Cleveland Cavaliers are your improbable, impossible NBA Champions
The NBA playoffs are here. The games are tighter, the lights are brighter, and the narratives are getting thick. It can be a lot to keep up with but don’t worry we’re here to help. Throughout the NBA postseason, FanSided will be gathering together some of the most talented writers from our network for a daily recap of our favorite stories from the night before.
Welcome to The Rotation.
All in, All over
Daniel Rowell | @DanielJRowell | Hardwood Paroxysm
With just under two minutes left in Game 7, the score tied 89-89, Andre Iguodala turned a missed layup from Kyrie Irving into a fastbreak with Stephen Curry. It was a part of a scoreless four minutes at the end of the fourth quarter that brought two teams to the brink of both elimination and victory. A series tied 3-3, the same 610 points total shared by both teams through six games, and again in Game 7, tied 89-89. For a second, it looked like the same downhill fast break that Andre Iguodala makes look so easy. With J.R. Smith backpedalling to the paint, Iguodala passed to Curry at the top of the key to draw off Smith, before Curry passed back to Iguodala for the layup. And just as he went up to lay it in, LeBron James, having caught up to Curry, leapt across the key for a chase down block at the glass.
Not today.
A minute later after a missed jump hook from James and a bricked three-point attempt from Curry, Cleveland came out of its timeout and ran a play for Kyrie Irving. James had missed his last four attempts from the field, and looked to his teammate for a clutch play, inbounding the ball to Kyrie. A Smith screen switched Curry onto Kyrie. He found his spot on the three-point arc, hit a crossover to buy just enough space, and launched a three-pointer over a lunging Curry. It was good. Mr. Fourth Quarter had given the Cavaliers the lead, 92-89.
On the next possession, Curry brought up the ball, and weaving through a set of screens from Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes switched Kevin Love onto Curry. Here it was, the moment Cleveland feared. Kevin Love, a player that had his “Believe in Kevin Love” posters torn down in Cleveland, a player roasted on every podcast and in every Twitter take for his poor defense and 4.5 points per game Finals average, guarding the league’s MVP in the final minute of regulation.
For thirty seconds, Kevin Love played the best defense of his career. He jumped out on Curry, forcing him out of his spot and a dribble to the three-point arc, while cutting off any drive. Curry passed out to Green and back to set up a second run at Love. With about four feet of space, Curry pump faked a three from 35 feet. Again, Love jumped out to stop the dribble. Curry dribbled left, crossed over into a three-point attempt, but Love followed and threw a hand in his face. Missed, rebound James.
On the next possession, Irving recovered his own missed fastbreak layup and James drew a foul on a missed dunk, but landed awkwardly on his wrist and rolled to the ground in pain. Ten second left, two shots, same three-point lead. Again another of Cleveland’s fears. Their leader writhing in pain under the basket, a 66 percent free throw shooter in the playoffs. Still, he was 7-of-8 on the night. James missed his first attempt, bricked off the back of the rim. On the second attempt, he rattled it in. 93-89, 10.6 seconds remaining.
From there, a closely defended set of two inbounds plays from the Warriors gave Curry a contested three-point attempt over Shumpert and a second chance corner three from Speights. No good.
In the final two minutes of play, Cleveland clinched their first NBA championship in franchise history, and the first championship for the city in 52 years, on a series of improbable moments, each directly challenging the dominant narratives about this team — a James block, an Irving three-pointer over Curry, the defense of Kevin Love on Curry, and a rattled free throw from James.
But Kyrie Irving’s a shoot-first ball hog.
But Kevin Love’s is a swinging screen door on defense.
But LeBron James has never figured out a free throw routine.
But no team’s come back from 3-1 in the Finals.
But the away team is 3-15 in Finals Game 7s.
But LeBron James will never win a championship for Cleveland.
It was as though the Cavaliers had thrown out the book on Cleveland Sports blow-ups, and exercised their demons all in just 120 seconds. It was the personification of “All In.” As the confetti fell on James, The King fell to the floor in tears, bowing his head to the court. His teammates embraced each other behind him. The moment hit home for his fans, his critics, and his teammates. This was real. The Akron native that had chased a championship for his home for thirteen years had done it. It was all over.
LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers answer the call
Ben Gibson | @CowboyOnPatrol | 8 Points, 9 Seconds
The King and his men would not be denied.
The Cleveland Cavaliers absorbed each punch they Golden State Warriors had lined up for them in the second half, before finally delivering the finishing combination of a Kyrie Irving 3-pointer and a LeBron James block.
The Warriors led by as much as eight early in the third quarter, but the Cavaliers answered back with a pair of J.R. Smith 3-pointers and an Irving layup to tie things back up.
Crisis avoided.
The sequence was a reminder of how of how J.R. found the perfect situation in Cleveland. As the third of four options for Cleveland, he found the room to operate and knock down 3-pointers. In these playoffs he shot 43 percent from beyond the arc but most importantly in Game 7, he supplemented the Cavaliers offense when they needed a boost.
Golden State quickly took a five-point lead again, but a Kevin Love basket, rebound, and steal helped Cleveland stop the mini-run and take a one-point lead on a Irving layup. Despite all the criticism, Love’s timely rebounding and scoring (9 points and 14 rebounds) were one of the reason’s that the Cavaliers are champions today.
Cleveland led by as much as seven in the 3rd, but a late run gave Golden State a 76-75 lead going into the fourth quarter. Oracle Arena exploded when Stephen Curry tied the game with just under seven minutes left in the fourth pushed their lead to four with 5:37 left, but that’s when the Cavaliers delivered their biggest counter punches of the game.
Festus Ezeli was tasked with guarding LeBron on the pick-and-roll, but the Warriors plan of switching nearly every time came back to bite them as LeBron drew a foul from beyond the arc, hitting all three free throws to slim the lead down to one. Early in the series Golden State appeared to have control when they switched their assignments, but on this play James was able to exploit Ezeli for a trip to the line.
A poor decision by Curry to pass the ball behind his back in the direction of Klay Thompson led to another turnover for the Warriors, and one they paid for as LeBon knocked down a 3-pointer to take the lead. Thompson answered back on the next possession to tie the game at 89-89, but it was the last time they scored.
After the game Michael Wilbon told Scott Van Pelt on Sportscenter that former NBA player and Cleveland native Charles Oakley predicted that late in Game 7, both teams would struggle to make their jump shots as the fatigue of the series began to set in. He was right, and this ended up hurting the Warriors much more than it did the Cavaliers.
Golden State and Cleveland combined to miss 12 straight shots over the next 4 minutes, including what will be known in Cleveland as “The Block”, another one of the game-saving counterpunches for the Cavs.
In the final minutes of the game, the Warriors were 0-of-9 and the Cavaliers weren’t much better at 1-of-8, but that one was all they needed as Kyrie Irving knocked down a shot in the face of Curry, giving Cleveland a 3-point advantage. The bigger surprise was on the other end, as Kevin Love summoned the best defense of his career to lockdown Curry as he tried to play the hero and level the score.
The Warriors had wisely used Draymond Green to set the pick and force the Cavaliers to switch Love onto Curry, but instead of tormenting the beleaguered power forward as he had all series, the roles were reversed. Love simply played great defense and kept Curry from having any room at the 3-point line. Curry never looked for anything other than the tying 3-pointer and it bounced out as his legs struggled to give the ball enough distance to make the basket.
LeBron added a free throw before the final whistle, forcing Curry to try to make another 3-pointer — the fourth he missed in the final five minutes — and the Warriors lost three straight games for the first time under coach Steve Kerr.
Kerr may have outthought himself when he played both Anderson Varejão and Ezeli in critical situations, but in the end he was outcoached by Tyrone Lue.
Lue and his players finally figured out how to read and react to the Warriors pick-and-rolls, and Golden State’s offense became mortal. Combined with LeBron and Kyrie’s offense over that stretch, Golden State’s lack of size was exposed as Green was suspended and unfortunately Andrew Bogut exited the series with a knee injury.
Cleveland fired back every time it looked like the Warriors had finally figured them out. It turned out to be a mix of solid play and a few highlight-worthy plays, but the Cavaliers didn’t let things get out of hand even if a few things didn’t go their way.
