This year's West was widely hailed as one of the toughest conferences in recent memory. The depth and breadth of contenders was supposed to overwhelm, billed as a bloodbath in the making, an inferno and various other harrowing things.
But things didn't exactly turn out that way once the playoffs rolled around.
The Warriors, the 10th team in NBA history to win at least 67 regular-season games, quickly worked their way through the Western Conference bracket, advancing to the Finals with a 12-3 playoff record that nearly matched their Eastern Conference counterparts, the Cavaliers, who enter the Finals having gone 12-2 through their first three postseason series.