LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers are going back to the Quicken Loans Arena down 2-0 to the Golden State Warriors in the 2017 NBA finals. Game two last night and it was a complete utter blowout with the Cavaliers looking to give zero effort.
After going behind early and carelessly turning the ball in the first quarter, the Warriors led again by Kevin Durant and Steph Curry with Steve Kerr back on the sidelines for the first time since game two of the first round of the playoffs used a big second half to pull away from the Cavaliers and take a 2-0 series lead.
The problem with the Cavaliers play in game two were not the turnovers or the poor play from their bench, it was that they are simply too slow for the Warriors play. Even with LeBron James’s masterful performance with 29 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists and Kevin Love’s solid play (27 points and 7 rebounds) it still was not enough to put the Cavaliers over the top and even the series at a game a piece. The Warriors passed the ball with such ease all game and easily found the open man for what was most of the time an open three-point shot. They set a NBA finals record with eighteen three-point baskets made mostly coming from Durant, Curry and Thompson who finally came alive on the offensive side of the ball scoring 22 points and going 4-7 from three-point range.
The Cavaliers just could not keep up with the pace of the Warriors and that is mostly because they did not see this all year long from teams in the Eastern Conference and especially did not see it when rolling over Indiana, Toronto and Boston in the playoffs. The Cavaliers defense was poor as the scoreboard shows and they just looked lost scrambling the floor trying to defend the Warriors’s shooters
Game two also showed how resilient the Warriors are. The Cavaliers jumped out to an early lead but threes, quick baskets and free throws allowed them to scratch back and easily take the lead for good. The team finished the game with twenty turnovers but still managed to win by nineteen points. It is crazy how phenomenal the Warriors are from three-point range (shot 42%) that having twenty turnovers did not affect them in a negative way and still was not enough for the Cavaliers to pull back into the game.
The Cavaliers must improve their defense especially transition defense because the Warriors were again able to carve up the Cavaliers defense and get to the basket or find the open shooter with ease. They should now have a game plan going into game three Wednesday night in Cleveland since they now see what the Warriors bring to the table and must do a better job at defending and containing Steph Curry, Kevin Durant and the rest of the Warriors’s shooters. They cannot allow to go on shooting droughts for large periods during the game because as the Warriors have shown, with a couple of threes they can flip a switch and go on massive runs.
Game three is a crucial game for the Cavaliers and it is a must win. LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving all must show up and play their best basketball on both sides of the ball in order to steal one and avoid going down 3-0. No team ever in NBA finals history has ever come back from a 3-0 deficit to win the championship and frankly the Cavaliers will be swept if they lose game three because after last year the Warriors will not let a huge lead in the finals slip through their fingers again.
