2016 NBA Finals: With Great Failure, Comes Success

The Cavs return home, looking like champions should!

“CLEVELANNNDDDD, THIS IS FOR YOUUUUUU,” yells LeBron James as the emotion of accomplishing his main goal for returning to his home team hit him. A big sigh of relief was let out as the horn sounded in Oracle Arena. James had a vision in which he put his time and efforts into bringing it to reality. He knew he had to be patient but as an impatient person he had to deal with the shortcomings before the success. one of these mishaps came a year earlier against the ex-world champions the Golden State Warriors. Too bad Golden States success didn’t come at the right time.

Speaking of the Warriors, Steph Curry is the unanimous MVP,  they started the season 24-0 with an Assistant Coach at the helm and became the first team to win 73 games in the history of the NBA. This speaks of nothing but greatness. That success doesn’t feel to good after the horrible 4^th quarter performance by the best shooting backcourt.

The Splash Brothers went 12 for 36 from the field. Draymond Green who was one assist away from a triple double was left out to dry. To me the season doesn’t have the same magnitude as if they won championship. The unanimous MVP didn’t come to play this series; we need to start questioning his place as a top point guard in the league.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Kyrie Irving (to me) has put himself in the conversation for the best point guard spot. He dominated Curry for almost the entire series. Averaging 27.1 points per game, he consistently made the shots that Cleveland needed to stay ahead or to keep it competitive. The journey for him has been overshadowed by the drought that has been broken. Just one year ago he watched his team fight hard but lose in game 6 from his hospital bed.

To fight through injury and the media discussing your game, was all worth the game winning three. Irving knows he has to bring it for some time to come. As he approach Curry after the game he says “I will be seeing a lot of you over the next couple of years.” As great as Kyrie was, the MVP was awarded to the mastermind, team leader, businessman, The King; LeBron James.

“What More Can I Sayyyyyyy,” in the honor of the great Jay-Z. On the real, its nothing we can say as admirers, onlookers, and analyzers of the game of Basketball when it comes to LeBron. He had a blueprint, he was abele to draw up after being in Miami for 4 years. He absorbed what it took to become a champion. He would use this scheme to bring a championship to a city that hasn’t seen one since 1964.

King James thoughts:

“Throughout my 13-year career, I've done nothing but be true to the game, give everything I've got to the game, put my heart, my blood, sweat, tears into the game, and people still want to doubt what I'm capable of doing,” James said. “So that was a little icing on the cake for myself to just let me know that everything I've done, it results in this. They say hard work pays off, and that's what happened tonight.”

Back to back 41 point games, double doubles in both games. Triple double in game 7. This might have been the greatness performance seen in a NBA Finals series. The play to sum up the series and what it had become was the block that LeBron had on Iguodala to set up Kyrie Irving. "Iguodala is a bad m-----f-----," James snapped. "I had to go chase it down,” James tells ESPN. LeBron had the “Killer” instinct that a Kobe or Jordan would have in the closing moments of a Game 7. His spot amongst the greats has been cemented. Now we have to wait and see where his career finishes.

We may have the next great Rivalry on our hands. Golden State and Cleveland genuinely dislike each other. It has the star power of a Bird vs. Magic and the physicality of a Jordan vs. Detroit Pistons. I predict that we have a trilogy to this series to see who breaks the tie. Overall, I was satisfied with the series and the outcome. The Storybook ending has finally happened for LeBron.

2016 NBA Finals Preview

Cleveland versus Golden State. LeBron versus Steph. In the words of Jeezy, “once again it’s on.” Last year, LeBron carried the shorthanded Cavs to 6 games while averaging 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds & 8.8 assists per game. Despite that grand effort, a shoulder injury in the 1^st round suffered by Kevin Love and a fracture to Kyrie Irving’s kneecap in game 1 of the Finals prevented the Cavs from being on the winning side holding up the Larry O’Brien trophy. Few people remember but the Warriors found themselves down 2-1 in the series after winning game 1 in overtime, losing game 2 in overtime by 2 points & losing game 3 by 5. Starting with game 4, head coach Steve Kerr made a lineup change, inserting Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup & moving Draymond Green to the center position.  Those moves effectively flipped the momentum toward Golden State as they went on to win the next two games by double digits and closed out game 6 on the road. Steph Curry averaged 26 points a game, Iggy was named Finals MVP and Golden State won their first NBA title in 40 years.

