The Cavaliers can do something that hasn’t been done in 50 years if they’re able to win on Thursday night – sending the NBA Finals to seven games after being down, 3-1, in the series. The only teams to ever do so were the 1951 Knicks and 1966 Lakers. And before the Wine and Gold can think about that pesky 52-year thing, they have to be as sharp on Thursday as they were on Monday night in Oakland.
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving made history in that 112-97 victory – becoming the first teammate tandem to each score 40-plus points in a Finals game.
The Warriors were without Draymond Green, who was serving a one-game suspension after a Game 4 dust-up with LeBron, and they definitely missed the First Team All-Defensive forward.
The Cavaliers shot 53 percent from the floor and for just the second time in the series hit double-digit three-pointers – although nine of those were compliments of James and Irving. Kevin Love returned to the starting lineup after coming off the bench in Game 4, but he was held to just two points on 1-for-5 shooting.
The Warriors got a combined 62 points from the Splash Brothers, but Steph Curry was just 4-for-13 in the second half and Klay Thompson notched 18 of his 37 in the second quarter.
Quicken Loans Arena will be pulsating on Thursday night; the Cavs will try to reward them by sending the Finals back to Oakland for Game 7.
If you asked someone unfamiliar with pro hoops to watch the 2016 Finals and asked them which team’s point guard was the two-time MVP, they’d have an extremely tough choice.
Steph Curry leads his squad at 25.3 ppg through the first five games of the series, but he’s really only had one big individual performance – his 38-point outburst in Game 4 last Friday – going 11-of-25 from the floor, 7-of-13 from deep. The Cavaliers were physical with him again on Monday night, and after his 10-point first quarter, held him to 5-for-16 shooting the rest of the way – scoreless over the game’s final 6:39.
Kyrie had no such problem scoring the ball, especially in the fourth quarter – when he scored 12 of his 41 points, including a two-minute span when he dropped 10 straight points on the Warriors, giving Cleveland a 13-point edge.
After a 10-point outing in Game 2, Kyrie has been out of this world – netting 30, 34 and 41 points over his next three outings, averaging 35.0 points per on 56 percent shooting from the floor, 50 percent from long-range over that span and looking like the best player on the floor for much of the Finals. On Monday night, Irving was 17-for 24 from the field and 5-of-7 from deep, adding six helpers and a pair of steals.
It’s hard to see how much higher Kyrie can climb, but the Wine and Gold will need everything he’s got again on Thursday night.
Through most of the first three quarters on Monday night, fans at Oracle Arena alternated between chanting “Free Draymond!” and showering LeBron James with a chorus of boos every time he touched the ball. And while Green watched the affair from the A’s game next door, LeBron was getting quite involved in making sure the Larry O’Brien Trophy got back on a plane.
LeBron didn’t top the 30-point mark until the final game of the Eastern Conference Finals, dropping 33 on Toronto in the series clincher, but he’s been ramping it up as the Cavaliers close in on Golden State in the Finals – posting his first 40-point postseason game since doing so three times in last year’s matchup against the Warriors.
James has doubled-up in four of the Finals’ five games and is averaging 28.0 points, 12.0 boards and 8.0 assists in the series. LeBron has also been a beast on the defensive end – tallying six steals and eight blocks over the past three games.
Like LeBron, Green is the engine that drives the Warriors. Other than Game 2, Green wasn’t posting monster numbers in the series – averaging 14.8 points, 9.3 boards and 5.8 assists – but his playmaking skills, defensive versatility and all-around energy and intensity are what hurt the Warriors in his absence.
The combustible forward is one Flagrant away from getting Game 7 off if the Cavs can reach it. How that will affect his physicality on Thursday night is up for debate. How LeBron will test him is not.
It’s been said ad nauseam over the course of his tenure in Cleveland and has echoed throughout the 2016 Playoffs: Kevin Love is very much the key to Cleveland winning the NBA title.
The three-time All-Star was outstanding through the Wine and Gold’s run to the Finals and, after missing last year’s six-game set against Golden State, the basketball world wondered how he would fare against them this year. But after netting his 10th double-double of the postseason with a 17-point, 13-rebound outing in Game 1, Love has struggled to generate anything on the offensive end.
Love netted only five points in Game 2, was forced to sit Game 3 due to the league’s concussion protocol and came off the bench to score 11 points in only six shot attempts in Game 4. Love returned to the starting lineup on Monday night, but this time he only got off five shots on the night – going 1-for-5, including 0-of-3 from long-range.
If the Cavaliers are going to defy history and win the next two games, they’re going to need Love to revert to his Eastern Conference Playoff form and be aggressive on the offensive end – especially with Andrew Bogut out for the remainder of the series. LeBron and Kyrie have proven that they can figure out Golden State’s defense.
Love doesn’t need to have a 40-point game, but if we’re talking about the Big Three again on Friday morning, we’ll be doing so while the Cavs are on a flight to Oakland.
Anyone who’s ever watched an NBA Finals knows that at some point, one squad’s reserve(s) is going to make the difference. Last year, despite Golden State’s star-studded lineup, Andre Iguodala took home MVP honors. But David Lee also came out of nowhere to make contributions big and small that helped the Warriors take the title.
Aside from Richard Jefferson, who’s averaged 7.0 points on 58 percent shooting in the Finals, the Wine and Gold haven’t gotten much of anything on the offensive end from their second unit. Iman Shumpert has done a masterful job against both of the Splash Brothers – making life especially miserable for the two-time MVP – and he’s been the only Cavalier to contribute anything offensively for the Wine and Gold.
Channing Frye and Matthew Dellavedova, both of whom were so big in the run-up to the Finals, have been marginalized in June, with Channing Frye getting just his second DNP-CD of the Playoffs.
For Golden State, Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa have cooled down since their scorching start to the Finals, but the Warriors’ bench has still thoroughly outplayed Cleveland’s through the first five games. But so much can change in one (or two) games in a Playoff series – as Lee (who didn’t play a single minute in the first two games of the 2015 Finals) showed one season ago.
It’ll be all hands on deck for Cleveland on Thursday night, how those guys perform might be the difference between staying home and traveling back to the Left Coast.
