The NBA Playoffs begin this Saturday.
If you’re asking former head coach and NBA analyst Jeff Van Gundy, however, they’re already over.
“It’s already over, right? Golden State is your champion. It won’t be close. No one is gonna push them,” Van Gundy told ESPN’s Zach Lowe on his podcast.
Lowe asked Van Gundy if he was serious.
“It’s over. It’s over,” Van Gundy restated. “This is a three-year run that’s been incredible and they got better this year. The only thing that I think could make them stumble is another incident, or an injury. They had the incident last year with Green…now that they’re whole and healthy, somebody trying to even get them to a seventh game, it’s hard for me to fathom.”
The Warriors finished the regular season with the league’s best record, best point differential, and finished ranked first in offensive efficiency and second in defensive efficiency.
Golden State’s biggest threat, the Cleveland Cavaliers, stumbled towards the finish line at the end of the season, falling out of the No.1 overall seed in the Eastern Conference. Conversely, the Warriors finished the season playing their best basketball, and ran off 14 straight victories without Kevin Durant. The Warriors beat the Cavaliers by 35 the last time they faced them on Jan. 16.
