Inside info: Cavs must toughen up

OAKLAND, Calif. — The first-half list of baskets for Golden State’s Kevin Durant in Game 1 of the NBA Finals went like this: layup, dunk, jumper, dunk, dunk, dunk, dunk, layup, dunk, layup. Most were easy. And easy isn’t supposed to happen, especially not at the rim in the NBA Finals.

Forget all the things that Cleveland did wrong offensively in Game 1, the poor shooting and the 20 turnovers and how the bench basically contributed nothing and how Rihanna got — and merited — more commentary from ABC’s Jeff Van Gundy than J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson did.

The Cavs can score. They’ll likely be better tomorrow night in Game 2. The issue is this: If the reigning NBA champions don’t show some toughness soon, they won’t be reigning much longer.

“I think that’s how Cleveland is going to approach it, make it a physical game,” Michael Cooper, who went through some epic LakersCeltics battles as a player in the 1980s, said before the series began. “Golden State wants a finesse game.”

Finesse won Game 1. After a playoff blowout, history shows that losing team typically tries to make a statement in Game 2 that things will be different.

“We made a lot of mistakes. They capitalized,” James said. “And we get an opportunity to get a couple days to see what they did and see what we did wrong and how we can be better in Game 2.”

Today’s NBA isn’t the sort of league where someone is going to clothesline Durant or any other Warrior to send some sort of foolish overly physical message, nor should it be. Though Kevin McHale’s aggressive at-therim takedown of Kurt Rambis in the 1984 title matchup remains a quintessential moment in postseason lore.

This series is long from over. James was down 1-0 in all three of the series where he went on to win a ring.

But someone from Cleveland, maybe many someones, had better find a way to make life tougher for the Warriors going forward.