Western Conference Playoff

The NBA Playoffs start on April 16th, which will be here sooner than you think, and many think that the Warriors will sweep every team that they play. I hope that doesn't happen but it's starting to look like a possibility, the Warriors are a league best 52-5, that means they win 91% of their games, which is pretty impressive. Although it seems like recently they have had a number of close games where Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson do pretty much all of the scoring. Yesterday against the Thunder, Steph scored 46 and Klay had 32, but only one other person was even in double figures. The game before that Steph scored 51 points, and the game before that Steph had 42 and Klay had 33. I feel like at this point the only thing that could stop the Warriors from dominating the playoffs would be fatigue. In the regular season Steph shouldn't have to take over games and score 40 or more points per game. That is something he should be saving for the playoffs, because right now if they think they are going to the finals they have at least 40 more games, and a maximum of 52 more games. I know the Warriors want to beat the record set by the 95'-96' Bulls of 72 wins. But they don't want to be the team who had the most regular season wins in NBA history but then ran out of gas in the playoffs.

Many thought it would be the Spurs who would be the one team to challenge the Warriors, but I think the Thunder are probably better suited to do so. Even though the Thunder have lost both of their games against the Warriors, they have pushed the Warriors more than a lot of teams have. In the first game in Oakland, the Warriors won 116-108, but the Thunder made a late push and made the game close. In the second game the Warriors came back to force overtime and ended up winning 121-118. But in both games the Thunder challenged the Warriors, which we haven't seen from many other teams. Although another interesting team to look at would be the Portland Trailblazers, they are being carried by star point guard Damian Lillard, and currently sit at 7th in the West. But if they dropped to 8 they could potentially challenge the Warriors. Earlier in the season Portland blew out the Warriors 137-105, some say that game was a fluke, but that would definitely be an interesting one vs eight match-up.