You can also blow double digit leads by having bad defense. You can also be down double digits with zero chance to win the series because of bad defense, what are you not understanding? You can not control any game with a bad defense. What you are talking about is all theoretical
Having an Average offense with great defense (What they had last year) would always be better than Average offense with horrible defense (which is what they have this year)
We dont have an actual playoff run with Dame to compare yet so its all guessing at this point. But you do not get bounced in the first round like that when you had Championship aspirations and then just run it back...especially when you can get Dame to pair with Giannis.