They knocked the Lakers without AD and Lebron playing hurt, Nuggets without Murray and Clippers without Kawhi...
The Suns since 2021 never won a playoff series without the opponent's best or second best player being injured.
Those 1 point wins after being down 20 and now Tatum injured are the reasons why I say they are flukey as fuck. The better team isn't winning the series, which is a fluke.
AD played the first 4 games of that series and they were tied 2-2.
But yes, how are those injuries worse than what the Celtics faced? The Clippers without Kawhi were still nasty with PG (knocked off the #1 seed the round prior), and the Nuggets still had Jokic.
The Celtics played the Heat without Butler, the Cavs without Allen the whole series and without Mitchell for half the series, and then the Pacers (who had no business being in the ECF's if it wasn't for the entire Knicks team being injured) without Haliburton after the first 2 games. The best player on the opposing team in every round missed half or all of the entire series. All that in a weaker conference too.
Celtics got a bye to the finals last season. Then they get demolished by a healthy Knicks team this year. Nobody is surprised.
This post was edited by Sixers on May 13 2025 11:37am