The Golden State Warriors played with something to prove Thursday night in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. After blowing a 3-1 Finals lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers and losing the series at Oracle Arena last year as a result, they wanted to show their Finals counterpart they haven’t forgotten what happened.
That’s why they signed Kevin Durant this past offseason for this type of stage. Like themselves, he was a player that played like he wanted to win a championship in the worst way. He dominated on offense, and he frustrated the Cavaliers with his tall, quick presence on defense. He set the tone in the Warriors’ 113-91 victory over the Cavaliers by scoring 38 points, grabbing eight rebounds and dishing out eight assists. It’s surprising he was two short of rebounds and two short of assists of a triple-double.
Basketball fans, media and any basketball wonk were quick to crown the Warriors by saying the Cavaliers would have a hard time matching up with them for most of this series. This wasn’t surprising since we live in a reactionary society where we are quick to make judgments. In social media world, we call it “hot take”.
Let’s remember something. It was one game. That’s all that was. It was nothing more than teams feeling the other team out in what should be a long series. The Finals will not hinge on what happens in one game. This isn’t football.
The Cavaliers will be sure to make adjustments. It’s hard to believe they are going to have 20 turnovers every game in this series like they had in Game 1. J.R. Smith will do better than score three points, and Tristan Thompson is going to score points eventually. They are not going to shoot 34.9 percent every game.
They also have LeBron James, who is good enough to win games by himself as he showed last year in Games 5, 6 and 7, engineering a Finals comeback to lead the Cavaliers to a championship.
The Cavaliers lost by 15 in Game 1, and they lost by 33 in Game 2. They have been in this situation before, so last night will not faze them one bit.
It’s tempting to say the Cavs are overmatched against the offensively-loaded Warriors. After all, they have three great players that can cause damage in Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Durant. The Cavaliers used their strategy to stop Curry, which meant Durant was able to get open for him to score. That’s what the Warriors do. They can have anyone score at any time, and they can score from the paint if they are guarded well at the three-point line. They are a versatile team.
But teams can go through lulls over the course of the game. The Warriors play like they don’t, but it does happen. It happened in last year’s NBA Finals, so it could happen again. The Cavaliers are capable of slowing the game down and wearing their opponent down. That’s why it makes sense to let the series play itself out. This is going to be a long seven games.
For one night, it was the Warriors’ night. After taking a 60-52 lead at halftime, they started the second half with a 13-0 run, extending their lead to 73-52. That was as a result of the Cavs missing shots and the Warriors making them pay with Curry shooting a jumper and couple of three-pointers and Durant shooting a three-pointer. The Warriors did a great job boxing out and putting themselves in a position to force the Cavs to turn the ball over. It never got better for the visitors, and at the end of the third quarter, it was the home team celebrating a 93-72 lead.
Everyone knew the Warriors got this, including the Cavaliers.
There was no way they were blowing that big lead at home after seeing the visitors celebrate a championship on their home court last year. They were determined to get it done.
It shouldn’t be surprising the Warriors won. Home teams always seem to win Game 1 of any playoff series since they feed off from the energy and emotion from the home crowd. This was a team that felt they owned the defending champions something. They have talked about it all season long, so they had something to play for last night.
The scoreboard and stats said it all. Forget the 113 points the home team scored. They had 31 assists and 50 rebounds. Their players did not register a – rating on the stat sheet. This was total domination. It was a win they earned.
Maybe this is going to be more of the same for the rest of the series, but the Cavaliers deserve the benefit of the doubt before everyone counts them out.
It’s important to have perspective after one game. The Cavs aren’t the 2002 Nets that was overmatched by the Lakers firepower and strength in that year’s Finals. This is a team that has won the championship with the same roster. They deserve that much respect.
Now if Game 2 ends up like Game 1, it may be a problem.
The Cavaliers can’t play much worse in the next game than they did in Game 1, and the Warriors can’t play any better than they did in Game 1.
All the Warriors did was win one game. That’s what it was. Nothing more than that.
