HOME FANS DOUBT CAVS CAN PULL OFF COMEBACK
With Cleveland trailing series 2-0, focus turns to where LeBron plays next season
A walk through downtown Cleveland elicits some interesting feedback from the locals.
They aren’t particularly worried about the result of these NBA Finals, because no one expected the Cavaliers to get this far anyway.
They are, though, a little worried about LeBron James and free agency, which makes sense because they’ve had their hearts broken 50 per cent of the time on that score.
And, my favourite, from a fellow lingering in front of the downtown casino: “LeBron should get Draymond to punch him in the (nuggets) again.”
Please note that he definitely did not say “nuggets.”
That guy hit on a point that often has been made about the story of the Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors, now in its third re-telling: that if James hadn’t goaded Draymond Green into a nutshot late in Game 4 of the 2016 finals, as the Warriors took a 3-1 series lead, the Warriors wouldn’t have lost Game 5 at home with Green suspended.
In that alternate reality, then, Golden State would be toying with the Cavs here on the way to their fourth straight title, and Cleveland would still be the tortured city that hadn’t won a major-league title in more than 50 years.
(Admittedly, this differenttimeline business can be taken only so far. If the Warriors had won their second straight title in 2016, would they have pursued Kevin Durant so ardently in free agency that summer? Would Durant have been as willing to come?)
Behind the argument that the Warriors are just a Green suspension away from a four-peat is the feeling that Golden State is simply dramatically better than Cleveland. Because this is a business shot through with recency bias, there is a lot of that feeling going around right now. James, after all, averaged 40 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds in two games on the road and the Cavaliers are still down 0-2.
But, and keeping in mind these words were written before Game 3 was played Wednesday night, the finals clashes between the Warriors and Cavs have not been total walkovers.
In 2015, Cleveland took a 2-1 lead before falling in six after suffering several key injuries. The Warriors outscored them by an average of eight points.
There was the Cavs win in 2016, a seven-game series with a total point differential of just four.
And last year the Warriors won in five games, with a 34-point differential. But the Cavs did throw up 137 points in their Game 4 win, and scored another 120 in Game 5. When they say they know they can score on this team, there is at least some historical evidence to back that up.
Their biggest problem, though: those Cleveland teams had Kyrie Irving.
RAPS STILL SEARCHING
The NBA’s off-season coaching carousel is down to its last few turns, and the Toronto Raptors are, sort of, involved in both of them.
Masai Ujiri’s list of possible contenders includes in-house candidates Nick Nurse and Jerry Stackhouse, and Spurs assistants Ettore Messina and Ime Udoka.
Somewhat surprisingly,
ESPN reported this week that the Raptors president has also interviewed Lithuanian coach Sarunas Jasikevicius, who has just two years of experience as a head coach in the EuroLeague.
What’s clear from that list is the Raptors will be guided next season by someone with little to no NBA head-coaching experience. Given the Raptors have several high-priced veterans under contract for at least two more seasons, Ujiri might have been expected to plug in a veteran coach. But he could be hoping the path to getting a true sense of renewal with his team is to hire a coach outside of traditional NBA circles. The most successful coaching hire of recent years came when the Boston Celtics reached into the mid-major college ranks for Brad Stevens, who wasn’t yet in his 40s. Jasikevicius, a former NBA player, is 42.
Meanwhile, Dwane Casey is reportedly on the short list of candidates for the vacant Detroit Pistons job. Casey, who could sit out a year and still collect a healthy salary for the money owed on his Raptors contract, would be stepping into a tough situation in Detroit, which has more than US$70 million committed next season to Blake Griffin, Andre Drummond and Reggie Jackson, and not much else.
PLAYING THE TRUMP CARD
Draymond Green, asked about the possibility of going to Washington if they win this series and not visiting the White House, said: “It is what it is. I think if you look at doing something positive, it’s probably the right way to go.”
He said there was a lesson in how to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump in what takes place on the court.
“In basketball, if you foul me cheaply and I foul you back, I’m probably going to get caught as making a reaction to the reaction. So in life, you react to something somebody else does, you’re usually the person that gets caught.
“I think we’ll kind of take the same approach to that. You don’t make a reaction to his reaction. You just kind of go along with whatever else you want to do, because that reaction to his reaction probably won’t end well for you.”
In 2015, Cleveland took a 2-1 lead before falling in six after suffering several key injuries. The Warriors outscored them by an average of eight points.