I may have had a different opinion a few weeks ago, but right now, DAL is clearly the best team in the west. They have beaten LAC, OKC, and MIN, and none of these teams really came close to beating them. Kyrie has conceded to adjusting his game to play alongside of Luka, and all the other pieces are embracing their roles. You can quibble that Kawhi was hurt, OKC is young, MIN fell apart, whatever, but DAL is the best of the west.
There will be game threads and series prediction threads to go into more detail but this should be a very entertaining series for all NBA fans. I like where the Celtics are at going into this. Physically we are in pretty good shape, Porzingis kind of TBD, but I think more importantly, this time, we are the team with the prior finals experience.
I expect that Luka and Kyrie will continue to do what they have been doing, but it is the 4-6 role players on the Mavs that are the question. How will they hold up to the pressure and emotion of the finals, as compared to the Celtics second tier/role players. On paper, it would appear that BOS has a big advantage with the players below the top 2, even more so with Porzingis coming back.
Let's go Celtics!!!!!