It's a typical D'antoni team that will lose in the playoffs.
Phoenix Suns' 2005 playoffs, 1st seed, 1st year of SSOL:
- Sweep Memphis
- Beat Mavericks 4-2
- Lose 4-1 to the Spurs, WCF, Spurs go on to win championship
Phoenix Suns' 2006 playoffs, 3rd seed
- Comeback from 3-1 to beat the Lakers, blowing them out in the last 3 games
- Win 4-3 against the Clippers
- Lose 4-2 against the Mavericks, WCF
Phoenix Suns' 2007 playoffs, 2nd seed (this one is still contentious with Suns' fans)
- Beat the Lakers 4-1
- Suns lose 4-2 to the Spurs.
I would note that that was easily the "actual finals" for the 2007 playoffs (Spurs crush the Jazz and Cavs afterwards), and there is of course the notorious Robert Horry hip check on Steve Nash that then led to Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw being suspended for Game Five. Asides from the game 2 blowout of the Spurs, every single game was incredibly close.
Do the Suns win without the suspensions? Who knows, but either way, the winning of this series was highly likely going to be winning the championship that year.
Phoenis Suns' 2008 playoffs, 6th seed (55 wins)
- Lose to the Spurs, 4-1. Only time this team lost in the 1st round
Just before the break, the Suns trade away all-star Shawn Marion for an aging Shaq, who "could compete" with Duncan down low. Their offense slows down, especially with hack-a-shaq, and the FO basically partially gave up on D'Antoni's style of play. D'Antoni leaves for the Knicks
New York Knicks' 2011 playoffs, 6th seed (42 wins)
- Swept by the big 3 Celtics
Free agency has the Knicks sign Amare Stoudemire, and then trade away their depth for Carmelo, who they could've just signed that off-season. Amare played the entire series injured. Chauncey Billups gets sidelined after a knee injury in Game 1.
New York Knicks' 2012 (he wasn't with them for the playoffs)
- Linsanity while Melo is ouy
- Melo doesn't want to play power forward in a fast paced offense, after coming back, Knicks struggle again, Mike Woodson becomes coach
Los Angeles Lakers' 2013 playoffs, 7th seed.
- Swept by the Spurs
Don't know where to start with this one. D'Antoni became coach in the middle of the season, after interviewing with the Lakers as a "mere formality". Nash is injured a ton. Gasol gets injured a ton. Dwight is still in Dwightmare mode, at least partially, and still had come back early from his back injury, and also didn't seem to realize how the pick n' roll Dwight of the Magic could've been perfect for D'Antoni (or maybe his injury just made him not want to do that anymore). Either way, Dwight thinks he should be posting up. And he's injured often too. Metta is playing injured too. Then Kobe gets injured in the final game of the season.
So, in the playoffs, their best player is gone, and all of their "big five" injured, on a team with major chemistry issues, against the 2013 Spurs, who were favorites for the championship in the finals against the Heat.
No one is winning with that team.
So in total, we have:
- two straight WCF trips
- a WCSF against the eventual champions, somewhat controversial, and basically the actual NBA Finals that year
- a 1st round exit on a team that just traded one of D'Antoni's system's best players, Shawn Marion, for a slow, older Shaq, so that they could be more conventional and could post up against Duncan, something he failed spectacularly at. Shaq also gets hacked, preventing their offense from being able to properly flow.
- Probably the main egregious loss, getting
swept by the Celtics, when the Knicks were supposed to have a decent shot at an upset. Knicks lost their point guard in the first game, and their best player (at that point, it's Stoudemire) is playing the series injured.
- A 1st round exit on a team that I doubt anyone other than maybe Pop could've coached.
Are the Thunder a team that never won in the playoffs? What about Steve Van Gundy?
I mean, there's a glaring lack of a finals trip, but this idea that D'Antoni never succeeded in the playoffs is ridiculous. There does seem to be a Spurs problem, I'll give you that,
thankfully I guess we have Harden, who always seems to go off on the Spurs?
And if you're thinking of the Suns when you say that, they only make the playoffs one more time, in 2010, and get to the WCF.
But yeah, D'Antoni teams don't play well in the playoffs
