Their roster (obviously)
Their history (example: Clippers doomed to fail because of their roster construction, Lakers outperform regular season because of guys like LeBron)
Their health (big wild card, and can obviously change)
LeBron teams in 2010s when he was still in the East good...
....what?
My point is very obvious. Usually the best teams don't go all out in the regular season. Hence the seeding rarely reflects the actual ranking of teams
Sometimes they are so good they get the 1 seed anyway (think the Warriors with Durant, except the middle season). Hell sometimes...
Dallas did improve quite a bit after that trade, especially on defense
Can’t really put much stock into regular season record
For reference Phoenix swept the regular season series against Minnesota (I believe they won every game by double digits)
Then got swept in playoffs
Game changes...
Lakers were a better match up for Denver. Frankly Dallas was playing better than both of them post trade
I had been saying Clippers were gonna lose in the first round all season long and that they were a fraud team. They were never going to beat the Mavs. Mavs actually played a very lousy...
Teams approach the regular season differently
Mavs were obviously top 2 team in the west but were in the 5 spot
Teams don’t go all out in the regular season. So can’t just analyze but what their seed is
Those teams were better than their seeds though
Lakers last year would handle this Pacers team
The Pacers are pretty on par with the 2021 Hawks that got to the ECF
That was a very bizarre year looking back. Bucks/Suns final lol