If I told you at the beginning of the year that Boston would win over 68% of its games with 11 to play, I think we'd all take that as that is a 55 or 56 win season.
The really unsustainable start has really caused much of this panic as Boston has come back to the mean of where it always should have been i.e. a mid 50's win team.
If you had asked us if we would start hot and then look like similar to the team from the 1st half of last year, I don't think many would take that deal.
Right. It’s not the record, it’s the level of play.
Since Boston started 21-5 it is 28-18, which is basically a 50 win pace and would put Boston as the 5th seed only 1 game behind Cleveland for the 4th seed. Since the start of February, Boston is actually winning a greater pace than the Cavs are on the season.
In other words, Boston's level of play is that of a top 4 or 5 team since it started out on fire. I just don't buy the idea that Boston's level of play is not there. Sure a game here or there they blow it, but that happens every year to basically any team that is not one of the best teams ever.
Last year’s Finals team is playing like the 7th or 8th best team. I’m not sure that that’s worthy of celebration.
and if Middleton doesn't get hurt, Boston loses in the 2nd round last year. Boston was not the 2nd best team in the sport last year. Acting like they were, has been the problem on this blog all year. Boston is a very good team, but they aren't an elite team and haven't been since KG got hurt. That is the reality.
Sad, but true.
I don't think this is true at all. Boston was the best team in the NBA for around 4 months last season, and the first 25 games or so of this season. There was nothing flukeish about the Finals run.
This is true.
Milwaukee with Middleton was better than Boston last year, but that doesn't mean Boston's finals run was a fluke. Boston was a very good team, but Milwaukee was simply better if they were at full strength. That is all opinion since they didn't play at full strength (or at least what the playoff full strength would have been) at all last year. It ended up as a close 7 game series in which Milwaukee didn't have their 2nd best scorer and shot generator at all. I think Middleton would have more than made up the ground in a close series. Giannis just had to carry too much of the offensive load that series (Holiday is much more a 3rd offensive option in his style of play) and Giannis was worn down by the end of games 6 and 7 especially, but basically in every game. Milwaukee only won 2 4th quarters in the series, game 1 by 4 and game 5 by 12, the other 4th quarters were all won by Boston by 6, 11, 15, 1, and 13. The game generally got away from the Bucks down the stretch because Giannis wasn't quite as good as he got tired, and Giannis being that much better than everyone else is how the Bucks were winning those games. Sure, maybe Middleton being there has a ripple effect and Boston still wins the series, I just don't think that happens as the Bucks in my view are better than Boston, just as they are this year as well (if they can get Middleton up to around 70% of what he was preinjury).
Why don't you ever take Timelord's absence into account when talking about that series?
My opinion: if we have a fully healthy Timelord and they have a fully healthy Middleton, we win.
That's unrealistic, though, because there was never going to be a fully healthy version of either player. So, give me a rough approximation of 2023 Middleton and 2023 Timelord in that series, and we still win.
The only way we don't win is fully healthy Middleton plays, Timelord is absent in games 4 through 7. Under that odd scenario, I think you're correct.