Not looking good for Cleveland right now, even with the best player on their team.
Irving injury will really hurt their chances to make it a competitive series, now they have to hope the Warriors play poorly again to keep the games close.
Is the Cleveland curse really going to strike again?
Quote:Kyrie is a great talent, but it seems like injuries are going to hold him back. Think he's had a significant injury every year since his freshman year at Duke. Came at the worst time for the Cavs.
This is one of the reasons I couldn't understand the Cavs love. Irving hasn't been free of injury in quite a bit of time now, and at some points he's been a detriment to the team by being on the court. There was a doctor on this morning who said the knee tendonitis more then likely played a role late in that injury he sustained. The muscles and surrounding "parts" (for lack of better term and remembering all he said) fatigued because of it. Injury begets injury.
cavs looked in control the whole game until kyrie went down. kyrie was instrumental and i think this is going to hurt them bad having him on the bench... with love and kyrie down its going to be on lebron to carry the load and as we saw in overtime, thats going to be a difficult task.
Quote:This is one of the reasons I couldn't understand the Cavs love. Irving hasn't been free of injury in quite a bit of time now, and at some points he's been a detriment to the team by being on the court. There was a doctor on this morning who said the knee tendonitis more then likely played a role late in that injury he sustained. The muscles and surrounding "parts" (for lack of better term and remembering all he said) fatigued because of it. Injury begets injury.
Cavs love is simply name recognition. Vegas had GS as pretty heavy favorites.
Can someone please explain how Tristan Thompson has 6 Offensive Rebounds and shoots a total of 1 for 4 from the field for 2 points ???
That stat line is almost impossible.
Quote:Cavs love is simply name recognition. Vegas had GS as pretty heavy favorites.
I didn't see the Vegas odds before hand but I know a lot on the board here, many people I know, and a lot of the talking heads had the Cavs winning.
I was rooting for Cleveland but must admit I really love Steph Curry's game. GS is bringing back some old school basketball. I haven't seen the transition game (up tempo) in the playoffs for quite a while. That was fun to watch.
Quote:I didn't see the Vegas odds before hand but I know a lot on the board here, many people I know, and a lot of the talking heads had the Cavs winning.
Oh, I've been off the board due to our volume of work but can relate to all of ESPN and the radio talk shows weighing heavily on the Cavs. Apparently based on the Vegas odds, GS had a 75% chance to win the Finals -- not sure how that translates into the odds -- probably something like you need to bet $15 to win an additional $10 or something like that..
Quote:Oh, I've been off the board due to our volume of work but can relate to all of ESPN and the radio talk shows weighing heavily on the Cavs. Apparently based on the Vegas odds, GS had a 75% chance to win the Finals -- not sure how that translates into the odds -- probably something like you need to bet $15 to win an additional $10 or something like that..
I saw that Vegas had it 72% for GS to win vs 28% for the Cavs, but you were close enough with 75%.
After that 1st game and Irving's injury, it's probably even higher for the Warriors and lower for the Cavs.
LeBron is going to have to will his team to a win and hope GS plays as poorly as they did in the first game, especially early.
Great win for the Cavs and they finally get a win in the NBA finals, they had been 0-5 counting the loss in Game 1.I don't think they can count on Steph Curry playing that poorly and missing all those 3's again, even if Delly defends him.
I'm sure the Warriors are still the favorites to win the title, even though the just lost home court advantage.
At least it makes game 3 even more interesting to watch.
I'm still having a hard time imagining the Cavs winning the series, but at least they know what it takes to give themselves a chance to keep the series competitive.
Quote:Great win for the Cavs and they finally get a win in the NBA finals, they had been 0-5 counting the loss in Game 1.I don't think they can count on Steph Curry playing that poorly and missing all those 3's again, even if Delly defends him.
I'm sure the Warriors are still the favorites to win the title, even though the just lost home court advantage.
At least it makes game 3 even more interesting to watch.
I'm still having a hard time imagining the Cavs winning the series, but at least they know what it takes to give themselves a chance to keep the series competitive.
Golden State shot terrible last night and I just don't think that will continue through the series. I still think they pull it out, but Cleveland will put up a fight with Lebron leading the charge.
A guy on Facebook last night said the referees wanted Lebron to lose. I questioned it by asking that he seems to have had the star treatment pretty well the last 5 years or so (if not more) and because a couple of calls were missed in one game all the sudden the refs hate Lebron?
He looked like Dwight Howard whining last night.
Last night's game really dropped my opinion of James. The guy has found a way to pull off a Michael Irvin-esque Push Off Play and has reduced the Cleveland Offense to nothing more than an Iso Play with a high pick.
It is effective, I'll give him that and he probably has the poorest supporting staff I've ever seen in a Finals, but it's just not fun for me to watch.
Quote:Last night's game really dropped my opinion of James. The guy has found a way to pull off a Michael Irvin-esque Push Off Play and has reduced the Cleveland Offense to nothing more than an Iso Play with a high pick.
It is effective, I'll give him that and he probably has the poorest supporting staff I've ever seen in a Finals, but it's just not fun for me to watch.
The offense has been reduced to that because they've lost two all stars, one being his PG who ran the offense, and was also a big contributor point wise. Cleveland is doing what it has to do to survive. I find it ironic you make the claim you do and then give the exacr reasons in your next sentence as to why they are doing what they are.
