The most frustrating thing is, Cuban decided before the season even started that the title wasn't worth defending. Yeah I get the appeal of D-Will and Howard, but when you have a window of opportunity, you don't waste it. I loved how Bill Simmons summarized the situation on Grantland:
well the spurs are the only ones with any chance and they have to get by the thunder first...
Man I was furious. Steve Kerr was just brushing off that screen/hip check from Pau on Gallo and it was pissing me off. He lifted his shoulder into his head ffs! If that happened to Steve Back in the day he'd have enjoyed a nice short coma for his troubles.
I was very hopeful we'd make it past the sixers with Rose out, but when Noah went down I was pretty sure we were done. Couple of things to note 1) we had two advantages going in to this series against Philly. Rose and rebounding. We lost both advantages with Rose and Noah's injuries. This made the two teams pretty even, maybe even gave Philly the edge. 2) Rose and Noah are the two main guys on the team not just because of their talents and roles, but also because of their leadership and energy. No Rose meant no one keep Philly in check whenever they went on a run. No Noah meant no one to keep the team from falling into bad habits and stop playing with energy on both ends of the floor.
