Hardwood Paroxysm presents Super-Overreactionizer 5.5.14: Cool first round, bro

Are You Experienced?

by Andrew Lynch
Well of course experience mattered. What else were you expecting?

Listen, we can sit here and argue about how much experience matters until we’re blue in the face. You don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I happen to believe having been there, done that helps an awful lot when it comes time to do it again. Whatever, though. We can disagree there.

But if you’re saying that experience doesn’t matter at all? Well, you’re just lying to yourself.

And in that case — if you want to open your eyes to the light, friend — the Brooklyn Nets are here to show you the truth.

The Toronto Raptors fought valiantly. They are a young team on the rise, praised mightily by he who had conquered them, Kevin Garnett. Were it not for a million little things, perhaps they would have won this series. But all those minuscule advantages, all the edges that went in Brooklyn’s favor — they all come from the same place. You can point to Brooklyn’s scouting and rotations against Toronto’s offense, for instance, but that’s just a fancy way of dancing around the truth. That familiarity with an opponent doesn’t get built in a day; it comes with a day-in, day-out application of one’s nose to the grindstone. Toronto will get there eventually, at this rate anyway.

But the Nets? They’re already here, and in the end, that’s what determined this series. They had the know-how to finish the job they’d started. They had the sticktoitiveness to not get rattled when the moment became larger than any one individual. And they had a rookie head coach wise beyond his years with a shiny piece of jewelry on his ring finger.

It’s not rocket science, people. Here’s a video if you don’t understand:

Sorry, Raptors. Sometimes, you’re just the puppy. And the big dog gets to eat.