When your third best player is JR Smith, the team just isn't very good. Now that said, the Cavs role players do better at home. I think they take at least one of these next two in Cleveland to prove my point. Beyond that though I'm not sure how long they will last. They are certainly not built to beat GSW or even Houston who would have killed them too. The Leastern conference just isn't great yet. Next year it will be a lot tougher with the C Bags getting Kyrie and Hayward back. Also Philly will be better with or without Lebron.
LeBron looked basically spent in Game 2. I'm not sure if he was preserving energy to get back home and compete more, but he looked exhausted. If he's not 100%, this series is over in 4 games.
He did look spent. Those 40 plus minutes per game these playoffs are no doubt taking some toll. Still, he's got a few days to rest, he's coming home and his guys will play better in Cleveland. I expect at least one win for them at home. Beyond that all bets are off.
Kevin Love was awesome before joining LeBron. Wasn't he a 34 plus % 3 point shooter on his own in Minnesota? He averaged over 25 points a game right (correct me if I'm wrong please, I know I may be off a little more or little less) while in Minnesota, I think in 2012? Didn't he average like 30 something a game at one point? I don't know what his 3 point percentage was. He was basically what Anthony Davis is right now. I think Kevin Love would have been better off still being a one guy team player. He just needed better pieces around him. J.R., George etc are a give or take. But it's weird when Kyrie left his productivity increased. LeBron is a great player he can dish assists like a pg, but maybe we underestimated Kobe's ability to push productivity out of his teammates and overestimate the "He makes his teammates better" thing with LeBron, maybe just a tad? Several of those guys who played on those recent title teams with L.A. aren't even playing in the NBA anymore except for Trevor Ariza and Pau Gasol. Overall it's pretty difficult to tell which team is worse or better. What could LeBron have done with that team, what could Kobe have done with Kevin, Kyrie, J.R. etc... We'll never know. All I know is that any team with Smush Parker is the worst team ever.
Kevin Love was a career 36.2% shooter from outside in Minnesota. He averaged 19/12/2.5 assists with 0.7 steals and 0.5 blocks. The problem is: he won on average 25.5 games with the Wolves and never made it to the playoffs. He can put up big numbers, sure, but the big knock on him at the time was that he couldn't take a team to the playoffs, let alone win anything. Without LeBron, Kevin Love might have made it to 1-2 playoffs series by now and done nothing with it. The Wolves would be just another Nuggets team or Clippers even. To be fair to Kevin, he didn't have a great cast around him, but that's sort of the point. For all his numbers, he didn't affect the win column enough. I think it's pretty clear that the 09 team was wildly better than this Cavs 18 team. I can't think of a single team worse than this Cavs 18 team that made it to the Finals. If you took LeBron off that team, it's basically the same type of crappy cast Love had in Minnesota all those years. We're not comparing the 16 Cavs that won a title to the Lakers, we're comparing these Cavs who can't shoot or defend. That 09 Laker team went to 3 straight Finals with mostly the same makeup, just shuffling role players. The biggest change was Ariza to Artest. This Cavs team isn't remotely close to the one they had last year or the year before. No Kyrie, brand new cast of youngsters asked to do too much, and LeBron a year older. I'm just not sure how we as Laker fans can compare Gasol, Odom, Bynum, and Ariza all in their primes to Love, JR Smith, George Hill, and Jordan Clarkson. I mean... Gasol is a Hall of Famer. Odom has his problems, but are we really comparing him to JR Smith? Over-the-George Hill to Ariza? Even a hobbled Bynum has been about as good as a fully healthy Tristan Thompson in this series.
You could tell too...James wasn't sprinting back on transition defense. He was taking breaks on offense choosing to defer mostly. His J wasn't as smooth. Lue gave James a break taking him out with four and change on the clock the game out of reach.
Yeah the 09 Lakers were a lot better than this crappy Cleveland team . People have to remember one thing though : Lebron got the team he deserved , he WANTED this team ( he was the one pushing for the Love trade , keeping TT and JR.... )
Love shouldn't be compared to Gasol. Gasol joined Kobe and an ok team and transformed it instantly. Love's impact was not the same even though it was not mid-season like Gasol's and therefore harder to do a before/after comparison. It's still apparent. But particularly on efficiency, low post play and interior defense and drawing defenders and double teams inside, he is not Pau. You could see Love's Mini teammates pass on rebounds or box out for him so he could pad that stat. He dropped 10 points and 3 rebounds per game as soon as he jumped to the Cavs. I never really wanted him (for max) when he was in Mini. He's a good player for Lebron, he has some nice attributes, great outlet passer but he isn't Pau. The thing that always bugged me most about Love is his layups which are just Kwame Brown awful. Lebron was right to push for him though because there wasn't a lot of options and with Kyrie Love is a good 3rd. Not a 2nd though.
Good point. LLLLLLebron practically built this team by demanding the FO to re-sign said players, and now he's ready to bail on them. He wants to GM but takes no responsibility for his actions. Another reason I want him no where near the Lakers.
Durant trying to take the FMVP back from Curry. Wow after Durant, the player with the most points is Jordan Bell with 7.
How did this team ever win without him? If Durant leaves, I definitely don't think this GS team would win another ship.
That was about as perfect as Cleveland can play and not a great half from the Warriors. Let's see if both of them keep that up.
Cleveland is overmatched and has to play anear perfect game along with LLLLLL in attack mode all game. It’s not who he is, so I don’t think they can sustain it.
