Not So Fast

It's not the All-Star Game break yet, and some are declaring the NBA season over, with the Golden State Warriors as playoff champs.  An article in Slate declares: "Sure, someone else could win this year’s championship. It’s also possible the sun could take tomorrow off and we could wake up to find the forest moon of Endor hanging in the sky."

But a couple of games this past week suggest, not so fast.  Right now the Warriors are champions of the regular season.  Other teams have slumps.  The Warriors rarely lose even two games in a row.  The Warriors slump at times during games, which could become a fatal habit in the playoffs.  But their depth protects them in the regular season.

But the playoffs are about match-ups.  And this week's game with Houston showed that when its three stars are playing, that team can beat the Warriors, as they did in that game.  Only a playoff series itself can say at this point whether they've got enough to win four out of seven.  And with the star of the team that presents Houston with matchup problems--the Pelicans--down for the season, it seems pretty likely that they will survive the playoffs long enough to meet the Warriors in the western conference finals.

If the Dubs win that series and either Cleveland or Toronto wins the east, then it could be time to say the Warriors will be champs.  Neither of those teams can beat the Dubs in multiple games.  But if Boston wins the east, then it gets more interesting, and there will be a real Finals series.  The Dubs have problems with them, as evidenced by Saturday's game, when the Warriors won by just 5 points at home, due to a 49 point outburst by Steph Curry. The problem for the Celtics is getting there.  For awhile now they've haven't been able to beat anyone else.

But even beyond all this, the playoffs depend on which star players are healthy and which are not.  That can't be predicted this far in advance.  The quality of team play and their physical and mental condition at the end of the season are also determinative and unpredictable.  The second half of the season means something, and anyway, it's a long time till May and June.