The Golden State Warriors won their second round playoff series against Memphis in six games. They had taken a 3-1 lead into the fifth game at Memphis and were blown out. Coach Steve Kerr, who was out with Covid, told the team not to chase a victory in the fifth game--just execute the game plan. They did neither, but they definitely chased a victory at home in the sixth game, with the first team playing more minutes than ever before. They did not want to return to Memphis. It took heroic games by Klay Thompson and especially Kevon Looney, and a fourth quarter run led by Steph to put it away.
The Grizzlies had embarrassed themselves by charging without any foundation that a Warrior player had caused the injury of their young star, Ja Morant. Then the same Memphis player who had been suspended for a game for his flagrant 2 chop of a defenseless Gary Payton, breaking his elbow, committed another blatant flagrant foul in the sixth game, flinging Steph Curry to the floor. If the NBA becomes any more like the NFL, it will ruin the game of basketball.
Now Golden State plays in the Western Conference Finals against a very tough Dallas team, that combined smothering defense and flashy offense to bury the Phoenix Suns, the team with the best season record, at Phoenix in the seventh game of their series. Late in the game Dallas led by more than 40 points, and at halftime led by almost 50.
The Warriors have the significant advantage of home court, but it's only a strategic advantage if you keep it. As usual, the first game on Wednesday is very important.
The other seventh game on Sunday was another shocking beatdown: the Boston Celtics humiliated last year's champion Milwaukee. The Celtics have to survive another series, but they seem to me to be the Warrior's most formidable potential opponent. That is, if they get past their actual opponent of Dallas, and I'd say that's even money right now. This Warriors team is still discovering itself.
