Duncan21MVP
06-21-2013, 01:29 AM
These last three days were brutal. But we all need to face some facts.
As well as we played, and as close as we came in Game 6, we had a huge hill to climb to win this series. We didn't match up with the sheer athleticism of the Heat, and playoff experience would only get us so far.
The path to the Finals made us seem deceptively better than we were. We went through the 5, 6, and 7 seeds (not in that order) and were truly tested only by GS. If Westbrook didn't get hurt, we may not have even gone to South Beach. I'm not saying OKC was a lock, but we had a few gifts in Rounds 1-3.
Live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot. As Green was hitting it from all over the gym, I couldn't help but think that it'd be nice to keep some of those for later. His play in the last two games was like his play against OKC in the four straight losses last year. I'm sure all of the attention for setting a Finals record just distracted him from his craft and he couldn't so much as dribble the ball. I'd check the bottoms of his shoes for "L" and "R" at this point because he's a total head case right now.
So, if we had won it, a perfect storm of variables would have had to go our way. They were all lined up and we just needed to not step on our own cranks, but sadly that's just what we did. We played better than the Heat at times, but they had a game-altering, team on my back type of player and we don't.
That was ultimately our undoing.
As well as we played, and as close as we came in Game 6, we had a huge hill to climb to win this series. We didn't match up with the sheer athleticism of the Heat, and playoff experience would only get us so far.
The path to the Finals made us seem deceptively better than we were. We went through the 5, 6, and 7 seeds (not in that order) and were truly tested only by GS. If Westbrook didn't get hurt, we may not have even gone to South Beach. I'm not saying OKC was a lock, but we had a few gifts in Rounds 1-3.
Live by the jump shot, die by the jump shot. As Green was hitting it from all over the gym, I couldn't help but think that it'd be nice to keep some of those for later. His play in the last two games was like his play against OKC in the four straight losses last year. I'm sure all of the attention for setting a Finals record just distracted him from his craft and he couldn't so much as dribble the ball. I'd check the bottoms of his shoes for "L" and "R" at this point because he's a total head case right now.
So, if we had won it, a perfect storm of variables would have had to go our way. They were all lined up and we just needed to not step on our own cranks, but sadly that's just what we did. We played better than the Heat at times, but they had a game-altering, team on my back type of player and we don't.
That was ultimately our undoing.