5 NBA Champions who got embarrassed in NBA Playoffs

The nature of a NBA series means one game is only as meaningful as the next one. Plenty of teams have recovered from embarrassing blowouts to win the title.

The Golden State Warriors won 73 games, were the presumptive favorite to romp through the NBA Playoffs and, to top it all off, the defending champions. With the San Antonio Spurs eliminated, especially, it seemed the Golden State Warriors had the path cleared of serious contenders for the title in their run to history.

Adversity has a funny way of showing up. And there are still games to be played.

Doubt and shade on the Golden State Warriors are at their absolute peak with the complete 133-105 shellacking the Oklahoma City laid on them in Game Three on Sunday night.

All of a sudden things do not look so inevitable. The Thunder are up 2-1 in the series with home court advantage. The Cleveland Cavaliers on the other side of the bracket are looking pretty near unstoppable offensively — even after their own Game Three loss to the Toronto Raptors.

That is the thing about the Playoffs and a best-of-seven series. No matter how badly a team gets beat in one game, there is (usually) another game coming up. And as the score gets bigger, sometimes the losing team packs it in and lets the other team run up the score for the sake of resting for the remainder of the series.

Even the Oklahoma City Thunder were seemingly left for dead after a 124-92 defeat in Game One in AT&T Center. The Thunder stole home court and then won the series in six, ending it with a 113-99 win that seemed much bigger than the final margin.

One game does not make a series, even if it puts the pressure on the losing team the next time around.

Plenty of NBA champions have gotten blown out and beaten up in embarrassing fashion on their way to the title.

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