Yeah I dunno; The Bulls went to 7 games against Reggie Miller. He was a 5 year old compared to those two.
I'd pick the Bulls but if the Warriors had their small ball death lineup running effectively as it did against LeBron and hit a bunch of threes they could have a chance against any team in history. Now over a decade of battles the Bulls win more. But one series doesn't always see the best team win if they are somewhat evenly matched.
Those rules would help the Bulls but it's not the be all end all many make it out to be.
Based on fivethirtyeight's latest simulations, they have the Warriors finishing at 72-10 - identical to the 95-96 Bulls. The difference is those 95-96 Bulls peaked at the right time and set the all-time team ELO record of 1853 after beating SEA 108-86 in Game 3 of the NBA finals. At that point, they were 14-1 in the post season (86-11 overall), with several blowout wins and a single 3-point overtime loss to the Knicks in the second round.
The Warriors team ELO peaked at 1839 back on December 11 when they were 24-0. After losing to the Celtics and Timberwolves, their team ELO has dropped 33 points in the last week, all the way down to 1770. They are now second to the Spurs in both team ELO and Point Differential. According to the numbers, they aren't even the best team this season, let alone ever. Their team ELO has been in a pretty steady decline since early February. Unlike the 95-96 Bulls who saw a very steady increase in team ELO from early March through the NBA finals in June.
Of course, these are all just numbers. As we saw last night, the simulations are never 100% accurate. Last night, fivethirtyeight's simulations had the odds of the Warriors winning as 96% with a 19-point margin of victory. Turns out last night was one of the 4% of the times the underdog defied the long odds and won. With two games left against the Spurs, and the entire post season left, the Warriors could recover and still set the all time team ELO record and overtake the Bulls as the best (simulated) team in NBA history, or they could be like the 2001 Seattle Mariners that won a record 116 games but lost in the ALCS to the Yankees.
It will be fun to see where the 2013-14 Warriors end up, both in the real world and the simulated one. Their legacy is yet to be written. Can they match the 95-96 Bulls with 72 or even exceed them, with 73 regular season wins? Can they make it through the first 15 games of the post season at 14-1 (I REALLY doubt that one, as they'd likely have to go through the Spurs in the WCF to get there). Can they even repeat as NBA champs, or are they destined to be the NBA's version of the 2001 Mariners? Guess we'll see. And once all the dust settles, if they do match the Bulls regular season record, and if they win the title, I'd love to see fivethirtyeight run their simulations of 50,000 games between the 1995-96 Bulls vs. the 2013-14 Warriors to tell us, statistically, which team would be the odds on favorite to win a 7-game series.
BNM
