Another title may be beyond LeBron
A LEADING former NBA coach says not even LeBron James can help the Cleveland Cavaliers in this year’s NBA Finals and is predicting they will not win a game against the Golden State Warriors.
Jeff Van Gundy says getting the Cavs to the Finals is among the most impressive feats of James’s career, but the challenge that now awaits the game’s greatest player may be more than even he can handle.
“It will be interesting to see how competitive LeBron James can make this Finals, but any game they get in this Finals would be a huge upset,” the former New York and Houston coach said.
“This is the biggest difference that I remember between two teams heading into the Finals in my time in the NBA. I can’t think of a bigger gap from a team perspective.”
The Cavs barely escaped a seven-game, first-round series against Indiana and then, after cruising past Toronto in four games, upset Boston in seven. Next up is a Warriors team that has won two of the past three NBA Finals.
The Cavs and Warriors are meeting for the fourth straight year for the right to be crowned NBA champions, while it marks the eighth consecutive Finals appearance for James as part of a stretch that dates back to his stint in Miami.
When the two teams met for the title in 2016, James led Cleveland back from a 3-1 deficit to win the championship, marking the first time an NBA team had pulled off such a comeback.
“Obviously James is going to have to be great … and they are going to have to be lights out from the three-point line to have a chance to win a game,” said Van Gundy, the current US national team coach.
He added that the only chance the Cavaliers had was if they could keep the highscoring Warriors from reaching 100 points.
That is a tall order considering the defending champions have scored at least 100 points in 13 of their 17 playoff games.