As the Oklahoma City Thunder learned Monday night, it’s
really tough to eliminate a defending NBA champion. After
opening up a 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference finals, the Thunder were poised to knock the Golden State Warriors out for good — they led for almost the entirety of Game 6 before collapsing down the stretch, and they took a 6-point lead into the second half of Game 7. None of that mattered; the finishing blow was always just outside of OKC’s reach.
But, man, did the Thunder come close. In fact, according to our
quarter-by-quarter analysis of seven-game playoff series since 1984,
1 the Thunder — with a peak win probability of 95.8 percent going into the fourth quarter of Game 6 — came the seventh-closest to a series victory of any modern team that went on to lose.
And in the conference finals, only the Portland Trail Blazers’ infamous collapse against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2000 was more unlikely.