Cavs shifting to ‘attack mode’
LeBron exhausted after big win but says defending champs can’t let up for a minute
OAKLAND — A year later the situation is exactly as it was.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, once thought done, have somehow managed to extend a series when few, if any, thought they could.
The odds they face remain extremely long. No team in the history of the NBA Finals has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit.
But it’s not as if this Cleveland team isn’t already well versed in overcoming exceedingly huge odds.
In fact, they seem to get better the more desperate their situation.
A year ago against a similarly dangerous but less powerful Warriors team, the Cavaliers didn’t get to the brink of elimination until Game 5.
This year they have already been there once and survived it. But now they have to do it three more times.
The Cavs wear this ability to play their best basketball with absolutely no room for error like a badge of honour, but they don’t necessarily enjoy it.
“I don’t like it,” a completely spent LeBron James said after the Cavs’ Game 4 win. “It causes too much stress, man. I’m stressed out. Keep doing this every year.
“But listen, at the end of the day, we just got some resilient guys. The Warriors have championship DNA, and we do as well. We’re battle tested, they’re battle tested.
“And getting swept is something that you never want to have happen. Especially at this point. You get all the way to the Finals, you hate to get swept, lose two games on your home floor. So I think a lot of guys had that in their mind (Friday), and they came out and played like it.”
The Cavaliers were able to extend this series because they found a level of physicality on Friday night that the Warriors could not match.
Zaza Pachulia, an overlooked beast in the minutes he was on the court in the first three games, was manhandled by Tristan Thompson on Friday, who couldn’t do the same in the first three games.
Draymond Green, a player known first, second and third for the ferocity with which he plays the game, could not match the physicality of Kevin Love.
This is not to suggest that the Warriors aren’t capable of turning the tables back on the Cavs. Just that, for one game, the Cavs found another level.
The Warriors on the other hand took a large step back. Their defence, so tight in the first two games and still strong in the third, was no where close in Game 4.
The passing, on point and devastating against everything the Cavs tried in the first three games, was deplorably sloppy on Friday.
But next to the defence, the biggest drop off was the play of Steph Curry.
Kevin Durant and Curry had been the two sure things in this series through three games. The only other was LeBron James.
But Curry was a near non-factor in the potential close-out game, settling for 14 points and a game worst minus-25. Curry had just two free throws in the first quarter to show for his contributions.
“Obviously, it wasn’t his night,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said.
“Started slow, we had some turnovers early, couple careless ones. He just didn’t get it going. It was just one of those nights.”
Without question, the Cavaliers should be feeling good about themselves heading into Game 5. They played the kind of 48-minute game they have to against this Warriors squad, but take it from their leader, no one is going to be patting themselves on the back for a record 49-point first quarter or even finally putting an ‘L’ on the Warriors 2016-17 post season resume.
“You can’t,” James said. “First of all, if you take a minute to see what’s going on versus this team, they hit you with a 50-point quarter. There’s no — you can’t — we were just playing in the moment. We’re just playing good basketball. We were in attack mode, and it results in us having 49. The reason we didn’t hit 50 is because I can’t shoot a free throw. But I’ll be better in Game 5.”
The two teams get a day of practice on Sunday before the series resumes Monday night at Oracle Arena.