I'm not as plugged into the Celtics as others here, but nothing has really changed for me big picture through these first two games as bad as the optics are. Forget the fact that they don't have the horses of your typical #1 seed - their statistical profile indicated that they were closer to a four or five seed caliber. +2.7 point differential, which would have ranked sixth in the west, and as other people have mentioned that figure was likely aided by depth and great coaching.
Even accounting for all that, there should be a regression to the mean. The Celtics aren't this bad and the Bulls aren't this good - this smelled like a seven game series to me earlier in the week and I could still see it getting to that point if the Celtics can re-discover their moxie. Pointless as it is to speculate, it's hard to imagine that the Thomas situation hasn't had an impact on their play.
The conundrum for Boston moving forward is Thomas. I equate the output of him and other guys during this age of pace and space to the production of baseball players during the steroid era. The three point line has inflated point totals to thresholds I don't think they were ever really intended to cross and as a result we live in a world where a 5'9 guy averages 29 a game on absurd efficiency. I mean Christ, I love Kemba, but the fact that he's approaching 25 a game demonstrates how silly this has all gotten.
I think the "the regular season and playoffs are totally different" angle is overplayed, but there's no denying that there are certain players and teams more conducive to playoff success than others, and with guys like Isaiah, it's difficult to extrapolate that regular season magic into corresponding playoff production when we've seen better players like Curry taper off.
Ultimately, I think we're still in that awkward phase where everybody - including the smartest people - is figuring this out, and so sitting here today all I can say is I don't know. I consider myself pretty open to the advanced numbers, but you watch a guy like Kyrie in the playoffs and wonder if there are certain things the formulas are just never going to pick up on. Is Isaiah better than Mike Conely? I don't know. The extent to which the officials swallow the whistle in the playoffs will dictate a lot of this, in addition to a bunch of other stylistic variables that are tough to quantify.
I do agree with
@walker11 that it is very easy for our perspective to become warped as we're watching arguably the greatest team of all-time - the Warriors - converge with the best player of the generation. I look at a guy like Chris Paul, realize he has absolutely no chance of breaking through to the conference finals, and wonder how his legacy would have been different in another time. A lot of this stuff is just pure luck.
