CAVS, WARRIORS SET FOR SUPER SHOWDOWN
Featuring two elite powers at their peak, this Finals rubber match could be beautiful
It’s just as we all imagined it some eight or nine months ago.
It’s the Golden State Warriors and their star-studded lineup, now bolstered by another topfive NBA talent, taking on the Cleveland Cavaliers with the seemingly ageless LeBron James playing at the peak of his talents.
It’s the third time in a row for these two teams in the NBA Finals. Golden State won in 2015. Cleveland, with that stunning comeback from a 3-1 deficit a year ago, evened the series.
Now here they are again, looking to break the deadlock. If the reality of the series can even scratch the surface of the hype going into this long-awaited matchup, basketball fans everywhere will be in for a huge treat.
Rarely does a best-on-best matchup come to fruition at the final stage of a professional sports season. Injuries and upsets and sometimes just under-performance tend to get in the way of that matchup we would all love to see.
Not this time, though. We have the clear-cut two best teams in the NBA — the Warriors representing the Western Conference, the Cavs representing the East. Both teams appear to be healthy, or at least as healthy as any team can be having been through an 82-game schedule and three rounds of playoffs.
It’s not just health that has pundits predicting this particular Finals could be one for the ages. It’s the fact the best players, or at least most of the best players in this upcoming series, are playing at the highest of levels.
James in particular seems to have found another gear at the age of 32 to push himself to new limits. While playing almost 41 minutes a night through these playoffs, he is averaging 32.5 points a night, seven assists, 2.2 steals and 1.4 blocks, tops among all Cavs in each category. His eight rebounds a game are third on the team behind Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson.
From a league standpoint, he is the NBA’s top playoff scorer, tops in steals, tops in win shares and No. 1 in value over replacement player.
In short, he has been the most dominant player in the playoffs to date, and it’s not like he’s surrounded by a cast of nobodies.
In Love, the Cavs boast another player playing the best basketball he has played since he came to Cleveland in the trade that sent Andrew Wiggins to Minnesota.
Love is no longer the wallflower turning down opportunities of his own to get the ball in the hands of James or fellow all-star Kyrie Irving. He is much more assertive in creating for himself while not taking away from what the Cavs get from the other two offensive threats.
Love is just third on the team in scoring, averaging 17.2 points through three rounds of the playoffs, but has been a force on the boards, where he is averaging a team-best 10.4 rebounds a night. As a third scoring option behind James and Irving, he has been everything the Cavs could have hoped for.
Irving, meanwhile, is just under 35 minutes a night and giving the Cavs 24.5 points each game. His 5.6 assists per night in the playoffs are also second to King James.
Beyond that big three, the Cavaliers as a team are shooting 43.5 per cent from behind the arc — a number that is going to win a team a lot of basketball games.
Opposing them and boasting the same calibre of star-laden roster performing at elite levels will be the Golden State Warriors, who breezed through a tough Western Conference without losing a single game.
Led by a fully healthy Steph Curry — he was playing through injury this time last year — and the windfalls of all windfalls in Kevin Durant picking this already stellar club to add his impressive talents to, the Warriors are perhaps the only team out there that will make this a fair contest.
Curry is playing more than six minutes a night less than James, but like LeBron is producing every second he is on the floor. He is averaging 28.6 points through the 12 games the Warriors have played while shooting just over 50 per cent from the field.
Throw in Durant’s 55.6 per cent success rate from the field and it’s quickly apparent stopping either player will be tough.
The Warriors got to this point unscathed with Klay Thompson contributing well below the rate he normally does, which suggests the Warriors still have another level to reach.
Draymond Green, who is normally counted on primarily for his defence, is shooting an unthinkable 47 per cent from three-point land, further clouding the issue of how much attention you can safely pay Curry and Durant without getting burned elsewhere. Even if Green suddenly reverted to his regular season three-point success rate, he’s still leading the Warriors in assists (7.2), rebounds (8.7), steals (1.9) and blocks (2.2).
Basketball fans were fortunate to get this matchup. If there is a carry-over in terms of level of play from the three previous rounds, it’s not out of the question that we could look back on this Finals as one of the best ever.
Rarely does a best-on-best matchup come to fruition at the final stage of a professional sports season.