I still think that Golden State wins but anything is possible with the greatest player on the planet I suppose.
Quote:The offense has been reduced to that because they've lost two all stars, one being his PG who ran the offense, and was also a big contributor point wise. Cleveland is doing what it has to do to survive. I find it ironic you make the claim you do and then give the exacr reasons in your next sentence as to why they are doing what they are.
I still think that Golden State wins but anything is possible with the greatest player on the planet I suppose.
My reason for me dropping my opinion of him was due to his whining for calls in the game last night (which I didn't illustrate, but I felt as if I was tagging on to some earlier comments about such), and his propensity for using the Push Off play so much.
I don't like watching the Cleveland Offense because it is single-faceted even though it is effective, and I've stated as much. I guess I needed to be more explicit when I'm discussing two different topics.
Quote:Last night's game really dropped my opinion of James. The guy has found a way to pull off a Michael Irvin-esque Push Off Play and has reduced the Cleveland Offense to nothing more than an Iso Play with a high pick.
It is effective, I'll give him that and he probably has the poorest supporting staff I've ever seen in a Finals, but it's just not fun for me to watch.
That was simply 1 game in which he was doing what he absolutely had to do to win the game.
The injuries crushed their startling lineup. He was averaging 8.3 assists per game in the post season and had 11 assists in game 1 vs 6 assists last night.
During the regular season, he averaged 7.4 assists per game which is more than each of his 4 years in Miami.
The dude has done more this year to be a team player than any other year of his career. The critical injuries forced him to play more of an isolation offense.
You're right ..... it's semi-terrible to watch but it's kind of necessary given the fact JR Smith has cooled off after the ATL series. Look for JR to get more involved now that they are heading back to Cleveland.
Quote:That was simply 1 game in which he was doing what he absolutely had to do to win the game.
The injuries crushed their startling lineup. He was averaging 8.3 assists per game in the post season and had 11 assists in game 1 vs 6 assists last night.
During the regular season, he averaged 7.4 assists per game which is more than each of his 4 years in Miami.
The dude has done more this year to be a team player than any other year of his career. The critical injuries forced him to play more of an isolation offense.
You're right ..... it's semi-terrible to watch but it's kind of necessary given the fact JR Smith has cooled off after the ATL series. Look for JR to get more involved now that they are heading back to Cleveland.
And that's all that I'm saying. He's doing what he needs to do to survive and win and I can appreciate that even though I could do without the histrionics and such. I just don't want to watch that Offense. It's... offensive.
Quote:My reason for me dropping my opinion of him was due to his whining for calls in the game last night (which I didn't illustrate, but I felt as if I was tagging on to some earlier comments about such), and his propensity for using the Push Off play so much.
I don't like watching the Cleveland Offense because it is single-faceted even though it is effective, and I've stated as much. I guess I needed to be more explicit when I'm discussing two different topics.
I wasn't commenting on the whining comment so much as the comment regarding what Cleveland is now doing on offense.
I will also point out that Golden State got to the point where they just started jacking up shots. Not running any offense, just shooting to shoot. Kind of like one of the games Atlanta had against Cleveland..
Quote:I wasn't commenting on the whining comment so much as the comment regarding what Cleveland is now doing on offense.
I will also point out that Golden State got to the point where they just started jacking up shots. Not running any offense, just shooting to shoot. Kind of like one of the games Atlanta had against Cleveland..
Honestly, I don't really worry too much about a team shooting their way out of a slump. Especially when it seems as if they have no real inside presence on Offense. Now granted, just chucking it up there to chuck it isn't what I mean and I don't like that either, but I like it when players on the court feel the freedom to shoot if they have the shot. It just makes the game more fun to watch.
Quote:Honestly, I don't really worry too much about a team shooting their way out of a slump. Especially when it seems as if they have no real inside presence on Offense. Now granted, just chucking it up there to chuck it isn't what I mean and I don't like that either, but I like it when players on the court feel the freedom to shoot if they have the shot. It just makes the game more fun to watch.
Not shooting out of a slump, simply shooting. There here was not a lot of set offense by GS last night. I still don't quite get your take on Cleveland offense.
Quote:Not shooting out of a slump, simply shooting. There here was not a lot of set offense by GS last night. I still don't quite get your take on Cleveland offense.
I don't like when an Offense appears to be nothing more than an Iso play with no attempt to move the ball inside then back out. To me, that's how basketball is supposed to look; you make the Defense react (i.e. work) to what you are doing with the ball, then you attack the open areas. The perfect example of this was the Kobe-Shaq Lakers in the sense that everything went into Shag first to see if the Defense would collapse, then work off of that. Cleveland's Offense simply puts the ball into the hand of the best player on the court again and again and again and makes him work for his shot. It's effective, it just doesn't seem to have a lot of imagination.
Granted, that may be a flawed or even myopic view, but it's what I know.
In that sense, Golden State doesn't really make the Defense react first in the sense that they will shoot if they see an opening regardless of making the Defense uncoil. Now, I'm okay with this because in a sense you are still taking advantage of weak spots in the Defense, you're just doing it without dumping the ball into the interior. Now in Golden State's situation, I can see that because I don't know that Bogut et al are all that capable of 1. threatening a Defense with an interior scoring presence or 2. capable of passing the ball back out in order to set up another player. So you make the Defense react to you by moving through screens and making the Defense defend all the way out to the Three-Point Arc.