Five things we learned from the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 112-97 Game 5 victory over the Golden State Warriors in the 2016 NBA Finals Monday night at Oracle Arena, as the series shifts back to Cleveland:
1. Kyrie Irving is a future Most Valuable Player.
Already in this postseason, Irving had flashed his extraordinary offensive talents — and sometimes even in a good way, rather than dominating the ball at his dribble-dribble-dribble isolation worst. But the Cavaliers point guard’s performance in Game 5 was a masterpiece.
He put up shots that seemed to climb the degree-of-difficulty ladder as the night wore on. He didn’t miss — by making 17 of 24, Irving joined the great Wilt Chamberlain as Finals players who shot at least 70 percent and scored 40 points or more. And he did it when the Cavaliers needed it most, matching LeBron James’ 41 points to keep the Cavs’ hopes alive.
Can Irving do it again Thursday, since he might have to if he and his teammates want to force a Game 7 back at Oracle Arena Sunday? “A repeat performance like this would definitely be tough,” Irving said late Monday. “But whatever it takes to win. We’re not satisfied. We understand the magnitude of what Game 6 means for us at home and we know that it will be an incredible level that they’re going to play at. We have to play at an even better level.”
Irving now has scored 30 points or more six times this postseason. He’s averaging 25.1 points while shooting 48.3 percent (44.3 percent on 3-pointers), with a PER rating of 25.1, a significant bump from any previous point in his career. He was even defending with fervor Monday, taking a page out of the Kevin Durant vs. Golden State book to show that he gets it at both ends.
Until James’ return two years ago, Irving’s biggest hurdles in development focused on the lack of serious help, which would allow defenses to load up on him. Once LeBron came back, Irving took a step back and was at risk of being Bigfooted by the big guy.
For now, Irving does benefit from all the defensive attention James draws. But as James gets older, if they remain teammates, he can help Irving flip spots with him — 1 and 1A — and earn respect overall as a player and as a winner, not just for his scoring and ball skills.
Said Cavs forward Richard Jefferson: “MJ [Michael Jordan] shot what he shot, ‘Bron [James], Kobe [Bryant], Steph [Curry], Klay [Thompson]. These are guys, that’s what they do, they score. Allen Iverson. … That’s who he [Irving] is for us. He’s a scorer. ‘Bron is more of a playmaker and runs the team, almost from the point guard position.”
Assuming there will be a moment in time when James becomes his team’s second-best player, Irving looks increasingly like the fellow who will be poised to trade places.
2. LeBron James isn’t wasting arrows from his quiver.
James would have dropped to 2-5 in Finals appearances had Cleveland lost Monday — and still might unless he and the Cavaliers can win twice more and became the first team in Finals history to claw its way back from a 3-1 deficit.
But he was in no hurry to go home for anything other than another chance to turn up the heat and the pressure on the Warriors at Quicken Loans Arena. After averaging 31.9 points, 10.7 rebounds and 6.6 assists in previous elimination games in his postseason career, James went for 41, 16 and seven, with three steals, three blocks and 4-for-8 3-pointers. He doubled his trips to the foul line from four in Game 4 to eight (nice job by coach Tyronn Lue planting that seed).
And by the end of the evening, James sounded like a fellow who knew he has only so many years, so many trips back to the Finals, to deliver on his pledge to bring a championship to title-starved Cleveland. Stays atop the NBA food chain, professional athletic careers — hell, pretty much everything in life is so very fleeting.
“I mean, I guess when you’re done with a game of basketball and big moments like tonight and moments throughout your career, you wish you could get back,” James, 31, said, after being asked about the crowd and gym atmosphere in Oakland. “No matter how loud you turn the stereo system up in your house, you’ll never be able to get it back. You just don’t take these moments for granted, no matter if you’re at home or on the road.”
3. Klay Thompson’s night was longer than yours.
A few minutes after the final horn Monday, under the stands, former NBA big man Mychal Thompson caught the eye of an old friend. With a quizzical look, he held his arms out to the sides, palms up, as if to say “Welp…” And it was a “welp” kind of night for Thompson and anyone else rooting for Golden State and, in particular, shooting guard Klay Thompson.
Thompson, Mychal’s son, scored 37 points, including 26 in the first half. He hit six of his 11 3-pointers and all nine of his free throws. Had the Warriors pulled out a victory without Steph Curry leading a high-octane comeback, Thompson might have racked up a bloc of Finals MVP votes.
And yet, the night was forgettable.
