After dropping Game 1 at Oracle Arena, the Wine and Gold will try to do what they did last June and steal Game 2 before heading back to Cleveland.
In the series opener on Thursday night, the Cavaliers were able to keep the Splash Brothers in check – holding them to a combined 20 points on 8-for-27 shooting – but Golden State’s bench was deadly, outscoring Cleveland’s reserves, 45-10. Aside from that, many of the Cavaliers’ woes were self-inflicted – turning the ball over 17 times, shooting 38 percent from the floor and handing out only 19 assists in the loss. They also missed nine point-blank layups, something distinctly out of character for a team with two of the league’s best closers.
Despite the loss, the Cavaliers frontline all notched double-doubles – with Tristan Thompson hitting double-figure scoring for the first time in the Playoffs – and featured the game’s leading scorer in Kyrie Irving.
Including last year’s Finals and the regular season, the Warriors have now dropped the Wine and Gold on six straight occasions. The Cavaliers don’t want to head back to Cleveland down, 0-2, and will pull out all the stops on Sunday to ensure that doesn’t happen.
With so many superstars on the floor for the 2016 Finals – including two players who’ve won six of the last eight MVP awards – it’s odd that so much focus will be on both team’s benches for Game 2, but that’s exactly where we’re at.
After having an exceptional postseason in the run-up to this year’s Finals, Cleveland’s second unit struggled to keep up with Golden State’s. On the night, the Cavaliers reserves attempted only 10 shots, with two coming from Mo Williams in garbage time. Channing Frye – who shot 64 percent from the floor and 58 percent from long range in the East bracket – and Richard Jefferson – who shot 53 percent – were held to just four shot attempts in Game 1, with Frye seeing only seven minutes of action.
Matthew Dellavedova and Iman Shumpert were rock solid on the defensive end, but may need to get more involved offensively as the series moves on.
Golden State’s bench was borderline unstoppable – with Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa and Andre Iguodala combining to go 18-of-24 from the floor. Livingston has been especially hard on the Wine and Gold this season, going 18-for-21 from the floor in three outings. (And this was without their leading scorer off the bench, Marreese Speights, logging just two minutes of action.)
The Cavaliers did a great job of slowing down the best shooting backcourt in the league, now they need to slow down what Shaquille O’Neal calls “the others.”
With so much attention on the All-Star point guard matchup between Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry, the shooting guard battle could decide the outcome of Game 2 and beyond.
Klay Thompson and J.R. Smith came to the 2016 Finals as the two hottest three-point shooters in their respective Conference’s Playoff bracket – with Thompson canning 77 triples through the first three rounds; Smith, 49. But neither player was able to shake free much on Thursday night.
Thompson led the Warriors in scoring (26.2 ppg) in the run-up to the best-of-seven against Cleveland, but the Wine and Gold held him to just nine points on 4-of-12 shooting, including 1-for-5 from beyond the arc.
On the other side, Swish – who didn’t even attempt his first field goal until the 1:51 mark of the second quarter – struggled to find his shot all night. He finished with just three points, canning a lone triple late in the fourth quarter.
In his second game as a Cavalier last January, Smith dropped 27 points on the Warriors at Oracle Arena. Since then, he’s struggled to score in Oakland – shooting 34 percent from the floor and 35 percent from long-distance, averaging 10.6 points over those five meetings.
The Wine and Gold would love to see Swish more aggressive on the offensive end on Sunday night, but if he’s able to keep Klay Thompson under control again, they’ll live with limited production and find points from elsewhere.
It’s somewhat inaccurate to qualify LeBron James vs. Draymond Green as one of the series best matchups, considering how many different players they check throughout the course of a game. Two of the game’s most intelligent and versatile players, each one nearly notched a triple-double in the series opener.
LeBron, who had a Finals for the ages last year – leading both squads in scoring, rebounding and assists – finished with 23 points, going 9-for-21 from the floor, including 2-of-4 from long-range, adding 12 boards, a game-high nine assists, two steals and a blocked shot. James did most of his work in the post in the first half, but working the perimeter after intermission.
Green, who’s still a Flagrant-1 away from a one-game suspension, led all Golden State starters with 16 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists and four steals. Coach Lue has talked about picking up the pace over the past two days – singling out LeBron, who can force the action and get the squad playing downhill when he pushes the ball.
James resisted the call to “take over” the series against Toronto and insisted that he’ll trust his teammates again against Golden State.
It’s been posited repeatedly during the postseason, Kevin Love could be the key to the Cavaliers ending Cleveland’s championship drought.
The three-time All-Star, who reached the postseason for the first time in his career last season, got off to a good start in his first foray to the NBA Finals – doubling-up for the 10th time in the 2016 Playoffs with 17 points on 7-for-17 shooting, adding a game-high 13 boards, two assists and a steal.
Love’s third-quarter put-back gave Cleveland its first lead, but he hit only one field goal in the fourth quarter. Coach Lue spoke about the difficulty dealing with Golden State’s ability to switch 1-through-5 on the defensive end, but Love was able to exploit some mismatches.
Love’s frontcourt partner, Tristan Thompson, had one of his best games of the postseason – finishing with 10 points and 12 boards, snagging half of those off the offensive glass. The fifth-year big man has had plenty of Playoff success against Golden State – grabbing double-digit boards in all six games against the Warriors last year, doubling-up in six of those contests and averaging 10.0 points and 13.0 rebounds in the series.
The spotlight will be focused on the star-studded backcourt matchup and the battle between LeBron and Draymond Green, but the decision could come down to who’s doing the best dirty work in the trenches.
