Cavs face long odds, but they won’t quit
Down 3-0 despite a near-perfect Game 3, Cleveland’s task looks close to impossible
Three games into the NBA Finals, it has come to this.
The only way the Cleveland Cavaliers get a game in this series, let alone get back in it, is if they play perfect basketball — perfect as in no blown defensive assignments, no turning the ball over, hitting every open shot, only taking the right shot.
And oh, by the way, the Golden State Warriors? They don’t have to be perfect. They’re already talented enough that they make mistakes and still win.
If that doesn’t seem fair, welcome to the Cavaliers’ NBA Finals experience.
A poor Game 1 by the Cavs was followed by a very solid Game 2 and a stellar Game 3. None of that improvement has mattered. At every step, the Warriors have been better.
But the Finals needs a finish, and the Cavs will try one more time to do the near-impossible.
“We’re not going to give in,” Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue said Thursday. “We’re going to keep competing. We had a chance to win (on Wednesday) and if we come out with the fight and intensity that we played with last game, clean up a few mistakes, then we have a chance to win on Friday. So by no means are we giving in — we’re going to be ready to play on Friday.”
You can’t blame Lue for his we-will-never-quit mentality. It’s exactly what makes sports so compelling: that the slimmest of slim chances might come through, defying all the numbers, all the odds.
It’s a coach’s job to keep spirits up and keep the fires burning even at the darkest of times, even if, in his heart of hearts, even he can’t believe those very words that just came out of his mouth.
In truth, the only thing that is going to keep the Warriors from celebrating their second championship in three seasons, and their first on Cleveland’s floor, is the Warriors themselves.
Only if they take the foot off the gas does this game head back out to California for a Game 5. If they play at the level they’ve been playing at through three games, this is a four-game sweep and the Warriors become the first team in NBA history to run the playoff table with a perfect 16-0 record.
It’s really not up to the Cavs. We’ve already seen the best they can give.
LeBron James played 45:37 of a 48-minute game in Game 3, scoring 39 points, hauling down 11 rebounds and adding nine assists.
As he himself told reporters post-game, “I gave everything I had to give.”
The same would apply to Cavaliers guard Kyrie Irving, who played 44:23 and put up 38 points along with six rebounds and three assists. Irving can’t be much better than that.
That was Cleveland’s best two players at the top of their respective games, and it still came down to playing second fiddle to the likes of Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.
Obviously there are areas where the Cavs can be better. There were a number of wideopen shots the Cavs just couldn’t get to fall, and if the team comes close to getting back even a semblance of the three-point game that carried them through the regular season, Game 4 could be very tight.
But it’s going to take all that and the same stunning level of play they got from James and Irving on Wednesday to get there.
James knows exactly what he’s up against.
“I knew this was going to be one of the greatest challenges I’ve had because of the firepower they have, because of the mindset they were going to have, and they’re a hungry group — you can sense that. That have so much talent, a ton of talent,” he said. “They work well together. It’s not one guy on that team that’s selfishly looking for himself and not the team. When you can combine talent, unselfishness and then you can combine guys that play hard, that’s going to result in some really good things.”
Right now those really good things make a Cleveland victory very unlikely. Still, the Cavs lost three of the first four games of last year’s finals but came back to beat Golden State for the title.
Durant, the odds-on favourite to claim finals MVP honours should this thing wrap up Friday night — and likely even if it doesn’t — refuses to let his guard down.
“You’re just trying to stay in the moment and know that this can turn if we come out there thinking we won the championship already,” Durant said. “We haven’t. They’re still champions, and we got to go take it.”