When Floyd Mayweather Jr. finally faced Manny Pacquiao on May 2, 2015, a lot of the shine had worn off this much-anticipated boxing battle.
The two world class fighters had been trying to ink that super-bout for almost six years and in that time Pacquiao had lost to Timothy Bradley and Juan Manuel Márquez while Mayweather Jr. slap-boxed inferior opponents and put fans to sleep with boring decision victories in seven of his next eight fights. By the time they touched gloves at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, fight fans weren’t really getting the matchup they wanted.
NBA fans are feeling similar disappointment with the Western Conference finals. The Golden State Warriors take on the San Antonio Spurs – the top two teams in the West for some time now. Surprisingly, this is the first time the Warriors and Spurs have meet in the conference championship and the first time they’ve crossed paths in the postseason since 2013 (before Golden State grew into the NBA’s elite).
But this series, which would have been dubbed “the real NBA Finals” in seasons past, will fall short of those built-up expectations. At least according to oddsmakers, who have set Golden State as a near 10/1 favorite (-928 at SportsInteraction) to knock off San Antonio and advance to its third straight NBA Finals.
The Spurs limp into the third round of the playoffs, missing veteran point guard Tony Parker (out with a ruptured quadriceps since Game 2 of conference semis) and dragging along a one-legged Kawhi Leonard, who sat out San Antonio’s Game 6 victory over the Houston Rockets Thursday. Books opened the short-handed Spurs as 10-point road underdogs in Golden State for Game 1, which has since jumped to +10.5 with money on the Warriors.
San Antonio is the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference but has needed six games in each series to off its postseason opposition so far, eliminating the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round before finishing off Houston with a dominating 114-75 road win in Game 6 – sans those stars mentioned above. The Spurs are 7-5 against the spread (ATS) in those dozen games.
Golden State, on the other hand, hasn’t dropped a game in the playoffs after sweeping the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz in the opening two rounds. The Warriors have won those games by an average of 16.5 points while facing an average pointspread of just over -10 per game, equaling a 5-3 ATS record for the postseason. They'll also enjoy a lengthy six-day break before facing the Spurs, who will be just three days removed from Round 2.
**video
Head-to-head, the Golden State-San Antonio rivalry is a little tough to track. The Western powers have traded blows over the past 10 meetings, splitting the results with mirror 5-5 SU and ATS records. But don’t let that tit-for-tat balance fool you. That high price on Golden State set by the oddsmakers shows that things are very different this time around.
The most recent matchup between these teams tells some of the story. The Warriors fell behind by 22 points to the Spurs in the first eight minutes of their March 29 encounter in San Antonio. Golden State proceeded to outscore the home team 93-65 in the final three quarters and won 110-98 as a 4.5-point road underdog. All of this, it should be noted, without standout forward Kevin Durant in the lineup (out with knee injury for more than a month).
Their March 11 meeting in San Antonio saw the Dubs sit the majority of their starters and oddsmakers tossed out a spread of Spurs -10.5. San Antonio, which limited minutes for its stars during that game, covered with a 107-85 victory – a result that bettors should really toss out the window when handicapping this series.
The remaining game between the Warriors and Spurs from the 2016-17 schedule was a 129-100 opening-night trouncing by San Antonio inside Oracle Arena, with the visitor easily covering the spread as an 8.5-point underdog. And not to take anything away from that victory, but it came on opening night with plenty of motivation to upend the defending conference champs (and their big-name offseason addition, Durant) and was played by a veteran San Antonio squad with the freshest legs possible.
Jump ahead from that October evening to Game 1 of the Western Conference finals Sunday afternoon, and this Warriors team is very different. The franchise’s happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, squeaky-clean image (save for Draymond Green, of course) is long gone.
This postseason’s version of the Dubs is a merciless and motivated squad, pissed off by losing a 3-1 series lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals (and having to witness countless memes spawned because of it). These Warriors are steering into the “bad guy” skid, with rival fans hating their talent-rich lineup more and more with every deep 3-pointer, Draymond hamming it up for the public like a pro wrestling heel, and Durant telling opposing mascots where to shove it. But there’ no denying their talent - not at these odds.
Golden State reminds us of another ultra-talented antagonist, who’s no stranger to huge levels of hate, high expectations and even higher prices at the sportsbook. For the fans’ sake, let’s hope the Western Conference finals are more exciting than Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
