Cavs’ seed of doubt dies on the vine

Across the country at Quicken Loans Arena before the weekend began, the Cavaliers planted a small seed of doubt in the heads of the Warriors.

Now that the Cavs finally had won an NBA Finals game after three losses, they wanted it to sprout into an orchard of bad apples, infecting for the Warriors’ arrogance and smugness.

The Cavs had come back from a 3-1 series deficit to beat the Warriors last year. A 3-0 comeback had not been done in the NBA in any round, but neither had last year’s resurrection in the Finals until the Cavs did it.

On the eve of Monday’s Game 5, sunlight flashed on the harbor water like a reflecting mirror at Fisherman’s Wharf. The Golden Gate Bridge loomed in the distance, a symbol for all the glory that lies ahead for the Warriors.

The cutting wind, however, was like the doubt carving away at fans’ confidence.

At Joe’s Crab Shack, a restaurant saluting Dominic DiMaggio, “better than his brother Joe,” as the song goes, fans broke out in occasional spontaneous droning “Warr-i-ors” chants.

They were sure the Warriors were better than the Cavs now that Kevin Durant, the 201314 Most Valuable Player, had joined their team.

Down the wharf, Jeremy Staedler, the general manager of Alioto’s, the famous seafood restaurant, dryly said, “I think it might be pretty loud around here if the Warriors win.”

In 2010, he was in his first day on the job as the events manager at a private club near the Transamerica Pyramid when the Giants won their first of three recent World Series. It was their first since they relocated from New York in 1958.

The problem was the event Staedler was managing was engulfed and transfigured by the city-wide joy. “We were overwhelmed,” he said.

The Warriors had not won it all at home since moving to the Bay Area, neither in 1975 nor in 2015.

“They better win Monday. Otherwise, this sets in,” Staedler said, pointing his finger to his head, where all the uncertainly would grow.

They have won a title at home now, finishing off the Cavs 129-120, taking the Finals in five games and concluding a stunning 16-1 postseason.

The biggest roars in a night of constant sonic barrages went to Durant, who was named the MVP of the Finals, bolstered by his starstudded cast, scoring 39 points and missing only 6 of 20 shots.

LeBron James led the Cavs with a spectacular effort: 41 points, 13 rebounds, eight assists. Kyrie Irving, a resurgent J.R. Smith and an aggressive Tristan Thompson backed him with double-figure scoring. Irving scored 26, although it took him 22 shots. But foul-plagued Kevin Love managed only six points in 30 minutes.

In Alioto’s on Sunday, waitress Roxanne Machado, when told the newspaperman whose order she had taken was covering his third Cavaliers-Warriors Finals, said with a smile, “So you’ve been watching the same game for three years?”

It was a good line. It would be funnier if Monday’s game were like the last three of last year’s Finals and not the first three of this year’s.

But the whole Bay Area no longer cared about the bad seed, only the good times.