The Warriors are halfway to a championship — only two games separating them and consecutive titles to cap off the most dominating regular season in NBA history. They’re here, in part, because their All-NBA second teamer, Draymond Green, is a mighty morphing power forward that can shape-shift into whatever the team requires.
In Game 2, with league MVP Stephen Curry limited by foul trouble, Golden State desperately needed a scorer to pick up the offensive slack. Green, the Dubs do-it-all forward, answered the call with 28 points on a Splash Brother-like 5-for-8 shooting from beyond the arc. On the defensive end, he demonstrated his versatility, using his long arms and strong lower-body to defend the Cavs’ Lebron James, Kevin Love and Tristan Thompson in the post, and showed off quick feet staying in front of Kyrie Irving on the perimeter.
Green’s monster two-way effort was aided by Andrew Bogut’s one-man block party and just enough scoring from Curry and Klay Thompson, as the Warriors cruised to a 110-77 win and a 2-0 series lead. Here are 10 thoughts on the blowout and the Cavs’ fading hopes:
1) The Warriors won when the Cavs slowed the pace in Game 1. They had little trouble thwarting Lebron’s effort to push the pace in transition early in Game 2. They throttled the small-ball James-at-center lineup in the third quarter and they absolutely smashed the Timofey Mozgov-Tristan Thompson double-big grouping in the fourth. Tyronn Lue is grasping at straws and there’s no easy answer for the Warriors’ smothering defense, boundary-defying shooting, and relentless bench unit. The Warriors can play big, play small, play fast, and play slow. To beat them you need five-men-on-a-string balls-to-the-wall defense like the OKC Thunder (or even the Celtics and T’wolves in the regular season). The problem, of course, is that the Cavs don’t have those athletes or the defensive discipline. Instead they have K-Love, Kyrie Irving and Richard Jefferson.
2) Curry and Thompson have scored a combined 55 points in the first two games. The MVP was hampered by foul trouble and only played 25 minutes in Game 2. The Dubs committed 20 turnovers. And yet they’re up 2-0 because they have Draymond scoring in bursts, a bench that’s angry after a poor showing versus OKC, and a defense that just won’t stop. In the last seven games against Cleveland (all Ws wins) the Cavs have shot under 40% six times.
3) Lebron James can’t do this alone but his supporting cast is nowhere to be found. Kyrie Irving is shooting like Kobe Bryant post-Achilles injury (12-of-36 in the series) and he can’t pass the ball without first pounding the crap out of it for eight seconds. Kevin Love doesn’t score enough to make up for his poor defense (5 points) and is now sidelined with a concussion. When 35-year-old Richard Jefferson, who has changed teams seven times in seven seasons, is your second-best player, you’re probably not beating the 73-win Warriors in Oracle.
4) But James did admirable work to single-handedly keep the Cavs in the game early. He had 14 points, seven assists and six boards in the first half and bludgeoned the Dubs on battering ram drives to trim a 15-point deficit to eight heading into the break. However, that offensive load clearly took a toll on him on the defensive end, where he was slow to recover on shooters and often lost his man on switches. Maybe 24-year-old Lebron could do it — be a two-way beast and carry his team to a victory — but not 31-year-old Lebron, a guy who’s probably 92% as good, and has played in six straight Finals and logged a league-leading 5,002 playoff minutes (per ESPN.com).
5) Bogut set the tone for the Warriors’ defense with four momentum-swinging blocks. When the Dubs were having trouble connecting on the long ball early (0-5 from three-point to start), Bogut’s walling of the rim helped the Dubs get easier buckets in transition. His soul-crushing rejection of Tristan Thompson led to an open Curry three-pointer that gave the Warriors their first lead. The Aussie had 5 blocks, 2 steals and 6 boards in only 15 minutes (which probably means we just saw his one good game per series. Thanks for the memories, Bogues!).
6) These Finals haven’t been the most riveting: a 15-point win and this 33-point demolition. If the Cavs don’t turn this thing around, the Western Conference finals might have been the real Finals, like in the mid-90s when the 49ers-Cowboys NFC Championship games were the real Superbowls. (Serious question: are we absolutely sure the Dubs, Spurs, Thunder and even a fully healthy Clippers squad couldn’t have taken these Cavs?)
7) Kyrie Irving is in year-five but his skills as a point guard remain suspect. He failed to get his big man the ball in advantageous mismatches multiple times. The most egregious came when Timofey Mozgov had Leandro Barbosa in the post. The mouse-in-the-house play unfolded right in front of him but Kyrie neglected to get Moz the ball and swung it around the perimeter. (Mathew Dellavedova recognized the mismatch and dropped Mozgov the ball, but by then it was too late.)
8) The Cavs defense has to be better. Love can’t get isolated on Steph on the pick-and-roll without back-line help. The wings can’t have communication problems and screen each other in transition (at least get in a defensive stance, RJ!). And Kyrie Irving and JR Smith can’t forget their defensive assignment on a switch when that defensive assignment is Steph freakin’ Curry.
9) James Jones’ cheap shot foul on Curry is exactly why you don’t want the MVP playing in a 27-point game.
10) Before Warriors fans get too excited about a 2-0 lead, the Cavs are a capable team with an all-time great. Storming back from a two-nothing hole has happened before and, though improbable, not impossible if Lebron and Kyrie both shoot well in the same game. The Heat raced back from a two-game deficit in the 2006 Finals to win it all, and OKC beat San Antonio four straight times in the 2012 WCF, this when the Spurs were on a 20-game winning streak. Strange things can happen. (Absolutely this was a reverse-jinx 10th thought.)