J-Speaks: Cavs Defending Champs No More

Two Fridays ago, the Cleveland Cavaliers avoided an embarrassing sweep with a 137-116 victory over the defending back-to-back-to-back Western Conference champions the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. They put themselves in the same position they were a year ago trailing 3-1 to and won the series in seven games. Unlike last year though, guard Stephen Curry was healthy, Kevin Durant was not part of the equation and Draymond Green was on the floor for this Game 5. That made a major difference last Monday night.

Behind the 39 points, seven rebounds and five assists by Durant, who was named the Bill Russell Finals MVP for the series, the Warriors defeated the defending champs in Game 5 129-120 to win The Finals 4-1 and captured their fifth title in franchise history and their second in the last three seasons. Curry had a strong performance with 34 points, 10 assists, six boards and three steals. Green also had a double-double of 10 and 12 boards, and five assists.

In a losing effort, two-time Finals MVP LeBron James, who is now 3-5 in The Finals in his career had a game-high 41 points, going 19 for 30 from the field, to go along with 13 rebounds, eight assists and two steals in 47 minutes.

“I left everything on the floor every game. All five games,” James, who became the first player in NBA history to average a triple-double in The Finals with an effort of 33.6 points, 12 boards and 10 assists in the five-game setback said after the game.

“So, for me personally I have no reason to put my head down. I have no reason to look back at what I could have done, or what I should have done, or what I could have done better for the team. I left everything I had out on the floor every single game for five games in this Finals and you come up short.”

All-Star guard Kyrie Irving, who had 40 points in Game 4 contributed 26 points and six assists, but shot just 9 for 22 from the field. J.R. Smith had a series-high 25 points, going 7 for 8 from three-point range and Tristan Thompson had 15 points and eight boards.  

Things turned in favor of the Warriors at the 10:14 mark of the second quarter when they used a 36-11 run to turn an eight-point deficit into a 17-point lead. In that stretch, James was just 1 for 2 from the field in that stretch, making a three-pointer and Irving was just 1 for 5 from the field with two turnovers and was 0 for 6 in the fourth quarter.

Five seasons back, James won his first title by leading the Miami Heat to a 4-1 series victory in Durant’s only other Finals appearance in 2012, when he was with the Oklahoma City Thunder.

This time around it was Durant who came out on top and won his first title a decade after being selected No. 2 overall in the NBA draft behind Greg Oden and he did it in every conceivable way possible.

He drove left, right and down the middle in the open court and in half court sets; knocked down three-pointers, going 5 for 8 on the evening and 14 for 20 overall from the field. He hit a 17-footer over James in the early part of the fourth quarter and then assists on a triple by reserve Andre Iguodala on the next Warriors possession that gave them a cushion they would not give up.

In that game changing stretch of the second period, Durant scored 13 points when reserve forward Richard Jefferson of the Cavs was guarding him.

“They assembled a great team. We was able to get them last year and they went out and got one of the best players that this league has ever seen,” James said of the Warriors and their difference maker in Durant.

Coming into The Finals, the Cavs were 12-1 through the first three rounds and seemed to have things together after a regular season that saw them go 26-24 since Jan. 2, finishing as the No. 2 Seed in the East at 51-31.

One reason for that is the fact that they were completely whole during the regular season as All-Star forward Kevin Love missed 22 games because of knee surgery and that they added the likes of Kyle Korver, Deron Williams, and Derrick Williams late in the season.   

Those additions along with Love, Iman Shumpert in the Cavs biggest game of the season were abysmal scoring a combined to score just 13 points on 4 for 17 from the field. Sharp shooting forward Channing Frye, who had some solid moments in the first three rounds of the postseason did not play, coaches decision.

The so-called others for the Warriors like Igoudala, Shaun Livingston, rookie Patrick McCaw and David West combined for 35 points on 15 for 26 shooting, with Igoudala, the 2015 Finals MVP scoring 20 of those points going 9 for 14 with four rebounds and three assists.

The biggest reason for the Cavs slippage at the start of the new year was the fact that their defense took a major step backwards, especially after the All-Star break. There were times that teams were scoring at will against the Cavs and that really showed in The Finals.

In Game 5 the Warriors scored over 30 points in three of the four quarters, with 33 points in the first; 38 in the second and 31 in the fourth. Despite shooting 53.4 percent from the floor; outscoring the Warriors 62-52 in the paint and 25-18 in fast break points, the Cavs allowed the Warriors to shoot 51.1 percent and to go 14 for 38 from three-point range. The Warriors had 27 assists and just 13 turnovers; went 23 for 28 from the free throw line, while the Cavs were just 15 for 23 and turned 15 Cavs miscues into 23 points.

“The biggest thing of this season is we weren’t able to get healthy and when we finally got healthy, playoffs was right around the corner and right around the corner we showed what we were capable of doing when we got a full unit,” James said.

“It would’ve been great to see us at a full unit throughout the whole season to see can continue to build the comradery, and build the chemistry out on the floor so you don’t have to wait until April to see what you are capable of doing.”

Case in point is what happened with the Warriors this season. Before Durant sustained a knee injury that put him down for 19 games, the team was 50-10 and looked every bit like a serious title contender.

