In a series that was nothing but deflating for the Hawks, Cleveland has clinched their return to the game’s biggest stage with an emphatic 4-0 sweep of Atlanta.
So many things can happen in the space of a few games. A mostly unanimous bench player can be turned into the league’s biggest heel. Lebron James can launch into orbit and do things that no one else has touched. A cautionary tale can emerge for a team that seemed destined for great things, derailed by a slew of injuries and the disappearance of several players. And then there was the Tristan Thompson Rebounding Clinic.
Normally, professional athletes might hold summer camps for youth aspiring to greatness. The most popular camps are generally hosted by the most popular current or former players of that sport. Tristan Thompson opted to move up his camp and he signed up all of the Atlanta Hawks players to attend. A kind gesture by Thompson who is an impending free agent once the season ends.
First demonstrated against the Bulls, Thompson continued to flash his hustle and dominance inside, particularly on the offensive glass. He just owned the Hawks front court. It wasn’t rebounds alone, as the second half of the closeout game wore on, Thompson powered down multiple slam dunks to put an exclamation point on his spectacular emergence. He picked on a beat up Hawks squad and looked like a player about to earn a huge contract in the process.
The poor, poor Atlanta Hawks. They took punch after punch for what seemed like a very long time. It started with a scuffle in a New York nightclub, robbing the team of a key player. It continued to roll downhill once the playoffs started. Here is what comes to mind right off the top: DeMarre Carroll, Al Horford, Paul Milsap, Kyle Korver. Most teams would like to have any one of those players on their team, healthy, including the Hawks who had no such luxury. Few teams have been so beset by injuries in recent memory. Also sad, free agency will probably take away some of the key pieces of this special team, making it a memory just as quickly as it was a 60-win, top-seeded playoff team.
Somewhere along the way, James took a few minutes off and sent out his minion to do his dirty work. Matthew Dellavedova has been nothing sort of a phenomenon. A player of little regard, he has become chief villain to more than one fan base within the course of a single post-season. While not the biggest player, Dellavedova has relied on his scrappy, dive head first effort to propel him to important minutes. The results have been good enough that they didn’t even need to have Kyrie Irving suit up in their crucial Game 3 victory. While he has gone cold from time to time, he has punished everyone the Cavaliers have played to utter madness. He often shoots over 50-percent from three-point range. And he gets Taj Gibson ejected. And Al Horford. And he gets blamed for the awful, freak injury to Kyle Korver that essentially terminated the playoff hopes of a reeling and battered Hawks team.
The numbers don’t seem to favor the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, but there were a lot of points during the regular season and even into the playoffs that it didn’t look too bright for this Cleveland team. It will be interesting to see just how they fare against the eventual Western Conference champion. Whatever our expectations, they will probably exceed it.
Oh, Lebron James.
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