As Michael Malone’s team powered through the postseason and into the NBA Finals, he found himself steadily relying on a couple of go-to thoughts about his team’s performance.
He’s repeatedly noted — and as weeks progressed, cautioned — that his team faced very little true postseason adversity as it dispatched Minnesota in five games, Phoenix in six and Los Angeles in four.
Before Game 3 in Phoenix, he said, “we’ve had no adversity in the postseason yet. Things have gone really, really smooth. And adversity is coming. It’s knocking on the door.”
Phoenix tied that series with a pair of blistering offensive performances at home, but that led Malone right to his other go-to: The old basketball cliché that a series doesn’t start until somebody wins a road game.