Warriors have been golden
Golden State seem capable of anything — except another collapse
The possibilities seem endless for the Golden State Warriors when they are rolling.
A 150-point game isn’t even out of reach.
“I mean, we could have gotten at least 140 the other night if we only had about 10 to 15 turnovers,” all-star guard Klay Thompson said.
Dominating like no team ever has in the post-season, the Warriors look capable of anything – except another NBA Finals collapse.
They take a 2-0 lead over Cleveland into tonight’s Game 3, just as they did last year. The Warriors actually had a higher victory margin through two games in the 2016 Finals, but they didn’t have Kevin Durant or a fully healthy Stephen Curry then.
They do now and are playing much better basketball than this time last year.
“I think we’re moving the ball great, we’re shooting the ball at a high clip and our defence has been unbelievable,” Thompson said.
Somehow, the Cavaliers have to change all that.
They did last year, coming home after losing the first two by a combined 48 points and beginning the turnaround with a 120-90 rout in Game 3. The opponent and the situation are the same, yet things feel different.
“That’s last year and I don’t even know the feeling anymore,” LeBron James said. “So I’m just mentally strengthening my mind and getting my mind ready and focused on what tomorrow’s going to bring, and so I look forward to it.”
The Warriors committed 20 turnovers in Game 2 but simply shook that off with an NBA Finals-record 18 three-pointers in a 132-113 romp. It was the second time in the post-season they committed at least 20 turnovers, and yet they scored at least 120 points in both games.
They are averaging nearly 119 points and winning by a record 16.9 per game in the post-season, and they’ve really picked it up lately. Golden State has scored 126 per game on nearly 52 per cent shooting during the last five games.
“We played against good teams, and we came to the Finals undefeated, and here we are up 2-0, so we’re playing amazing basketball right now. The best we probably played throughout the year,” centre Zaza Pachulia said.
With a loaded lineup and enough hot hands to fill an octopus, the Warriors don’t need to rely on any one player to take a lot of shots. If somebody is struggling, they can just find someone else with their precision ball movement.
The Cavaliers don’t have that luxury. They need big nights from James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love – and even then a roster of struggling role players has to pick it up.
“We just need our supporting group to be themselves as much as possible,” Irving said. “Understand that they have a unique opportunity to make us that much better, and for a majority of this season it’s been on myself, Bron and K-Love’s shoulders. And we have done a great job of getting everyone involved and making sure that everyone feels comfortable, but now we need everything and everybody.”
LeBron James isn’t changing his game, Tyronn Lue isn’t changing his lineup. The Cavaliers aren’t slowing down.
Defiant – and some might argue delusional – in the face of a 2-0 deficit to the post-seasonperfect Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, the defending champions are sticking with their plan.
They may have no choice. Back home after being outrun and outgunned by the Warriors, who won Games 1 and 2 at Oracle Arena by a combined 41 points, the Cavs find themselves in the same predicament they were in last year.
This time, though, the hole feels deeper mostly because Kevin Durant is now leading a team seeking revenge after blowing a 3-1 lead to Cleveland in last year’s Finals.
To this point, chapter three of Cleveland versus Golden State, a Finals dubbed “The ThreeMatch” has been a mismatch.
Still, Lue, the Cavs’ coolunder-pressure coach, believes his team can equal the Warriors’ frenetic pace and flip the script as it did in 2016.
“We just have to take care of the basketball,” Lue said Tuesday after the Cavs practised. “I think taking good shots when we’re playing with pace and not turning the basketball over, letting them get out in transition. So that’s our game. We’re not going to change our game because of who we’re playing. And I’m confident that we can play that way, and we did it last year.
“A lot of people said we couldn’t. But that’s our game. That’s who we are. And we’re not going to change just because we’re playing Golden State.”
One of the options Lue has heading into Wednesday’s Game 3 is to bench struggling starting guard J.R. Smith for Iman Shumpert, who played well defensively in Game 2 but wore himself out guarding Durant and needed IV fluids afterward.
Smith drained a three-pointer for the series’ first basket, but hasn’t scored since. He’s just 1-for-6 from the field, and for some strange reason, one of the game’s most confident shooters has been hesitant to let his jumper fly.
Lue, though, is staying with Smith, who said his wife, Jewel, offered advice on how to end his slump.
“She had a great idea for me,” he said. “She told me every time I touch it, shoot it.”
That’s how the Warriors seem to be playing.
Golden State’s break-neck speed on offence has been a sight to behold.
With unmatched firepower, the Warriors are pushing the pace and the Cavaliers to exhaustion.
Cleveland prefers to play at a high tempo as well, and while that would seem to play into a trap with Golden State, Lue and James were adamant the Cavs aren’t pumping their brakes.
“That’s not our game. We don’t play slowdown basketball,” James said. “We play at our pace. We play our game. We got to this point playing our way. We have won a lot of games playing the way we play, so we’re not going to change.”
In real time, Cleveland’s two losses in Oakland looked lopsided, but Irving said the tape revealed some positives.
“When you watch it, it doesn’t necessarily seem as bad because you understand that the things that you can’t control,” he said. “They’re just kind of boneheaded plays that you are just like, ‘Oh, man, we can be better.’ Whether they’re speeding us up or whether they’re getting in our chest or challenging us, we need to hit back. And it’s just as simple as that.”