By Sean Kennedy (@PhillyFastBreak)
The Injury Factor
The Warriors are largely healthy, with the biggest looming question mark Klay Thompson’s potential lingering concussion symptoms. Thompson caught a flying knee to the head from Trevor Ariza that looked like it belonged in the octagon, but he’s been practicing and cleared to play Game 1. Hopefully, the week between games was enough time to clear the cobwebs for the perimeter sniper. Golden State also gets a small boost in that Marreese Speights has been cleared to return to action. He could be a nice option for the bench for them if Festus Ezeli turns back into a pumpkin.
The Cavs on the other hand, have some high-profile injuries to contend with in this series. Kevin Love will not be available thanks to Kelly Olynyk treating Love’s shoulder like a mob henchman trying to extract information. Cleveland has been playing for two series without Love so they know what to expect there, but what they don’t know is what they’ll get from Kyrie Irving. Irving has a lingering knee injury that caused him to miss a pair of games and generally hobbled him during the latter half of the playoffs. Without Kyrie around, LeBron James has assumed an increased burden on the offensive end, causing him to shoot just 42.8% from the field and 17.6% from three in the playoffs, well below his regular season averages of 48.8% and 35.4%.
Home Court Advantage
Golden State finished 39-2 at home during the regular season, while winning another 7 of 8 in the postseason. Oracle Arena is the NBA’s version of Seattle’s 12th man, and aside from the James connection (LeBron and Jones), the Cavs’ rotational players haven’t been thrown into that type of environment on the big stage. With 40 years between Finals runs, the Warriors faithful are going to be in a Leonidas-like battle frenzy. It’s hard to imagine Cleveland stealing maybe more than one game on the road. Can they be flawless back in Ohio? They’ll have to be to have any shot in this series.
The Warriors Dominance
Not to over-simplify things, but Golden State has been good, borderline historically good, all season long. The Warriors had the best defense in the league in the regular season while falling just a hair off the best offensive mark in the league. Those marks have only dropped a tiny bit against stiffer competition in the Western Conference playoffs. They have the depth, the current MVP in Steph Curry, the top second-best shooter on a team in the league in Klay Thompson, and a do-it-all brickhouse in Draymond Green that lets them play big or small whenever they desire.
Cleveland’s Defensive Achilles Heel
It’s no secret that the Cavaliers struggled defensively during the regular season, but Cleveland backers love to say that all changed once the made their mid-season acquisitions. Still, during the regular season, 2-man lineups consisting of Tristan Thompson and Timofey Mozgov had a defensive rating of 102.2 across 274 minutes (which would have been the 15th-best mark in the league during the regular season). That’s not terrible, but it’s not the sort of defensive prowess usually needed by a NBA champion.
The Cavs have been much better in the playoffs, but they faced the Celtics (only a playoff team because we’re a good half decade away yet from ridding ourselves of conferences altogether), the Bulls (who historically have turned 6-minute scoring droughts into an art form), and the Hawks (who lost Kyle Korver, had DeMarre Carroll playing on one leg, and Paul Millsap, whose shoulder still looked to be bothering him). Trying to chase around Steph Curry and company is going to be like jumping from Rookie to All-Madden all at once.
The LeBron Factor
King James has been nearly averaging a triple-double in these playoffs, but as I mentioned above, it hasn’t been his most efficient effort. In this series, the Warriors will make LeBron work for everything, cycling Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala, and Draymond Green on him. All three guys are capable defenders with enough size and strength to at least make the best player on the planet sweat a bit. Golden State will let him shoot all the jumpers they want and hope he can’t shake off his shooting slump. James would be most effective trying to operate out of the post, but he can’t do that due to spacing concerns in the Tristan Thompson-Timofey Mozgov lineups that have been a big part of their playoff run.
FiveThirtyEight estimates Cleveland has the 3rd worst support cast around its best player in the NBA Finals since 1985. Still, the main argument I’ve since for the Cavaliers winning, is ‘psshh, they have LeBron’. Well, the 2007 Cavs had Lebron, and so did the 2014 Heat, and those teams lost in 4 and 5 games, respectively. We have actual evidence that despite his overwhelming greatness, LeBron does need help. I don’t think a hobbled Kyrie Irving and J.R. Smith qualify as such.
Prediction: Warriors in 5
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