First of them are the Houston Rockets. They are first team in the league right now and they are playing really good basketball. Of course, their best player is James Harden. With a few new players (Chris Paul and Gerald Green in the first place), the team is much better than the last season. There are a few ways in which they can beat the Warriors.
First, they need to have great shooting nights because their game is based on 3-pointers.
Secondly, they need to start playing defence. Now, in this team only Trevor Ariza and Clint Capela are playing good defence but if they want to stop Curry and the crew, they must be more aggressive under the rim.
Thirdly, I think that they need to surprise the Warriors in order to try use Clint Capela more because he is physically stronger than Zaza Pachulia and he is also higher than Zaza and Draymond Green. Of course, they have Chris Paul and James Harden which are excellent assistants. James Harden may be the best or one of the best players in the NBA, but he has never played good enough in the playoffs and he has never made a good result as a team leader.
The second team is Boston Celtics. This team has the best defence in the league. In my opinion, they are favorites to win East Conference. Why?
Because they have great players on every position. They are a combination of „experience and youth“. If Gordon Hayward didn't hurt himself, this team would be the favorite as well as the Warriors. Their best player is Kyrie Irving who came last season from Cleveland and he can lead them to the victory. He is a player with the experience (he already played a final against the Warriors) just like Al Horford who plays center position. They also have Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum and Terry Rozier who are young but very mature players.
They can beat the Wariorrs only if they keep up playing good defence and especially if Gordon Hayward recovers and comes back. In my opinion, their biggest problem is that some players haven't played some of the „big games“ and most of them haven't played in the playoff.
The third team is Cleveland Cavaliers. If you have Lebron James in the team, you can always win the title. Cleveland is not looking good this season, ofence is good, but defence is terrible. They have made a lot of trades in this season and with that, they have improved the team. They finally have good defence players, now when Kevin Love is injured we can see full potential of Larry Nance Jr. I also think that was a good move to get rid of Isiah Thomas who is awful in defence and bringing George Hill instead who is a very good defensive player.
Also, Cleveland brought some excellent shooters like Jordan Clarckson and Rodney Hood. They can beat Golden State only if they improve their defence even more. If these two teams meet each other in final, Lebron will play great for sure but other players (Kevin Love, JR Smith, Tristan Thompson...) must also be good.
These are 3 teams that are a biggest threat to the Golden State Warriors. But also, there are some teams who can also be a threat. I think that „teams from the shadow“ are: Toronto Raptors, San Antonio Spurs, Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder.
Toronto is the first team on the East Conference. DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry are in the great form, but I think that they are not ready for something big because they don't have the depth in the team.
San Antonio Spurs – this team doesn't have some excellent individuals (their best player is LaMarcus Aldridge who doesn't have too good statistics) but they do have excellent teamwork. All that is because of their coach Greg Popovich, who I think, is maybe the best coach in the NBA ever and beacuse of that, they can do something in the playoff.
Minnesota Timberwolves is a great team but they have a bad coach. Players like Wiggins, Towns and Jimmy Butler can play against Golden State Warriors but their coach Tom Thibodeau isn't a good coach because he doesn't know how to rest his key players. Also, when he was a coach in Chicago Bulls, he treated Jimmy Butler like he did in Minnesota. That's why I think that Minnesota will be tired and knocked out in the playoff before the final.
Oklahoma City Thunder is a team full of great individual players. When I watch their game, I think that they don't have the chemistry in the team. Westbrook is looking like a player who wants to resolve all the problems and games alone, as if Paul Geroge and Carmelo Anthony aren't the type of players who can win the game.
Also, they need to improve their defence which is based only on Steve Adams who needs to do everything alone under the rim (only Paul George helps him, but not always). I'm very pesimistic of their games in playoff, I think that they can do something only if they improve their teamwork.
That is all from me, I think that you will have fun while reading this and I also expect that you will write your opinion in the comments. 😃
