For the first time in NBA history, Games 1 and 2 of the NBA Finals went into overtime. In a surprising two games in Oracle Arena, the Cleveland Cavaliers have looked like capable opponents for the league’s best team. Led by the efforts of Lebron James, Cleveland has stolen a game on the road and heads home with the series tied at 1-1.
When you get to the end of a very long season, you generally have a pretty good idea of how you got there and what to expect when to the combatants from each conference emerge. Except, this Finals has defied so many expectations after just two games.
The drama of an overtime game in the NBA Finals is something to experience. To get over time in back-to-back games is a complete blessing.
On one hand, you have Lebron James. The world’s best basketball player has been getting his in this series so far. People always compare James to the great Michael Jordan, but that comparison has always been flawed in so many ways. Now, it is even more inaccurate. James is playing Magic Johnson level basketball right now. His video game stat line and ability to will his team into contention is pure entertainment, a demonstration of basketball being played in a way that hasn’t been this precisely masterful in the things that he does in over 25 years.
Seriously, watch the games and read the stat lines. This is Magic Johnson territory, but done by James in his own unique way.
Game 1: 44 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists
Game 2: 39 points, 16 rebounds, 11 assists
Most of us alive, caring, watching or writing about NBA basketball today can’t remember or appreciate the last time a player dragged his team to the biggest stage and then performed the way James is turning out.
But it wasn’t Lebron that hit the big free throws that the put Cleveland ahead for good. And it wasn’t Lebron that shut down Steph Curry, the best pure shooter alive.
And that is where the Cavaliers stand after two games — the pieces are falling into place.
A big mistake being made right now — people are attempting to discredit both the Warriors and the non-Lebron Cavaliers. People are wrong to do both. If the Warriors win this series, it is because they have some of the best players in the world and have been the best team in basketball for the last seven or eight months. They have a great coach, a great starting five, a deep bench, and a brilliant group of assistant coaches (and Luke Walton).
But the Cavaliers aren’t just Lebron James as much as people want to shout that. As soon as Kyrie Irving went down with a season-ending broken patella at the end of Game 1, a wave of would be shade throwers tried to discredit what was seen as an impending championship for Golden State.
After Cleveland missed two chances to win Game 1 at the buzzer in regulation, they went ice cold in overtime, part of a 0-for-12 shooting streak that buried them, losing the opener.
Game 2 was a different story for the Cavs, highlighting the play of the pieces that James needed around him which he needed to win. The Cavaliers may have stuck Lebron on the court with a bunch of seeming spare parts, but these parts are coming together in a big way.
Matthew Dellavedova isn’t Kyrie Irving, but Irving also isn’t Dellavedova. Irving is a big time guard, the kind of player who can score baskets and occasionally distribute well, but he isn’t a respected defender and the big question around Irving coming into this series was going to be his defense on Curry or when switched off onto Klay Thompson.
Curry, Game 1: 26 points, 4 rebounds, 8 assists, 50% FG, 4 TO
Curry, Game 2: 19 points, 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 21.7% FG, 6 TO
Curry is the major piece of the Golden State offense, the spark the fires the whole machine. In Game 1, which featured a heavy dose of hobbled Irving, Curry played well and was efficient in his shooting, hitting 50-percent of his shots, a modest 33-percent from three-point range. Game 2, without Irving, the Cavs were forced to start Dellavedova. Curry dropped to 13.3-percent from three-point range, committed more turnovers, had fewer assists, and was unable to ever get into a rhythm. Let’s look at Curry’s numbers again for Game 2:
vs. Dellavedova: 0 points, 0% FG, 4 TO
vs. Rest of Cavaliers: 17 points, 40% FG, 2 TO
Dellavedova played an incredible game against Curry. It wasn’t luck and it wasn’t purely skill, Dellavedova brings something extra to the court, the gritty determination to work harder than anyone else on every possession.
Kevin Love was lost to injury in the first round of the playoffs, eventually Blatt settled into giving major minutes to Tristan Thompson. Thompson is perfectly suited to this series and playing in a lineup with gritty players like Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert. His constant work, similar to what Delly does, is combined with a bit more skill than what the smaller Australian-born guard offers. But they both work very hard, hustling for loose balls, drawing fouls, making their opponent work hard for whatever they get.
Both Dellavedova and Thompson are bringing something to this series that Irving and Love couldn’t, and that Lebron James desperately needed.
But it isn’t just one, or two, or three players. Cleveland also brought Mozgov in this season. The mountain of a center has given Bogut all he can handle through two games in this series. He has played particularly well on offense. In Game 2, the Cavs needed someone to step up and help fill the gap left by Irving. Mozgov answered the call, rolling to the rim and drawing foul after foul after foul. The points and rebounds the Mozgov provides have been exactly what Lebron has needed.
On defense, the Cavaliers pieces are doing the impossible. They have hit the Warriors square in the mouth and rendered, at least for one game, the best shooter in the game completely inept. Inadvertently, the Cavaliers have responded to the Warriors in like fashion on the defensive end. While the Warriors are reluctant to help on Lebron, allowing him to work frequently in one-on-one mismatches that allow him to get high-percentage looks, they are trying to limit the damage done by the sparse talent around him. Cleveland has returned the favor, if by accident and requirement more than intelligent design. The 100-percent effort of Dellavedova on Curry helped cause nightmares for the MVP. The stout defensive effort on Curry allows Shumpert to go full effort on Thompson and even if Thompson gets his point, 34 of them in Game 2, the neutralizing of Curry means the Cavaliers have fewer rotations, risky doubles where they have to show early and failed closeouts leading to uncontested threes, the Warriors weapon of choice.
Over and over some combination of Dellavedova, Shumpert or James Jones would be playing maximum effort, which trumped the talent of the players they were facing. And the help that came was always executed well. At one point in Game 2, Curry was in his deadly left corner, but after dribbling there he was surround by four – FOUR! – Cleveland defenders.
The one glaring weakness was the fourth quarter performance of J.R. Smith. Somehow, the Cavs dodged that bullet, but Smith will need to be much sharper going forward in the series to keep Cleveland competitive. On two separate occasions Smith committed fouls on made baskets and committed a very foolish foul on Curry. Had the Cavaliers lost Game 2, the fingers would have been justly pointed directly at Smith.
A win on the road has to be a major boon for the Cavaliers, after losing Game 1, a game they have to feel that they could have won. The injury to Irving could have been deflating, much like the Bulls loss of Derrick Rose in the 2012 playoffs. The difference is that the Bulls had all the pieces, much like the Cavs, but they didn’t, and don’t, have a Lebron.
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