            Fast forward one year and these two teams are set for a rematch starting tomorrow night. For Cleveland fans that wanted to see their team back in the Finals and others that doubted the legitimacy of the Warrior’s win because of the injuries Cleveland suffered, they got what they wanted. Between a locked & loaded, and most importantly, healthy Cavs team that have been shooting lights out so far in the playoffs and a Warriors team fresh off an amazing comeback against the Thunder, I’m expecting a long & exciting series without the excuses of last year. As both teams return pretty much the same lineups from last year, the only major difference in this series is Tyronn Lue, who was hired in January after the firing of David Blatt, undeserved or not.

Road to the Finals

The Warriors started off the regular season with 24 straight wins before losing their first game in December against Milwaukee after a double-overtime bout against Boston the night before. 1996 Chicago Bulls & Michael Jordan comparisons aside, they went on to break their record for most wins in a season and finished with a 73-9 record. Golden State then beat Houston 4 games to 1 in the 1^st round, got past Portland 4 games to 1, and came back from down 1-3 to defeat Oklahoma City.

            Cleveland started 30-11 before David Blatt got fired. Coach Lue kept the momentum going as they finished 57-25 with the #1 seed. The Cavaliers are arguably the hottest team in the playoffs after sweeping Detroit & Atlanta in the first two rounds while finishing Toronto in 6 games in the conference semifinals. They found their stroke from the 3 point line and rode it all the way to the Finals.

             

The Warriors took both regular season matchups; a low scoring 89-83 Christmas day game and 132-98 blowout on January 18. Their defense in that game was put under a microscope & exposed, blamed on a combination of bad effort, bad communication & poor positioning, particularly from Love & Irving. But as everybody knows, the regular season and the playoffs are two completely different animals.

Matchups

          The Cavaliers should come in with the same starting lineup that got them here; Kyrie & J.R. in the backcourt with Bron, Love & Thompson in the frontcourt. The Warriors will have snipers Steph & Klay, with Bogut, Green & Barnes or Iggy on the backend. Based on last year’s results, it might be smarter for Iggy to start. Both teams are evenly matched with secret weapons on the bench. I know it seems obvious, but this series will simply come down to which team is shooting better. We’ve seen those rare occasions where Golden State just couldn’t get the ball in from the 3-point line and that was the case in the majority of their losses this season. Same goes for the Cavs as they turn into a low-effort, stale, predictable, 3-point jacking team when they can’t figure things out on offense. So it all comes down to who can score consistently, from the paint & out on the perimeter. Another key factor is defense, specifically Kyrie & J.R. on the perimeter against Steph & Klay, and Kevin Love against Draymond Green. Kyrie is known for his poor footwork (not being able to stay in front of his defender) & bad play against the pick & roll while J.R. doesn’t put forth the effort you would like. Love on the other hand has to work on getting to the right spots on the court to properly defend on & off the ball but he has never been known as a defensive specialist.

I don’t think anybody’s expecting the Cavs to hold Steph to 17 points or the Warriors to hold Bron to 15. The key for Cleveland is to limit the 3’s from Steph & Klay & clog up the passing lanes that will lead to turnovers and easy fast break points. Golden State, on the other hand, has to get big in the paint defensively and on the glass. They need to force Bron & Kyrie out of driving into the paint for easy layups & consistently make them settle for jump shots, while also finishing defensive stands with rebounds, something they did a poor job of doing against the Thunder. Weapons off the bench for Golden State include Marreese Speights who seems to always come through with a clutch 3, and Shaun Livingston. Channing Frye, Iman Shumpert & Matthew Dellavedova should be key contributors in this series for Cleveland. We haven’t seen Delly much in the playoffs but it will be interesting to see if he can earn extra playing time with his impressive defense on Steph in last year’s Finals.

Remember, Klay was shooting less than spectacular and  we didn't even get MVP Steph for a majority of the Finals last year. What won it for them was Iggy rotating into the starting lineup, Draymond Green’s all-around game on both ends of the court, and role players that were able to step it up when Steph & Klay were in a slump. Cleveland would be smart to learn from past losses & realize that they cannot depend on the big 3 to carry them for the whole series. All in all, I predict the Golden State Warriors to beat the Cavaliers in 7 games for their second straight championship.