When he went down the stars of the Warriors Curry, Klay Thompson and Green raised their level of play as well as the supporting cast of Iguodala, JaVale McGee, Livingston, McCaw, West and Matt Barnes, living up to their slogan over the past three seasons “Strength in Numbers,” and resulting in 15 wins in their last 16 games to close the regular season and a 16-1 record in the postseason.

While he is easily one of the greatest small forwards to ever play on the professional hardwood; one of the best players to ever play in the NBA and a first ballot Hall of Famer when he decides to retire, James as mentioned earlier is 3-5 in The Finals in his career and his 18-27 record in The Finals is tied with Hall of Famer and six-time NBA champion Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the third most Finals losses in NBA history.

He is the first former MVP to have lost five times in the NBA’s championship round. Abdul-Jabbar went 6-4 in The Finals; Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson went 6-4 in his 10 Finals appearances and the late great Wilt Chamberlin was 2-4 in The Finals.

In the case of James’ eight Finals appearances, his teams were rarely favored. If you exclude the 2011 setback by the Heat to the Dallas Mavericks in six games, each time that James whether with the Cavs or Heat, his opponent put the better team on the court.

No one understands that better then Warriors assistant coach Mike Brown, who was the head coach of the Cavs in James’ first Finals appearance where the Cavs were swept 4-0 by the San Antonio Spurs in 2007.

There are a lot of players in the league that would kill to have the opportunities to be on the cusp of a championship as many times as James has. If anything, we should be celebrating the fact that James has made it to seven straight Finals. Not everybody can do what the great Michael Jordan did going 6-0 in The Finals and winning Finals MVP each time. He can at least say that he won more than once in The Finals, unlike “The Logo,” Jerry West who was 1-9 in The Finals.

To put the greatness of James in the last three Finals against the Warriors, he has averaged 32.8 points, 12.2 rebounds, 9.2 assists and 1.8 steals. Coming into Game 5 of The Finals last Monday night, James in his last four elimination games dating back to the 2016 Finals had averaged 35.0 points11.3 rebounds and 10 assists, garnering two triple-doubles. Irving had averaged 32.5 points in those four games on 53 percent from the field and going 16 for 29 from three-point range.

James though has a chance to rectify that record, hopefully next year and in years to come if the management of the Cavs can continue to improve the team and will have to be the case if they ever want to be the Warriors, who have the makings of a dynasty.

In the eyes of Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue, the gap between the Cavs and Warriors is not that big.

“They beat us, but I don’t see a big gap,” he said. “I thought we played well. Got better each game, but against good teams, you can’t give away games like Game 3 at home and expect to win in a hostile environment.”

That is why without making one roster move, if the Cavs take the regular season more seriously next season, they will give themselves a much better chance of beating the Warriors. This team with the talent that they had should have had more than 51 wins. Particularly in the second half of this past season, the Cavs level on concentration can be best described as mediocre, and that is how you have what happened in Game 3 at home where the Warriors used an 11-0 run to close the game and lost at home to fall behind 3-0. It is how you sustain two blowout losses on the Warriors home court in Games 1 and 2. It is how you get outscored as mentioned 36-11 in the second quarter of Game 5 and go from an eight-point lead to a 17-point deficit.

If they had made any kind of commitment to the defensive end, things might have been different and while they might not have had the number of wins the Warriors had during the regular season, 67, things might have been different.

If they can acquire a Paul George from the Indiana Pacers or something of that nature, that would make things interesting, but the question is will it make a difference against the Warriors?

With what the Cavs have currently, they could make it back to The Finals, but there are no guarantees of anything, especially after next season where James is set to become a free agent.

There is without question that a sense of urgency to put a roster together to reach The Finals and win it again will be there for the Cavs. The question is will it be enough to beat the Warriors again, who as James said has all the makings of a team that can win more titles in the years to come.

“Teams and franchises are going to trying to figure out ways that they can put personnel together. The right group of guys together to be able to hopefully compete against this team [Warriors],” he said.

“Their assembled as good as you could assemble and I’ve played against some really, really good teams that was assembled perfectly and their right up there. So, we will see?”

Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 6/12/17 9 p.m. contest of Game 5 of the NBA Finals Cleveland Cavaliers versus Golden State Warriors on ABC with Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson, and Doris Burke; 6/13/17 12 a.m. edition NBA Live at The Finals Postgame with Matt Winer, Steve Smith, Brent Barry, Grant Hill, and David Aldridge; 6/13/17 9:30 a.m. edition of Fox Sports 1’s “Skip and Shannon: Undisputed,” with Joy Taylor, Shannon Sharpe and Skip Bayless; 6/13/17 3 p.m. edition of “NBA: The Jump” on ESPN, presented by La Quinta Inns & Suites with Rachel Nichols, Amin Elhassan, Rasheed Wallace and Vince Carter; www.nba.com/games/20170612/CLEGSW#/recap/boxscore/matchup; www.espn.com/nba/matchup?gameid=400954514; www.espn.com/nba/team/stats/_/name/cle/seasontype/2; www.espn.com/nba/player/_/id/2444/jr-smith and www.espn.com/nba/player/gamelog/_/id/1966/lebron-games.