Much like their leader, LeBron, the Cavaliers didn’t let the magnitude of the situation overwhelm them. Even better, they defined themselves forever as champions by delivering on their promise to the city of Cleveland.
No asterisk needed
David Ramil | @dramil13 | Hardwood Paroxysm
We rarely associate aging with anything good, focusing instead on how some things stop working as well or, in some cases, stop working at all. But as you age there is the inherent benefit of accumulating memories, as well as the hope that there will be more positive ones than not. A longer life provides the bonus of perspective, an understanding that things, people, relationships come and go and you’re rarely in control of when they do. The result is learning — again, hopefully — to find a way to appreciate them all along the way.
Particularly in sport, there’s a tendency to downplay the achievements of a group or individual by comparing them to past examples. How this team would match up with that one or how a player ranks among his or her historical peers. It can be a fun exercise but, all too often, it evolves into a an opportunity to diminish a feat that should be appreciated regardless of where it ranks in historical context.
The Golden State Warriors have been victims of this shortsighted approach for most of the season. Their achievements this past year — setting the record for the winningest team in the NBA’s long, rich history — was incredible in any context. But, somehow, many will wake today believing that those 73 regular-season victories have lost their luster in the shadow of Cleveland’s championship glow.
An alternative view is to consider the 2015-16 season as you would any painting, book or film, seeing it as the nuanced work of art that it was. For over seven months, we were witness to moments of captivating beauty, beginning with a 24-game win streak and ending as they reached their place in history on the very last day of the regular season. It may have been Cleveland’s playoff success that put the finishing touches on this season but each of Golden State’s 73 wins, be it a blowout or narrow escape, were essential brushstrokes of a timeless masterpiece.
Perhaps it’s an archaic point of view but I think there’s room to appreciate both the Warriors regular season and the Cavaliers’ title today. After all, a championship banner will forever hang in Cleveland and it’s likely that the Golden State’s record will stand for nearly as long, allowing us to celebrate the former without diminishing the latter. If we’re lucky enough to grow old (far better than the alternative), the memory of each of those 73 spectacular wins should continue to shine.
Winning a championship is hard
Ian Levy | @HickoryHigh | FanSided
That the Cleveland Cavaliers are NBA champions seems impossible. I re-watched the last two minutes of Game 7 twice already this morning, just to make sure it was real, that it wasn’t just some elaborate and delusional prank orchestrated by my Cleveland-heavy Twitter timeline. It seems impossible not just because of the 3-1 deficit they faced, or the handful of pantheon-level individual plays it took to seal things down the stretch, but because they did this against the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors.
I feel entirely comfortable calling this season’s Warriors the best team I have ever seen (for the sake of context I was really only paying close attention to basketball for the second of Jordan’s three-peats). I watched them all season, gleefully squashing hope wherever they found it. To me, that was the defining aesthetic of this team — inevitability. I feel like I’ve used that word a hundred times in writing about them this season but I don’t remember a team — even Jordan’s Bulls — who felt so massively fated. My recollection of the Bulls is as oozing lava, slowly inching forward and consuming all obstacles. The Warriors were a tsunami — the water could be receding, drawing back for entire quarters, but at some point a wall of destruction was coming.
The lesson, I suppose, is that winning a championship is really hard (I mean, I’m exhausted and all I did was watch). As some drunken, fictional baseball dude once said, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great.”
Any title would have been cause for joyous celebration in Cleveland. Winning in this particular manner, rending all the ridiculous counter-narratives, finding victory beyond reproach is something else entirely. And for the Warriors, I would hope that this doesn’t take too much shine off what they did this season. I can’t put too fine a point on it — I have never seen a team player better than they did this season. If 73 wins and no title are too painful to look at, maybe in a weird way this loss will validate their title from last season, allow the appreciation of the obstacles they overcame last season.
Winning a championship is hard, even if you’re one of the best players in the history of the game, just ask LeBron. Winning a championship is hard, even if you’re one of the best teams in the history of the game, just ask the Warriors.
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