"In a vacuum", has there ever been a better PO run than Jokic's '23?

[GeorgeSears]

You can lie to yourselves all you want, but when you compare Jokic's 23 run to any of the last 20 Finals runs, he comes out on top.

Arguably not even the best in last 5 years. Giannis in 21 was more impressive and memorable. Curry has an argument as well.

Top 5 runs in the last 20 years:

1. Jokic '23
2. LeBron '12
3. Giannis '21
4. Kawhi '19
5. Shai '25

[ShootersShoot]

Arguably not even the best in last 5 years. Giannis in 21 was more impressive and memorable. Curry has an argument as well.

Jokic 20 games 30ppg, 13.5rpg, 9.5apg, 1 stl, 1 blk, 3.5tov, 63% TS

Giannis 21 games 30ppg, 12.8rpg, 5apg, 1 stl, 1.2bpg, 3tov, 60% TS

Insane performances by them both. Giannis I would say had a tougher finals opponent although the nugs did beat a cp3, booker, KD team to get there. If we are talking purely raw numbers, I would say jokic looks better.

Durant in 2021 was probably still the best player in the world at that time and Giannis went toe to toe with him, pun intended, and came out on top. Also his finals performance vs a very good well constructed Suns team was much more memorable. Coming back from a 0-2 deficit, his 50 point close out game, going 17-19 from the FT line is legendary stuff.

And you shouldn't compare that Suns team in 2023 to the one in 21. 2023 may have had the names but didn't have enough time to establish chemistry together. KD and Book played 8 regular season games together vs extremely weak competition before those playoffs. And Chris Paul only played one game vs Denver those playoffs.

Yea I agree KD nets feels like a tougher opponent than KD suns due to KD being older and having so little time together with the suns team. That said its not like KD had a ton of time playing with kyrie either that season and harden played 3 games on a messed up hammy vs cp3 playing in 2 before getting injured. Well technically harden played in 4 games but one of them was 40 seconds so.. kyrie missed the last 3 games of that series as well. Also, is 32 year old KD really that much better than 34 yr old KD? Its marginal imo.

So do I think beating KD with harden and kyrie both injured as impressive..quite frankly not really.

[Rubios]

I believe he's the only player to lead the whole PS in total points, rebounds and assists. Playing only 20 games.

Pretty sure Lebron has done this multiple times. He's also led entire series in points, rebounds, assists AND blocks.

Luka led the entire playoffs in those 3 categories in 2024. Literally 2 seasons ago.

What the... thanks for correcting me, I didn't know.

And would never guessed as he started slowly vs LAC, was so-so vs OKC... IMHO, he only was himself for the majority of the series vs the Wolves.

The official medical report, that was leaked during the Finals, was: sprained right knee, left ankle elongation, cracked rib.