Thompson was no better than the game’s third-highest scorer, behind James’ and Irving’s dual 41 outbursts. He had to see those up-close-and-personal, too, with primary defensive responsibility on Irving, who was at his shot-making dervish best. And when the smoke cleared, Thompson was a game-worst minus-21, in spite of the 37 he scored. His man, Irving, was a game-best plus-20.
“It happens,” Thompson said. “I mean, he’s a phenomenal player, especially on the offensive end, so it obviously stings. And you watch the film and see what you can do better, but you don’t let it deflate you for Thursday. You play the same hard-nosed defense and try to make them take the same contested shots.
“Give Kyrie credit, he was hitting tough floaters, turnarounds, and he just had a great game. But you definitely don’t hold your head down. You’ve got to come out Thursday with the same mindset to play hard-nosed and try and limit him to maybe 20, not 41.”
4. Maybe Steph Curry does get a pass from critics.
Curry, the league’s back-to-back MVP winner, took 14 3-pointers and missed nine of them. He took another seven shots from inside the arc and missed four of those. He scored 38 points in Game 5 but in the other four games in these Finals, Curry is averaging 18.3 points on 41.7 percent shooting.
And yet, how much carping are you reading and hearing about Curry? Imagine if James had only put up his usual numbers in one of five Finals games and was sputtering along at about 60 percent of his regular-season production — about 15 points per game rather than 25 — in the other four. How loud would the outcry be? And don’t just go by the most criticized and scrutinized guy in the NBA, plug in Durant, Westbrook, Paul, Griffin, Harden, DeRozan or other stars responsible for carrying their teams.
They too would be getting more grief than Curry has.
OK, the Warriors are still up 3-2 in the series. If Golden State doesn’t need his heroics, it would be silly and potentially disruptive for him to flaunt them. Curry doesn’t need to prove a thing by, for example, winning the Bill Russell Trophy as Finals MVP if that’s not what his team requires to win the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
So that’s one possible reason folks have cut Curry some slack. Another is the much-whispered sense that he’s playing hurt, with lingering issues with his knee or one of his shoulders. Then again, Curry seemed fine when he went off for 38 points Friday. And if he and the team aren’t talking about any infirmities — no NBA player is 100 percent in June unless he never takes off warmups — there’s no reason to make excuses for him.
I’ll just leave this right here and move on: A cab driver in Cleveland told a report that one of his fares during the Games 3-4 portion of this series was Golden State’s “acupuncturist.” So the cabbie asked how much Curry was hurting and was promptly told, “I can’t comment on that.”
Sounds like real Woodward & Bernstein stuff, right? Or maybe just a passenger who didn’t want to chat with a taxi driver.
Could be, Curry has had trouble heating up as the focal point of Cleveland’s defense. He’s not a LeBron-like MVP who can affect games dramatically when he’s not shooting well. And he’s a media-friendly, unthreatening, rather slight fellow who doesn’t generally have people baring their claws and teeth at him — unless you’re an old-school NBA legend.
5. All pressure now is on Golden State.
Steve Kerr and the Warriors who followed him to the podium Monday (after presumably hearing Kerr say it in their locker room) talked of the preferable position they’re in, relative to Cleveland. There was a lot of the ol’ “If someone told us before the series we’d be up 3-2 going back to Cleveland, we’d have taken it” rhetoric.
Maybe the Warriors were just shrugging off a bad night, and there was no better way to do so. If they dismissed the loss more casually, they would have crossed a line into cockiness. If they had self-flagellated, they might have persuaded themselves into a funk. It just might be that they are not worried, based on a 14-1 record this season and postseason following defeats.
Then again, since beating Cleveland by a total of 48 points in Games 1 and 2, the Warriors have been outscored by 34 points in the three contests since. What happened Monday at Oracle was the largest home defeat by points (15) since Kerr became head coach prior to 2014-15.
If the Warriors think Green’s return is a panacea, they’re likely to be wrong. James and Irving were too formidable, other breakdowns too real, to expect one guy to patch everything. And maybe the unexpected happens in Game 6 or Game 7, such as Kevin Love actually looking for a night like the three-time All-Star he used to be rather than an adrift stretch-four.
Also, even if Green has some sort of monster, triple-double game, he still is on double-secret probation — another flagrant foul or two technical fouls Thursday would have him suspended for a Game 7 in Oakland, setting up a repeat of what happened Monday.
Then there’s this: the longer the Cavaliers can extend this series, the heavier Golden State’s burden will grow. No way, no how, a 73-victory team wants to punctuate its incredible regular season by also becoming the first team in Finals history to cough up a 3-1 series lead. It would undermine eight months of wonderfulness in just one nightmarish week.
Steve Aschburner has written about the NBA since 1980. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter.
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