What If....

[Diesel]

I'm a fan of Marvel comics and many years ago they put out a series of comics called what if....

Well, I don't want to get that radical.. but  the team that has to be feeling worse than the Suns right now is Brooklyn.  Brooklyn was 1 big toe away from beating the Bucks.  What if the Big toe would have stayed behind the line....

How would we have fared vs. the Nets??

[Diesel]

I'll ask it another way.

 

If we run it back... How do we matchup with the Nets??

[RedDawg#8]

KD's toe may change the course of history.

If the Nets moved on, we definitely had a chance against them, especially with their top guys dealing with injuries too.

But let's say they beat us and go on to win it all; the Superteam" narrative gets another victory, and the way teams are built continues to be about having multiple superstars joining forces.

Im happy for the Bucks, because it shows you can build the old fashioned way with drafting your own superstar, and making smart roster moves around him.

It helps validate our model for sure.

As far as the Nets, did we have a chance. Yes. We actually outscored them in the season series: 127 ppg to 124.

In our two losses, we were up late and lost the lead to lose by 4 twice. That was very symptomatic of the LP Hawks. In our one win, we dominated them defensively and held them to 96.

We played them twice with no Gallo, once with no Bogi, and 3 times with no Lou Will.

They played us twice with just Kyrie and KD and once with all 3.

Also, all games were under LP. We hadn't discovered how to close games down the stretch, or play solid team defense yet.

Not saying we would have swept the Nets, but under Nate, we would not have surrendered those 2 leads.

I think this matchup boils down to 2 things:

1) Firepower. As shown by the high scoring games, both teams have a ton of scoring talent. They have 3 guys who can go for over 40 any night. We have 1. But we still have 5 others that can easily get 20+(Kev, Bogi, Dre, Cam, Gallo), not even including JC or Lou who may or may not be back next year. That more than makes ups for lack of super power.

2) Defense. The Nets cannot be a strong defensive team as built. They can be solid at best. They cannot slow us down. We have too many weapons. Our defenders have a much better chance at making life hard for at least two of their big 3. Our core is full of two-way players. We can get stops and put up a ton of points without having to rely on specialists.

I think we can hang with those dudes easily.