Our dream of a guaranteed Marquette NBA Champion this season has gone by the wayside. For what I will claim is largely injury related reasons, Jimmy Butler and the Miami Heat lost in seven games to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. Given the close nature of Game 7, I am left wondering what would have happened if Butler didn’t miss part of a game earlier in the series due to injury and thus obviously be hampered the rest of the way, or what if Tyler Herro hadn’t been sidelined for three games of the series, or what if Kyle Lowery didn’t miss two games himself.

Boston fans will, of course, tell you that none of this matters and the Celtics were just better. Fair enough, I suppose, since they’re the team in the NBA Finals.

We still have one avenue left for a Marquette NBA champ this season, though.....

Juan Toscano-Anderson — Golden State Warriors

Golden State got to the Finals by way of a gentleman’s sweep of the Dallas Mavericks. It was very much the definition of a gentleman’s sweep, as GSW won the first two games by a combined 34 points and then won Games 3 and 5 by nine and 10 points respectively. There was not much of a doubt who the better team was at the end of the seven games.

Steph Curry led the Dubs in scoring in that series, going for 23.8 points a night while adding 6.6 rebounds and 7.4 assists. His three-point shooting was on a vintage Steph level, knocking in just short of 44%. If the Warriors are going to get that from Steph, 38% from Klay Thompson, and 40% from Jordan Poole, and an absolutely passable 33% from Draymond Green — as they did against the Mavs — they are going to be hard to stop, no matter what Boston tries to throw at them.

OUR GUY~! Juan Toscano-Anderson appeared in four games of the five game series, which is pretty good for a guy who plays JTA’s role on the team. With that said, he was one steal, one foul, and three turnovers away from putting up a 12 trillion for the entire series.

By the way, there are two other Milwaukee connections on this GSW team, and one of them is kind of technically a Marquette connection, too. Kevon Looney (Hamilton) and Jordan Poole (Rufus King) attended high school in Milwaukee, although Poole wrapped up his prep career at La Lumiere School in Indiana. Poole is also the kind of technically MU connected guy, as he became very close with current Marquette assistant coach DeAndre Haynes when Haynes was a John Beilein assistant while Poole was at Michigan.

Game 1: Thursday, June 2, 8pm Central, ABC
Game 2: Sunday, June 5, 7pm Central, ABC
Game 3: Wednesday, June 8, 8pm Central, ABC
Game 4: Friday, June 10, 8pm Central, ABC
Game 5*: Monday, June 13, 8pm Central, ABC
Game 6*: Thursday, June 16, 8pm Central, ABC
Game 7*: Sunday, June 19, 7pm Central, ABC