A dominant regular season doesn’t mean a thing without the ring, and Oklahoma City is going to get sized on June 17.
That’s the day after Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
The Thunder finished the regular season with a league-best 68 wins and the second-best net rating in NBA history. Oklahoma City’s 120.3 offensive rating and 107.5 defensive rating, good for a 12.8 net rating, finished second to the 1995-96 Bulls (13.4). The Thunder’s season was better than the 1996-97 Bulls and the 2016-17 Warriors. Add in last season’s Celtics squad, and all the other teams with a top-five net rating in NBA history finished the season as champions.
Oklahoma City followed up the regular-season showing with a 12-4 start to the playoffs. The Nuggets were responsible for three of those losses.
Indiana’s not goi