Each NBA playoff series is its own distinct event, with no real continuity point between the end of one and the beginning of another.
The Minnesota Timberwolves, for instance, knocked off the defending champion Denver Nuggets, but that didn’t automatically make them kings of the hill; a series against the Dallas Mavericks in the next round posed a completely different set of challenges, and the Timberwolves’ roster was much less able to handle those. Similarly, the brave fight the Indiana Pacers put up against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals tells us almost nothing about what might happen to Boston in a series against Dallas; aside from a proclivity for employing Rick Carlisle, Indiana and Dallas could hardly be less alike.