Stars aligning for the Cavaliers
Cleveland is well positioned for a civic breakthrough
Longtime Cleveland resident Mike Fratello took immediate umbrage to the phrasing that so much in these NBA playoffswere falling into place for the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James to make a championship breakthrough.
“That minimizes their work, ‘falling into place,’” he said.
“Sometimes,” he continued, “it’s the nature of what happens. Things happen that you’re not expecting, that you do not see happing. But that’s a very good team. That’s a team that didn’t need to get anybody’s help.”
He knows of what he speaks because he speaks aboutNBA basketball for a living. Fratello has moved on fromhis days as Cavaliers coach, but he never moved on fromCleveland after his six-season tenure ended in1999.
In the midst of hiswork for Turner Sports, which this pastweek included working a game of the MiamiHeat’s series against the CharlotteHornets for NBA TV, Fratello said he appreciates the increased hope of a long-awaited championship for Cleveland.
But he said it’s about more than Stephen Curry missing time for the Golden StateWarriors, or other injuries. And he said it’s about more than no team beyond the Cavaliers truly seizing the moment in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, with the Cavaliers’ secondround opponent, the AtlantaHawks, showing their own flaws in their six-game ouster of the Boston Celtics.
“The best the Big Three have played in two years is now,” Fratello said of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. “For whatever the reason is, the stretch run, they’re stopping their Twitter; whatever the reason is, they’ve gotten their act together.
“Kyrie is doing what Kyrie does. Love is taking his game down there. LeBronwas willing to not be the high scorer for the team in the first round for the first time since [Dwyane] Wade in 2011 in a series. And LeBronworked his butt off defensively against TobiasHarris, he really got after him.”
So after a 4-0 sweep of the Detroit Pistons, the Cavaliers got to exhale.
“FromDay1, they’ve had a deep roster,” Fratello said. “There’s a lot of good players on that team. There’s a lot of experience on that team. You have three AllStars that they’re starting on that team.”
And, well, things also have fallen into place.
“If you look at the East, on paper, a team that looked like thatwould have given them trouble, Chicago, got knocked out with the injuries,” he said of the Bulls failing to make the postseason. And if Miami had [Chris] Bosh, that might have been really interesting.
“Anybodywould have said that the path to the Eastern Conference championshipwas easier than the path to theWest, to start with.”
While Fratello has been well-traveled over his coaching and broadcasting career, fromAtlanta to Cleveland toMemphis to a turn as theHeat’s television analyst, Cleveland has long held a special place in his sporting heart.
Which is why as some question James’ decision to return fromhis championship success in South Florida, Fratello speaks as a Clevelander who appreciates howmuch a Cavaliers championship could do for the city. It is why he also speaks about hownow, even with such a clear path to theNBA Finals against a potentiallyweakened Western Conference opponent, trepidation remains.
“It happens with towns that have had such a long drought,” he said, with Cleveland without a major sports title since the Cleveland Browns in 1964won the NFL championship game two years before the first Super Bowl. “They tend to think theworst is always going to happen. Instead of being on the other side, where, ‘This is our year,’ the approach almost is, ‘We’re doomed.’
“Theywant to win so bad in order to say they’re a championship city.”
“The best the Big Three have played in two years is now.” — Mike Fratello, sports broadcaster and analyst