Easier NBA Championship: 2023 Nuggets or 2024 Celtics?

[Illuminatos]

Literally every team the Celtics played in the East was missing their best player lol.
Last year's Laker team is better than everyone the Celtics played.

 

[mozichrome]

i mean you can always just set the 2024 playoffs up in 2k and turn the simulator difficulty up to 100/use injury free roster. then see if they'd make/win the finals.

 

[Slaimon Khan Shah]

@Slaimon Khan Shah

 

[nieman]

I can’t find a year where a team played 3 series in a row against team’s leading scorers missing games.

But you can find a year where an team faced an opponent that won because their previous opponent's leading, or secondary scorer missed games. It happens every single year. And Mavs are at full strength in the Finals, and beat opponents at full strength, so what's their excuse?

 

[Unbothered]

The Celtics. Yeah, they're good but you have to take into consideration that...

Miami, Cleveland, and Indiana were all short of their best players. I believe that a fully healthy Miami team could've gone six games. The same thing with Cleveland if Mitchell didn't miss games 4 & 5 on top of Allen missing the whole series. Indiana had an opportunity to possibly win 2 or 3 of the first 3 games but inexperience and questionable coaching/defensive decisions fuked them in the end.

Dallas was the only healthy team they've faced but unfortunately, Kyrie hasn't played well and the supporting cast/bench's luck ran out and they've laid a goose egg in the Finals.

At least Denver faced teams who had their best players available. One of the reasons why Tatum has had a lackluster postseason this year is because he's taking it easy knowing that the competition is short-handed and his team being great as they are he can afford to play subpar and they'd still win.

 

[areohbee824]

Fault teams for earning their top seed

 

[Fresh]

Boston had the easier path to the Finals, and they're up 3-1 to Dallas, which Boston will win in game 5, even tho I voted Boston would win in 6

I hate to say this as a Knicks fan because Boston teams are New York's rival.

If the Celtics keep their squad intact they could repeat next year too

 

[bl2k8]

Celtics, it’s hard for me to really tell if the Celtics actually improved on their shortcomings or benefitted from the competition