Blake Griffin will be running it back with the Brooklyn Nets next season after signing a one-year deal to return and will get to begin the campaign with the Eastern Conference supremos having joined the team via trade just two months before last term’s playoffs.
The Nets are considered to be the only team who could knock the reigning champion Milwaukee Bucks off in the East next term, providing they are healthy. And the way Blake sees it, they were just “one extra thing” away from advancing to the NBA finals this year.
“When that series started, in my mind that was kind of who was going to be in the Finals. They matched up with us pretty well. Obviously not being at full strength hurt us,” Griffin said on the team’s series vs. Milwaukee.” It’s kind of weird watching us take them to seven games, banged up, and after that they … they didn’t necessarily handle everybody easily. But, they won in six games, six games and Giannis got hurt in the next series and ran four straight on the Suns.
“It’s always tough. You always kind of sit there and think like, ‘Man if we just did this one extra thing. But that happens every season — It’s just more motivation to come back and be more focused.”
In actuality, however, the Nets had a bit too much as they would have made it to the finals had Kevin Durant gone a shoe size smaller on the night.
