Who's More Battle-Tested Heading into 2015 NBA Finals, Warriors or Cavaliers?

This year's West was widely hailed as one of the toughest conferences in recent memory. The depth and breadth of contenders was supposed to overwhelm, billed as a bloodbath in the making, an inferno and various other harrowing things.

But things didn't exactly turn out that way once the playoffs rolled around.

The Warriors, the 10th team in NBA history to win at least 67 regular-season games, quickly worked their way through the Western Conference bracket, advancing to the Finals with a 12-3 playoff record that nearly matched their Eastern Conference counterparts, the Cavaliers, who enter the Finals having gone 12-2 through their first three postseason series.

Given the strength of the Western Conference compared to the East, one would expect that Golden State had a much tougher path to the title series. And given the supposed historic strength of this year's West in particular, one would also figure the Warriors had one of the harder roads to the Finals in recent memory.

But was that actually the case? 

In the last 15 years, there have been 30 teams to make the NBA Finals. Below, you'll find their intraconference playoff series ranked by cumulative winning percentage, margin of victory (MOV), pace-adjusted scoring differential (net rating) and Simple Rating System (SRS, Basketball-References.com's one-number metric that adjusts for both strength of schedule and scoring margin).

Finally, there's a cumulative ranking that shows which teams have had the toughest roads to the Finals over that period of time. 

Winning Percentage (WIN %)

Warriors: Pelicans (45-37); Grizzlies (55-27); Rockets (56-26)

Cavaliers: Celtics (40-32); Bulls (50-32); Hawks (60-22)

The Warriors, by virtue of facing three teams with a combined winning percentage of 0.634, had a slightly tougher road to the Finals by this measure than the Cavaliers, whose opponents finished the regular season with a 0.610 winning percentage.

However, despite the historic strength of the conference, that 0.634 mark ranked only 15th among the 30 Finals teams since the 2000-01 season, while Cleveland's opponent winning percentage of 0.610 checked in 19th.

Margin of Victory (MOV)

Warriors: Pelicans (+0.8); Grizzlies (+3.2); Rockets (+3.4)

Cavaliers: Celtics (+0.2); Bulls (+3.0); Hawks (+5.4)

Although the Warriors' playoff opponents had a better combined winning percentage than Cleveland's, the Cavaliers actually squared off against squads with a higher cumulative point differential (8.6 to 7.4). Given that point differential has historically been a better indicator of team quality than actual win-loss record, this is not insignificant.

Much of the differential here comes from the teams' respective conference finals opponents, since the Hawks finished fourth in the NBA with a 5.4 point margin of victory on the season, while Houston checked in seventh at plus-3.4 points. 

Among the 30 Finals teams since the 2000-01 season, Golden State's plus-7.4 cumulative opponent scoring margin ranks 21st, while Cleveland's plus-8.6 margin is 20th. 

Net Rating (NET RTG)

Warriors: Pelicans (+0.7); Grizzlies (+3.1); Rockets (+3.7)

Cavaliers: Celtics (-0.4); Bulls (+3.3); Hawks (+5.6)

Pace is an important factor in scoring margin. If two teams each win by 10 points, but one did so while playing a 90-possession game and the other did so in a 100-possession game, the former victory is much stronger. By regularizing scoring margin on a per-100-possessions basis, things get evened out. 

When we do this, the Warriors inch closer to the Cavaliers, facing teams with a cumulative net rating of 7.5 compared to 8.5 for Cleveland. But they actually fall slightly farther down the rankings in the last 15 years, due to the pace played by the opponents of the 2005 Detroit Pistons and 2013 San Antonio Spurs. Golden State's 7.5 net rating is 23rd among the last 30 Finals squads, while Cleveland's 8.5 mark remains in the 20th slot.

Simple Rating System (SRS)

Warriors: Pelicans (1.13); Grizzlies (3.62); Rockets (3.82)

Cavaliers: Celtics (-0.4); Bulls (2.54); Hawks (4.75)

Basketball-Reference.com's Simple Rating System takes into account average point differential and strength of schedule, and it is denominated in points above/below average, where zero is average.

Here, we again see the Warriors move ahead of the Cavs. Golden State faced three teams with a cumulative SRS of 8.57, the 17th-highest total among the last 30 Finals teams. Cleveland's 6.89 cumulative SRS, meanwhile, ranked 22nd among the 30 squads.

Here, the biggest difference was in the first two rounds, where the quality of the Pelicans and Grizzlies dwarfed that of the Celtics and Bulls, which made up for the difference in strength of the Hawks and Rockets—and then some.

Final Verdict

As you'll see in the cumulative rankings below, the Warriors have faced a slightly tougher road to the Finals than the Cavaliers, but the gap isn't quite as wide as one would think at first glance, given the respective quality of the two conferences.

In fact, going by each team's cumulative ranking, it's one of the more evenly matched series of the last 15 years, in terms of the difficulty of their path to the championship series. 

Though the Cavaliers were certainly battle-tested on their way to the Finals, that was more due to internal factors like Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving's injuries and J.R. Smith's suspension. Based on the quality of their opponents alone, I'd have to lean toward the Warriors in terms of which team had a tougher path. 

