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发帖数: 2648 | 1 OAKLAND — 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.
GameTime: Kyrie Irving
Kyrie Irving checks in with GameTime and discusses the Cavaliers Game 5 win
over the Warriors.
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).
LeBron Game 5 Highlights
LeBron James scores 41 points to go with 16 rebounds and 7 assists in the
Cavs' Game 5 win over Golden State.
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.
Warriors on Game 5 Defeat
The Warriors speak with the media following their Game 5 loss to the
Cavaliers.
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. |
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