Cavs vs Dubs III: Revenge of the 2017 Playoffs
For the third year in a row it’ll be the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals. It has taken us seven months to get to this point but, to be honest, we all coulda picked it from the very start.
Like, the Golden State Warriors. You take a team with that’s been to back to back NBA Finals, losing narrowly in game seven last time around, and you swap out Harrison Barnes for former MVP Kevin Durant. Yeah, they’ve gotten better. Scarily better. And they were already the best team in the West by a distance (considering the team they beat in the Western Finals last time were also the team they signed Kevin Durant from).
Durant’s had a couple injury things to worry about but he looks sharp now. Steph Curry is fully fit having hobbled through most of the playoffs last time around. Klay Thompson is still Klay Thompson. And remember if Draymond Green hadn’t been suspended in the 2016 Finals then many believe they would’ve won that series too. What are the chances that he cocks up again and lets the Cavs come back into it, two years in a row? Let’s not forget (how could we?) that the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead in that particular series.
And on the other side take LeBron James. You know when he last missed the NBA Finals? Eight seasons ago. Four in a row with the Miami Heat and now three in a row with the Cavs. He owns the Eastern Conference and the Cavs were confident enough in their ability to do it again that they didn’t even bother with the first seed. Instead they swept the first two rounds and took that home-court in 48 punishing minutes in Boston. A proper heist, that one – someone tell Ben Affleck to make that into a movie.
But the two teams that are about to clash in the Finals were the two best teams before the season had begun. Fair play to Kevin Durant for signing with the Dubs, like his old mate Russ he can do what he wants. However it kinda ruined the West. As for the East it hasn’t been proper competitive in half a decade. The Washington Wizards found some form but were too shallow to challenge. The Boston Celtics got their way to the Eastern Finals – Brad Stevens finally doing it in the playoffs – but got thrashed by the Cavaliers. Demolished.
Put it frankly, these playoffs have been terrible. The Warriors are 12-0, the Cavaliers are 12-1. None of their series have been even remotely competitive. Boston vs Washington was great, Toronto vs Milwaukee had its moments. Jazz vs Clippers was good fun as well. That’s about it. The MVP-prospective duel between Westbrook and Harden was stupid, the Rockets phoned it in against the Spurs, who had a few good clashes with the Grizzlies in the first round but not really. And the deeper the playoffs have gotten the worse the spectacle has been. As if the Warriors weren’t already huge favourites, the one team who had given them proper issues in the regular season, San Antonio, were already without Tony Parker when Zaza Pachulia stepped in on Kawhi Leonard’s shot and busted his ankle. It was all game over from that point.
Damn, man. A month and a half to find out something that we knew all along, it’s worse than season two of True Detective. Luckily last season’s Finals made for one of the finest playoff series in recent memories and at least from now on we should finally see the best teams in a more evenly-matched competition. Although having said that, the Warriors will probably still win. The Warriors usually tend to win. The Warriors have a 207-39 regular season record over the last three seasons and if they only turn that into one championship then that ain’t ever gonna be lived down.
The one game that the Cavaliers lost this playoffs it took a last second shot from Avery Bradley, literally, as the ball bobbled and scooped off the rim and went down with 0.1 on the clock. The Cavs had held a 21 point lead earlier in the game and LeBron James had shot 4/13 for 11 points in his 45 minutes. That’s what it took to break them. LeBron has been otherwise immaculate, Kevin Love is playing his best stuff for the Cavs, Kyrie Irving is borderline impossible to guard and the role players are mostly doing their thing in a revolving secondary cast. But in the Warriors they come up against a team that offers them what they’ve offered other teams so far.
The 2017 Cavs can’t beat the 2017 Dubs unless they make the necessary mistakes that allow them in. Can’t enter the home unless they leave the door open for them, or at least a spare key under the mat, pretty much. Some may argue that Draymond’s suspension was exactly that last time and Golden State, as established, have only gotten better and healthier since then. There has been a glimpse of how that could happen with a proliferation of turnovers and sloppy play during the Spurs series but how much of that was down to the lack of competitive pressure and how much is a recurring problem is debatable. Although there was a famous turnover that helped the Cavaliers to the title in 2016, remember…
Look, the one thing we all gotta know is that a team with LeBron James on it is not a team that can ever be counted out. The Warriors enter these Finals as big favourites but they know that this is by far the toughest challenge that they will face. Both teams have been preparing for this series all season. At least we know that, one way or another, it’ll be better than the Men vs Boys we’ve witnessed so far these playoffs.
As a diligent Nichey reader, we’re dishing you up with the alley-oop here, all you’ve got to do is slam that sucker down right on an ad and give us the two points.