OAKLAND, Calif. — Someone give LeBron James a hug. He's going to need it after Sunday night's 132-113 Game 2 loss in the 2017 NBA Finals, where even his best efforts weren't enough to beat the Golden State Warriors. He skipped his customary postgame press conference (saying his decision had "nothing to do with wins and losses), laid into journalists in the locker room and found himself adjacent to a brawl between two fans in the Oracle Arena crowd.
The only thing worse is if he gets to his car and finds a parking ticket.
What's he have to do to put a dent in the Warriors' armor? Play all 48 minutes? Grow extra arms and legs? Kidnap Kevin Durant like in the movie Celtic Pride?
Despite James tying Magic Johnson for the most triple-doubles in NBA
Finals history, shooting 12-for-18 for 29 points and reminding the
Oracle crowd that he's the best player in the world, Golden State
demolished the Cavs yet again.
If the Warriors are the Monstars in the now-overused Space Jam analogy, the Cavaliers
are the Tune Squad. They're a team led by a legendary,
once-in-a-generation superstar who's carrying a collection of
two-dimensional cartoon characters. The only catch? Unlike the MJ-led
squad, they've yet to prove they can come back. The same team that
looked so thoroughly dominant in the Eastern Conference playoffs just
weeks ago seems positively mortal.
For the
second straight game, Cleveland seemed to be a match for Golden State at
halftime—down eight in Game 1 and down three in Game 2—but unraveled
after the break. The Warriors outscored the Cavs by 11 points in the
third quarter Sunday, making a tense affair academic. James famously
wore an Undertaker T-shirt to a press conference as the Cavs were
mounting their improbable comeback last year, a visual representation of
their ability to rise from the dead like the WWE's legendary cowboy
zombie. The Cavs are buried so deep this year, there might not be a way
out.
James is a one-man wrecking crew backed up by a supporting cast that looks comatose. Deron Williams
is far from a capable replacement for the departed Matthew Dellavadova,
having gone 0-for-5 in 14 tepid minutes in Game 2. Joining him in the
goose-egg department was J.R. Smith, who went scoreless in 14 minutes
Sunday.
Tristan Thompson and his $16 million annual salary
is so cold, you have to wear a parka just to stand next to him. In 40
minutes of play, Kyrie Irving, one of the few non-LeBron bright spots for the Cavs in Game 1, shot 8-for-23 Sunday night.
Only
Kevin Love could hope to match James's scoring prowess, though he did
so with a far less efficient 12-for-23 shooting performance.
Cleveland started the game off feeding Love in the
post, jumping out to an early 11-6 lead. That doesn't seem like much,
but considering Cleveland's biggest lead through two games of the series
is six points, the opening minutes of Game 2 might have been the best
offensive stretch they've had so far.
They got
the offensive output they needed from Love, but that isn't enough to
beat the Warriors in 2017. Irving, so crucial to the 3-1 comeback last
season, has to be more effective. Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue
believes Irving's increased defensive responsibilities are affecting his
ability to get buckets. "Running around with Steph and chasing Klay and
chasing Steph and constantly having to be on alert, it takes a lot out
of you offensively," he told reporters. But one of the persistent knocks
on Irving has been his defensive focus. If he can't juggle both of his
responsibilities, Cleveland is toast.
Even more
crucial is the play of the rest of the team. Cleveland's Big Three will
do what they do. A pissed-off King James can get his at will, but is
there anyone else? Golden State's bench wasn't prolific either, but guys
like Ian Clark and Shaun Livingston hit big shots when they had to. The
bricks from Williams, Kyle Korver, Channing Frye and the rest are more
conspicuous as the deficit grows larger.
The Cavs struggled to bolster their reserves
during the regular season, going bust on their gamble on Larry Sanders,
finding little value in the many players they worked out
around the All-Star break and getting inconsistent play from Korver and
Williams in this series. Of the aging veterans and journeymen sitting
next to the Cleveland coaching staff, who is going to seize more
responsibility moving forward? Richard Jefferson played so well in last
year's Finals, he changed his mind about retiring. Does he have another
stretch of games like that in him?
Even more
important is Thompson, whom the Warriors have limited through physical
play. "[Thompson's] a big piece of our success and they know that, so
they have neutralized that in the first two games," James said in the
locker room. "They've been out there talking a lot about trying to keep a
body on him, a couple of bodies on him."
That's
the thing, though. The Warriors have bodies to keep throwing at him.
They reap the benefits of clutch play from unexpected sources. The
Warriors are throwing grenades while the Cavs are throwing lemons.
James,
who said he'd need nothing more than "some food and some wine" to
recharge after Sunday's Herculean effort, will need far more than that.
He'll need more from his Cleveland teammates, as he might not have
enough left to carry this squad all alone.
source: bleacherreport
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