Before we proceed with a cumulative ranking of the last 30 Finals entrants, let's stipulate a few things:

• Purely in terms of winning percentage, each team faced its toughest possible road to the Finals given their place in the respective playoff brackets. It could certainly be argued that the Warriors were fortunate in not having to face the Spurs or Clippers, two teams singled out by many—myself included—as those with the best shot to knock the Dubs out before they reached the Finals. But based on wins and losses alone, the Warriors could not have ranked higher than 15th among the 30 teams. 
• Some of the opponents faced by Golden State and Cleveland were not at full strength. The Grizzlies were without Mike Conley in Game 1, while Tony Allen was out or hobbled for much of the rest of the series. The Rockets were missing Patrick Beverley and Donatas Motiejunas for the entire postseason. The Bulls were playing with an injured Joakim Noah and down Pau Gasol for a game, while Derrick Rose and Jimmy Butler were dealing with various ailments. The Hawks A.) had not looked like the Hawks since around March; and B.) were dealing with injuries of varying severity to Thabo Sefolosha, Kyle Korver, DeMarre Carroll and Paul Millsap.
• Injuries happen every year. The same injury-related breaks could likely be found when scouring the opponents for many of the Finals teams listed in the charts above and below. For example, Serge Ibaka missed the first two games of last year's Western Conference Finals against the Spurs, turning a 59-win Thunder team into a completely different squad for those contests. We just remember this year's specifics more clearly because they happened this year. 

OK? OK. Without further ado.

Cumulative Rankings: Historical Look at Toughest Roads to NBA Finals Over Last 15 Years

Each of the teams was assigned a ranking from No. 1-30 in all of the above categories, which were each given an equal weight to determine a cumulative ranking of the toughest road to the Finals, with the lowest numbers representing the toughest path. Those rankings are below, with this year's Finals teams highlighted in bold.

Rank	Team	Win %	MOV	NET-RTG	SRS	TOTAL
1	2009 ORL	1	3	2	3	9
2	2002 LAL	2	2	3	2	9
3	2001 LAL	6	1	1	1	9
4	2006 DAL	4	4	4	4	16
5	2008 LAL	9	5	6	5	25
6	2004 LAL	10	6	5	6	27
7	2011 DAL	3	9	10	8	30
8	2014 SAS	7	10	11	7	35
9	2011 MIA	11	7	7	11	36
10	2010 BOS	8	11	8	10	37
11	2010 LAL	13	8	9	9	39
12	2005 SAS	5	13	12	13	43
13	2007 SAS	14	12	13	12	51
14	2012 OKC	12	17	15	14	58
15	2003 SAS	18	14	14	15	61
16	2009 LAL	16	15	16	16	63
17	2006 MIA	17	19	17	18	71
18	2015 GSW	15	21	23	17	76
19	2004 DET	22	16	18	20	76
20	2012 MIA	23	18	19	19	79
21	2015 CLE	19	20	20	22	81
22	2005 DET	20	22	21	23	86
23	2013 SAS	21	23	22	21	87
24	2001 PHI	26	24	24	24	98
25	2008 BOS	25	25	26	25	101
26	2003 NJN	27	26	25	27	105
27	2002 NJN	29	27	27	26	109
28	2014 MIA	24	28	28	30	110
29	2007 CLE	28	29	29	28	114
30	2013 MIA	30	30	30	29	119

As you can see, both of this year's Finals representatives rank slightly below average in terms of the strength of their road to the Finals. Beyond that, here are a few notes about the findings above:

• The 2001 Lakers faced the toughest path to the Finals by margin of victory, net rating and SRS, but they are tied with the 2009 Magic and 2002 Lakers atop the cumulative rankings due to their opponents slightly underperforming relative to their expected win-loss records (based on margin of victory) during the regular season.
• The Lakers occupy five of the top 11 spots. Their only Finals run in the last 15 years that doesn't rank in the top half in terms of difficulty was 2009, which finished 16th. 
• The 2006 Mavericks' opponents ranked fourth in every category. Though a few others were close (like the 2013 Heat), they're the only team whose opponents had the same rank in every category.
• In terms of opponent quality on the road to the Finals, the widest margin came in 2002, when the Lakers tied for the toughest overall path in the last 15 years and the Nets' opponents were the 27th-toughest out of these 30 teams.
• In terms of opponent quality on the road to the Finals, the slimmest margin came in 2010, when the Celtics faced the 10th-toughest path and the Lakers ranked 11th. This was also one of only two seasons in which the Eastern Conference team faced a more difficult overall path to the Finals, along with 2009. 
• LeBron's six Finals runs rank ninth, 20th, 21st, 28th, 29th and 30th in difficulty by this measure.
• This year's West was billed as the strongest in years, but the 2014 Spurs actually faced a harder road through the Western Conference playoffs than this year's Warriors. 
• With a three-slot split, this year's matchup is the third-closest in terms of opponent quality on the way to the Finals, behind 2010 (1) and 2011 (2).