is so you hopefully have HCA and the better match ups in the first round. Just look at Atlanta vs Boston in 2008. GS vs Dallas in 2009. SA and Memphis in 2011. All those one seeds did not match up well with those 8 seeds and the one seed either lost or escaped with a series win.
Remember in 2009 when we took Orlando to 7 without KG? We still matched up well with Orlando other then defending Rashard Lewis. But Cleveland lost to that team in 6 because they didn't match up well. Chances are if we beat Orlando in 2009 that we get swept by Cleveland in the ECF because of the match ups.
We took Miami to 7 because we matched up pretty well with them. We do this year too.
Your too worried about seeding. We have a more talented team this season that just needs to improve its chemistry and continuity. As a result we match up well with most teams. We just need guys to get more acclimated to their roles and be comfortable in those. It might take a little time but it's early.
Come April, May, and June when we can actually game plan against an opponent and analyze their strengths and weaknesses we will be very good.