Ebony & Ivory with Burning Sage vs. Lucky Charms & Unicorns Colliding on Flat Earth | Official Mavericks (#5) vs. Celtics (#1) 2024 NBA Finals Thread

[Dillah810]

 

[Soldier]

Late 70s and from 2004-2009 were some competitive times

'04 - Detroit
'05 - San Antonio
'06 - Miami
'07 - San Antonio
'08 - Boston
'09 - LA

Yup

2004-2012. That competitive period lasted until the early 2010s (2010,2011, 2012)

2010-11 was arguably the most competitive season in recent history. 8 teams could have won the Larry O’Brien title that year :

Dallas/Los Angeles/OKC/San Antonio in the west

And Boston/Miami/Chicago/Orlando in the east



And there were tough wildcard teams like the hawks, pacers and the grit&grind Memphis grizzlies (who made the WCF two years later as a 5th seed)


Three different champs in the early 2010s:

2010 Los Angeles
2011 Dallas
2012 Miami

(Looking back, Even the top-heavy mid 2010s werent that bad, 4 different teams won the chip, 2 from the east and 2 from the west)
2013 Miami
2014 San Antonio
2015 Golden State
2016 Cleveland

Kevin Durant joining the Warriors really made the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons pointless to watch imo. The warriors were too strong and stacked and miles ahead of any other team. They handled the west with relative ease (even went a perfect 12-0 playoff record in the west back in 2017 before the finals)and easily destroyed and outmatched the cavs in back to back quick finals. In a normal season, the 2016-2017 cavs win the chip and repeat as champions if they play against any another finalist team but unfortunately instead, they faced the warriors who were an all time great/legendary team.

Late 2010s/early 2020s parity:
2019 Toronto
2020 Los Angeles
2021 Milwaukee
2022 Golden State
2023 Denver
2024 Boston

 

[EndGame]

nikkas is getting swept

 

[FAH1223]

Windhorst is spot on.

The whining about calls is so annoying about Luka. He’s probably responsible for double digit Boston points just off not running back!!

 

[Jx2]

GOAT rivalry . Rest in piss fukkbag

 

[KillerPups]

Bruh....

 

[FAH1223]

See you all Monday in Boston

 

[chargers31]

 

[Biscayne]

Windhorst is right. He's the only one with the guts to tell the truth.

We live in this era where defense all of a sudden doesn't matter. Luka getting exposed is brining people back to the essence of basketball: EFFORT!

Sports media loves the flabby euro ball schtick, because of the comedic juxtaposition of the flabby euro player cooking athletic Americans. But when you face a team full of perimeter players, and you can't be hidden on defense, you get exposed. No amount of offense excuses Luka's poor effort on defense.

Even a shortened jimmyless Miami gave better effort than Luka and Dallas.

 

[FAH1223]

 

[bl2k8]

2004-2012. That competitive period lasted until the early 2010s (2010,2011, 2012)

2010-11 was arguably the most competitive season in recent history. 8 teams could have won the Larry O’Brien title that year :

Dallas/Los Angeles/OKC/San Antonio in the west

And Boston/Miami/Chicago/Orlando in the east



And there were Tough wildcard teams like the hawks, pacers and the grit&grind Memphis grizzlies (who made the WCF two years later as a 5th seed)


Three different champs in the early 2010s:

2010 Los Angeles
2011 Dallas
2012 Miami

(Looking back, Even the top-heavy mid 2010s werent that bad, 4 different teams won the chip, 2 from the east and 2 from the west)
2013 Miami
2014 San Antonio
2015 Golden State
2016 Cleveland

Kevin Durant joining the Warriors really made the 2016-18 and 2017-18 seasons pointless to watch imo. The warriors were too strong and stacked. They handled the west with relative ease (even went a perfect 12-0 playoff record in the west back in 2017 before the finals)and easily destroyed and outmatched the cavs in back to back quick finals. 2017 cavs win the chip and repeat as champions if they played against another team but unfortunately instead, they faced the warriors who were an all time great/legendary team.

Late 2010s/early 2020s parity:
2019 Toronto
2020 Los Angeles
2021 Milwaukee
2022 Golden State
2023 Denver
2024 Boston

04-12 wasn’t true parity. The same teams were in and out of the finals

Pistons 04-05
Boston 2008 2010
Lakers 2004, 2008,2009, 2010
Heat- 2006,2011 2012
Mavs 2006, 2011
Spurs- 2005,2007

 

[Primetime]

I don't know about all that... they smashed on the Lakers and the Warriors never have anything for Joker these days. Who was really gonna beat Denver in a 7 game series last season even at full strength?

Not that I look at Denver as a potential dynasty or anything but they were the best team.

Yea, I’d take Jokic’s ‘23 playoff performance / title run over any other star player’s of the past 4-5 years, at minimum.

Everyone in front of them were as healthy as you could hope for in post-Covid NBA and he edged out if not out shined them all (KAT/Ant/KD/Booker/ Ayton/LeBron/ AD/ Butler/Bayo).

Finals could’ve had a better East representative in theory but not his/DEN’s fault MIL, BOS, PHI stayed fukkin up.

 

[GoldenGlove]

Chuck gotta be better with the analysis

 

[Primetime]

04-12 wasn’t true parity. The same teams were in and out of the finals

Pistons 04-05
Boston 2008 2010
Lakers 2004, 2008,2009, 2010
Heat- 2006,2011 2012
Mavs 2006, 2011
Spurs- 2005,2007

1999-2010 was basically Lakers (42%), Spurs (33%) and other (25%) as far as titles.

And that other consists of the Pistons and Celtics who both played the Lakers in the Finals. And Miami, who featured Shaq after he left the Lakers.

So really LA appeared in nearly 60% of the Finals during that stretch, and one of Kobe, Shaq, or Duncan played in every Finals 12 years straight.

 

[Primetime]

The crazy thing is I don’t even know where the Mavs go from at this point ….The Celtics are going to be around for the next few years and the Mavs need a 3rd guy to do anything with a team like that …but they’re capped out and limited on resources smh

I don’t know if this iteration of the Mavs even beat OKC next year, and likely not 2 years from now. Thunder may become Boston 2.0 depending on how Chet and JW progress.

And of course Denver’s not going away either.

Really, Dallas has only looked top tier in one series all playoffs. So just getting back to the Finals will be a crapshoot.