Schmeelk: Warriors' Greatness, Not Cavaliers' Struggles, Should Be NBA Finals Story Line
By John Schmeelk
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Since the Cavaliers went down two games to none in the NBA Finals in relatively noncompetitive fashion against the Warriors, all of the onus has been put on Cleveland and what it's doing wrong. Everyone is asking what LeBron James can do to put his team on his shoulders and carry it. Some are even suggesting that if James can't figure out a way to pull his team to victory, he deserves to be taken down a few notches on the NBA all-time greats list.
Perhaps it was how well the Thunder played against Golden State that is warping everyone's perception and making them forget exactly how good the Warriors were this year. They won 73 games. They went 40-1 at home this year. They are rightfully in the conversation as one of the best teams of all time. James could grow six inches and a third arm overnight, and it wouldn't stop this Warriors juggernaut.
The Cavs are a very good team, but they simply aren't good enough to beat the Warriors. Golden State has so few flaws that other teams can exploit. No matter how teams play against them, they always seem to have an answer due to their slew of multi-talented and multi-positional players.
Two-way players are the most valuable thing NBA teams can have these days, and the Warriors have many of them. Guys who can play good defense but also help offensively are rare, but not on Golden State. Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala and Harrison Barnes are all guys who play reasonably well on both ends. Even Stephen Curry is better defensively than most give him credit for.
If you trap a Warriors pick-and-roll, Green will tear you up. If you switch a big onto either Curry or Thompson, they are too dynamic not to score. If you go under the pick, they hit a 3. If you hedge and try to get back, the guards pass too well and find the open man while the defense rotates. There's literally no answer.
Every mistake offensively seems to turn into a layup or open 3-pointer for Golden State. You almost have to play perfect basketball. That's why it was so impressive what the Thunder did to Golden State. Just a few minutes of bad play in any given game by the Thunder were still too much to overcome. The Cavaliers have had more lapses because they are not as good, and they have paid the price.
Meanwhile, other than James, the Cavs don't have any two-way players. Kyrie Irving can be dominant offensively, but he is a terrible defensive point guard. Iman Shumpert and Matthew Dellavedova can play defense, but they can't score. Kevin Love is a disaster defensively. Tristan Thompson can't score. Channing Frye can't defend. Frighteningly, J.R. Smith is the only other guy with a chance to be a two-way player, but he has too many lapses to be counted on either end of the floor. A team with that many flaws is easy pickings for the Warriors. It's a flat-out bad matchup for the Cavaliers.
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For those asking James to become a scorer and put the team on his shoulders, do they not remember how well the Cavs did when he had to do that last year? James' production last season was legendary, and the Warriors still dominated the final few games of the series with ease. What was supposed to give the Cavs a better chance this year was the presence of Irving and Love. Now people want James to ignore them and do it himself? It doesn't make sense.
Both Irving and Love need to score a lot and efficiently if the Cavs have any chance of keeping up with the Warriors' offense. James needs them offensively, especially with a great one-on-one defender such as Iguodala giving him all he can handle.
Unfortunately, Love and Irving's defensive lapses have been more hurtful than their offensive assistance has been helpful. Irving has been far more disappointing in this series than James has been. He needs to score efficiently and average nearly 30 points per game to make up for his lapses on the other end.
The scary thing is that even if Irving and Love do score at the rate the Cavs need them to, they probably still won't win more than a game in this series. If James plays better, too, which is possible, especially when it comes to his turnovers, the Cavs can perhaps win two. But that's with Cleveland playing at its peak performance and the Warriors struggling. The Cavs' only chance to win the series is a stretch of epic shooting that even the best defense can't slow down. They flashed that a bit earlier in the playoffs, but not against the Warriors defense.
Cleveland couldn't even get to 60 wins in a weak Eastern Conference this year. The Warriors won 73 in a better conference. Golden State is 14 wins better than Cleveland, maybe more than that. The Cavs aren't the Thunder, either, and wouldn't have beaten them in the postseason if they played at the same level they did against the Spurs and Warriors. If this series gets to six games, which looks extremely unlikely, everyone should be very happy. The Cavs just aren't good enough.
Schmeelk's Snippets
• In an interview with Bruce Beck at an event Monday night, Knicks president Phil Jackson said something more meaningful than he has said in his last three news conferences. He admitted the spacing of the triangle will have to be adjusted to allow for more 3-point shooting. It is the first meaningful thing he has said (spare his actual hire of Hornacek) that would indicate he is willing to modernize the triangle offense to fit the NBA of today.
• But the triangle will still be there. Reports are that even as the Knicks work out prospects, they are putting them through triangle sets. It will be part of the offense, which is fine, but it remains to be seen how Hornacek's tweaked version will be different.
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