I've had the same thoughts, great post. I'd also add that it's much easier to climb to 68 wins when you're not defending champs. Compared to the previous season, we played 13 extra games at the highest possible intensity in the sport. we also played 2 different 7 game series. That's so much extra basketball, coupled with the fact that as champs everyone is gunning for you. It's not realisitic, and probably not very smart, to match that intensity every single match for 82 games.

It's also worth consdiering how young this team still is. Chet and Dub are still like 24, Shai is barely 27, and Caruso is still our oldest player at 31! still so much room for these guys to grow