Warriors Rewind: 10 Thoughts on the Game 5 Loss

Lebron James and Kyrie Irving stormed into Oracle Arena on Monday night and set the whole darn building on fire. The Warriors, playing without perennial Defensive Player of the Year candidate Draymond Green, watched helplessly as the Cleveland duo torched them for a combined 82 points on an incendiary 61% shooting, including 9-of-15 from distance.

Golden State managed to keep the game tight in the first half by sinking a barrage of flick-of-the-wrist shots of their own, but when that well of three-pointers ran dry in the second half, and the defense continued to get sliced by James and Irving, the Cavs were able to pull away and steal Game 5 in Oakland.

The Warriors get another opportunity on Thursday night to close out the series and win the title, but all of a sudden they find themselves in a precarious situation up 3-2, but heading back out on the road against a rejuvenated opponent.

Here are 10 thoughts on the disappointing Game 5 defeat:

1. The Warriors needed an A+ performance from Stephen Curry with Draymond out, but what they got instead was a B- effort. Steph wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t MVP-level great. He scored 25 points but needed 21 shots to do so. He had as many turnovers (4) as assists and shot only 5-of-14 from deep. Some of those three-pointers were heavily contested, but he also missed a bevy that were wide open. Curry had a good look at the 8:32 mark of the fourth quarter to cut the Cavs’ lead to four points, but his attempt missed left and the team never got closer than six. The Dubs needed Steph and the rest of the team to play 48 minutes of near perfect ball to pull out the short-handed victory but they, like most of the three-pointers taken on the night, came up short.

2. Meanwhile Kyrie attempted 24 shots and missed only seven en route to a 41-point night. Outside of a few lapses early, Klay’s defense on him wasn’t bad, Kyrie was just taking and making impossible shots from all angles and on every spot of the court. (This must be how Thunder fans felt watching Klay go ballistic in Game 6).

3. LeBron and Kyrie made the baskets, but Kiki VanDeWeghe and the NBA’s rule enforcers get the assist of the year.

4. The only stat you need: The Warriors shot 11-of-21 from distance in the first half and 3-of-21 in the second. For the game, they were 4-of-19 on uncontested three-pointers, per @ESPNStatsInfo.

5. Lebron’s 41-16-7-3-3 night somehow got overshadowed by Kyrie, but dude had an absolute monster of a game on both ends of the court. He helped shoulder the offensive load with Irving (they became the first pair of teammates in Finals history to each have 40-plus in the same contest), and had a Draymond-like effect on defense, patrolling the paint and chasing after guards in transition. James can really do it all — except maybe act.

6. Watching live, it felt like every shot Harrison Barnes took was completely wide open. Then I see later that, yeah, they were all wide, wide open shots. But HB couldn’t make the Cavs pay. He went a John Starksian 2-of-14 in a closeout Finals game for a measly five points. Maybe all those minutes at center and power forward with Dray out had him fatigued.

7. Steve Kerr trotted out every big man available looking for something that would stick — but nothing did. Bogut got abused on the Kyrie pick-and-roll. MacAdoo couldn’t stop fouling people. Speights missed all six of his jumpers and compounded that with two turnovers and an ill-advised and-1 foul on James. And don’t breath too hard while you read this less Anderson Varejao fall over on another flop. Ezeli was actually decent defending the pick-and-roll and had two offensive rebounds and a block but Kerr continues to not trust him. The Dubs’ five big men came up small, compiling a combined five points, 11 fouls and a ton of bad defense in 46 minutes. Ooph.

8. Instead of whining about non-calls or pleading for suspensions, here’s Klay post-game: “Kyrie was great tonight. He had my number. Nothing you can do.” Klay took the L like a man.

9. The Warriors would’ve been better able to throw punches with the Cavs’ offense had they gotten a few more garbage points from their secondary scorers. The Leandro Barbosa floaters, the Mo Speights three-pointers, the random Andrew Bogut lefty hook. But those found-money points were scarce as Bogut, Mo, Festus, LB and MacAdoo netted only five total points.

10. I get the suspension. Draymond had been warned and went over the flagrant foul point limit. No one made him tap Lebron in the man region. He brought it upon himself. Sure, that all makes sense. But the NBA isn’t a government that has to worry about whether it’s being fair and hold itself accountable to millions of people. It’s a private organization in the entertainment business. It can make and enforce its rules as it sees fit. So it seems that for a guy to get suspended from an NBA Finals game, he should have to do more than tap an opponent’s groin area, especially when he was baited into it.