Frustrated but not defeated
James focuses on Game 3, not Finals deficit
OAKLAND – LeBron James can score 51 points in an NBA Finals game, and it’s not enough. He can get 29 points, 13 assists and nine rebounds in the next game, and it’s not enough.
That’s the way it goes against the Warriors at Oracle Arena.
Facing Golden State in the NBA Finals has been James’ burden the past four seasons, and he has one championship to show for it.
After losing Game 2 Sunday and falling behind 2-0 to Golden State in the Finals, James is frustrated but not deflated. It’s the third consecutive season the Cavaliers have lost the first two games of the Finals to the Warriors.
“It sucks to lose,” James said. “It sucks when you go out there and you give it everything that you have and you prep and your mind is in it and your body is in it and you come out on the losing end.
“But nothing would ever take the love of the game away from me. The love of the competition is something I live for and something I wake up every day and train my body for and train my mind for.”
James and the Cavaliers are in a difficult position. The Warriors have the better team. That doesn’t mean they can’t be beat, it just means it’s really tough to beat them.
Cleveland’s margin for error is tightrope thin, and Golden State’s is Grand Canyon wide. The opponent needs to be perfect, or close to it, just to have a chance, and the Cavaliers were not that despite James’ efforts on Sunday.
Cleveland needs to be at its best to win games in this series, and the Warriors don’t need to be perfect to win. They weren’t in Game 1 and won, and in Game 2, they were very good. That’s why they’re in control of the series.
If the Cavaliers have any shot of get- ting back into this series in Games 3 and 4 in Cleveland on Wednesday and Friday, they need more help for James and Kevin Love, who had 22 points and 10 rebounds. Cavs players not named LeBron James shot a combined 38.5% from the field.
And not just offensive help. Defensive help, too, and that’s possible — not guaranteed but possible — in Cleveland, where the Cavs and their role players tend to play better.
There is hope and a plan. The two games in Oakland were competitive. The Cavs almost won Game 1 and trailed by five in the third quarter and seven in the fourth of Game 2. They weren’t out of the game until an onslaught of scoring from Steph Curry and Kevin Durant put the game away.
Despite a 2-0 hole and historical precedence in favor of Golden State, the Cavs aren’t out of this series yet. The Warriors can be beat. Four times in this series? Well, it might be difficult to beat Golden State four of the next five games, and the team with a 2-0 lead ends up winning the series 93% of the time.
“The odds have been against me since I was 5, 6 years old,” James said. “So we’re talking about basketball here. It seems like I come up here and tell you guys this all the time. I put our team in position to try to win a championship, to compete for a championship.
“It’s my job to make sure that we’re as focused, laser focused as possible, do my job, and continue to instill confidence into my teammates until the last horn sounds.”
Cleveland has bounced back from a 2-0 series deficit twice in the past three seasons — beating Golden State for the title in 2016 and beating Boston a little more than a week ago in the Eastern Conference finals.
It starts with Game 3 on Wednesday. James will do what he does, and Love is having a fine offensive series, and George Hill was good in Game 2. A little more offense from J.R. Smith, Jeff Green, Kyle Korver and Larry Nance Jr. will put Cleveland in a better spot for success.
Defensively, Cleveland can’t do much about the crazy threes that Curry takes and makes, and Durant is so difficult to defend. But limiting JaVale McGee and Shaun Livingston and eliminating the easy dunks and layups that occurred with frequency in Game 2 is paramount for the Cavs. Those are the adjustments Cleveland coach Ty Lue and his staff will look to make.
It’s not that James doesn’t have enough around him. If he didn’t, Cleveland wouldn’t have made it this far. The problem is, he might not have enough around him to beat Golden State. That’s not just a Cavs problem. It’s an issue for Cleveland and 28 other NBA teams, including the Rockets, who reshaped their roster and style to beat Golden State.
Against another team, what James is doing might be enough. But not against the Warriors.