NBA Finals: Have injuries played a bigger role this year than in other years?

Injuries throughout the regular season and the playoffs, particularly to the Cleveland Cavaliers, shaped the NBA postseason, but was this year any worse than years prior to it?

Following the Golden State Warriors 105-97 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers, celebration was reigning down over the vanquished Quicken Loans Arena crowd. Through the madness, Warriors Steve Kerr managed to make his way over towards the Cavaliers side and their head coach Dave Blatt for the obligatory yet always genuine post-series chat.

Kerr had one sentiment that he needed to communicate to Blatt.

Overheard words from Steve Kerr to David Blatt: "I wish you could've been healthy. You guys played so shorthanded." #NBAFinals
— Tas Melas (@TasMelas) June 17, 2015

These playoffs were entirely dictated by injuries. The most notable example was Cleveland Cavaliers, who without Kyrie Irving for the Finals and without Kevin Love for most of the playoffs were entirely reliant on low-efficiency LeBron James isolation plays to achieve anything on offense.

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Without a secondary shot creator, the Cavs offense became the clogged nose of a mouth-breather in February; there was no space, no air and no fluidity. LeBron tried his gosh darn hardest to lift the Cavs all by himself, and certainly it didn’t help that the Cavs second best player for most of the series was Matthew Dellavedova.

But the Cavs weren’t alone.

The Chicago Bulls struggled against Cleveland in the conference semis when they had to choose between Pau Gasol, who didn’t have functional hamstrings any more, and Joakim Noah, who’s injuries made him play like he never had feet.
The Houston Rockets went into the playoffs without their valuable frontcourt shooter Donatas Motiejunas, as well as their best perimeter defender in Patrick Beverley. Instead they were forced to start Terrence Jones and (oh God) Jason Terry instead.
The mangled remains of the Washington Wizards playoff chances were scrapped off of I-395 as soon as John Wall tumbled to the floor with a wrist fracture. Paul Pierce buzzer-beaters aside, they had no chance.
The Atlanta Hawks were forced to stomach injuries along their sterling starting five to Kyle Korver, Paul Millsap and DeMarre Carroll. On top of this, valuable rotation piece and wing defender Thabo Sefolosha came down with an unfortunate case of “getting unfairly beaten by the police”, forcing him to miss the playoffs with a broken leg.
Mike Conley broke his face.
A hobbled Chris Paul elongated an intense first round series with the San Antonio Spurs, and was unable to fight off neither the demons of the conference semis that live in the stormy corners of his mind nor the Houston Rockets.
The Blazers continued their annual tradition of being over-matched in the playoffs due to injuries. This is called pulling a Brandon Roy.

All throughout the NBA playoffs, every series could be adorned with this simple caveat: It might have been different if everybody was healthy.

In fact, that is what the Oklahoma City Thunder are saying after a season that saw superstars Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook miss large chunks of time and therefore miss the playoffs on the final day of the regular season. A mostly healthy Thunder team competes deep into the playoffs, even with Scott Brooks as the head coach.

Perhaps the most telling example of the power of injuries was the champion Golden State Warriors themselves. Other than a brief Klay Thompson concussion scare, the Warriors have been the picture of health throughout the postseason. The Warriors were able to win the NBA Finals because they were able to win the war of attrition with the other team. The Warriors were deeper and healthier, and both of those result in wins during seven game series.

So, injuries have certainly played a big role in the NBA playoffs, and based on how this postseason has felt, injuries are playing an even more significant role than in the past.

But is there any truth to that statement? A similar conversation seems to rear it’s ugly, injured head every single season. No two injuries are the same, neither in terms of intensity or in terms of what type of impact they have on the team and the league as a whole. As a result, there really isn’t a quantitative way to measure the severity of injuries in the playoffs, but it doesn’t take too long of a memory to give these playoff injuries some context.

The Bulls had plenty of injuries this year, but this year was the first since 2012 that they entered the playoffs with Derrick Rose and his Silly Putty knees still intact. Last year, it was the Warriors who were the victims rather than the benefactors of playoff injuries, with Andrew Bogut being unavailable for the playoffs. In years past, Dwyane Wade was perpetually in-and-out of the Miami Heat’s starting lineup, and even while he was in the lineup in Miami, his effectiveness was limited.

This is just referencing the past few years; this isn’t taking into account key injury examples from ten, fifteen and twenty years ago. You can point to the 1989 NBA Finals where Magic Johnson and Byron Scott were hobbled for the Lakers, enabling the “Bad Boy” Detroit Pistons to win their first Finals series.

Does this then diminish the Warriors victory?

On one hand, Stephen Curry and the Warriors beat the teams of the other four members of the NBA first team (Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans, Marc Gasol and the Memphis Grizzlies, James Harden and the Rockets and LeBron and the Cavs). Clearly this is no small feat, yet these teams were all diminished in some way. The Pelicans had the handicap of Monty Williams and everyone who isn’t The Brow, Memphis was without Conley’s presence, Houston was without their best perimeter defender and a key frontcourt piece and Cleveland was forced to play 1-on-5 basketball (and still forced the series to 6 games).

The Warriors did what they had to in each series, looking dominant all the way through. To spit out a cliche, the Warriors didn’t choose who they played in each series. They simply won.

Cleveland fans have every right to wonder how this series would have gone if they entered it healthy. They also can wonder how this series would have played out if Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson hit their shots with more regularity. Ideally, Kerr gets his death wish and LeBron gets help from Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, but championships aren’t built off of ideal scenarios.

It’s not perfect. It’s the playoffs.

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