Heck, even Johnson’s Los Angeles teammate believes the current champs would win – then again, that teammate also happens to be the father of Klay Thompson.
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The Lakers won five titles and made nine NBA Finals from 1980-1991, so the Warriors still have a long way to go on that end. “They did a great job picking us up, and, yeah, we just told ourselves we’ve got to be better throughout the series, and I think we’ll respond”. You have guys like Al Horford, Brook Lopez and Al Jefferson who, while they are good players, aren’t elite by any means.
Following Game 2 on Sunday night, a contest that convincingly put the Warriors up 2-0 on the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, Thompson made his boast when asked if his Warriors could beat the famed Lakers.
“We were better than the Showtime Lakers”, Thompson said as a roomful of reporters laughed.
They did just that, creating 1,001 simulations between the 2016 Warriors and the 1987 Lakers (the best Lakers team that Mychal Thompson actually played on), with all games played on neutral courts. (These Warriors) could guard us, we could guard them, but they would just have the edge in the three-point shooting. “We shot eight (3 pointers) a game, they shoot eight a quarter”, he told USA Today.
“I’d move my feet very well for a big man – as a compliment to myself – but when I think about switching out on Steph Curry, I break out in hives”, Mychal said, laughing.
Golden State is the epitome of modern basketball, the team that thrives on the high-possession, high-volume-of-3s game of the present.
Magic Johnson felt compelled to defend his Lakers team, declaring for ESPN that, “There’s no way they’re going to deal with Kareem (Abdul-Jabbar, the all-time leading career scorer)”.
While all of these issues have helped lead to Golden State’s trouncing of Cleveland in two straight games, it’s safe to assume Tyronn Lue didn’t spend as much energy game planning for Shaun Livingston as he did for Curry and Thompson.
“I am a man secure in my legacy, secure in my accomplishments”, he said.
“If we could just go back in time and we could really seriously play them in a series and we’re at our peak and they’re at their peak, it’s not a match”, Scott said. Nobody else is. I trust their judgment. Love was a top-notch pitcher who could hit 90 miles per hour by high school, and Thompson was a great all-around player. “Looking ahead, and there are so many opinions that you forget about the actual process, you forget about what goes into every single game preparation”, said Iguodala.
If we’re going to keep indulging ourselves in these hypothetical debates, the three-point elephant in the room simply must be accounted for.
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Mychal Thompson joined Sam Amick for a quick chat about why and about how good this team is. And that’s certainly fair, it’s a huge part of the Warriors’ advantage, what we’ve come to call “The Math Problem”. There’s no way they’re going to deal with Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar]. They know they’re going to have to have a great series in order for us to win it.
