The injuries to Love and Kyrie have actually made the Cavs better defensively in the playoffs. Besides his monster rebounding, Thompson has been playing better each series. He kept Milsap in check in the ECF. And Dellavedova has shockingly been holding his own, and an upgrade over Kyrie especially since he's hobbled. While the Rockets showed many lapses on D, the Cavs swarm on every possession which gives me a little hope. Obviously I wish Love and Kyrie were 100...or even 75% to give the Cavs more options (ie offense). But we got a chance to see some guys step up which weren't obvious during the regular season.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">New Story: Delonte West shares how LeBron James likely saved his life and why he's pulling for <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cavs?src=hash">#Cavs</a> in Finals <a href="http://t.co/rYGyPkkG51">http://t.co/rYGyPkkG51</a></p>— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisBHaynes/status/605933191359102976">June 3, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I picked GS in 5... But I could see 4 blowouts. lebron is great, but he's been below his standard this off season (getting stats Kobe style), and his team is awful. The East is just a joke right now.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/CLE/2015.html Off Rtg: 111.1 (3rd of 30) ▪ Def Rtg: 106.3 (18th of 30) They have been better in the playoffs largely because weak links like Irving and Love haven't played as much. That chart does underscore how bad the East have been. Either they're a conference full of defensive monsters or they just kind of suck, as even the teams that didn't play Cleveland were lackluster on offense. I'm guessing the latter.
Cavaliers winning a championship would be the worst thing that could happen. Warriors are a true team, everybody contributes, whereas Cavs are not really a team imo.
Did you actually watch the games? Sure, Lebron is the best player in the league, but the other guys are stepping up big time. Lebron is actually shooting terribly in these playoffs (18% from 3 PT, 43% FG), and the role players like Dellavedova and Tristan Thompson are killing it.
The pelton article is nice but the fact that you get to play 2 out of 3 series against what are basically lottery teams makes it very hard to get that impressed by the Cavaliers run. I don't think even adjusting for their injuries via RAPM illustrates how punchless the Hawks were (especially after they lost HCA by about the 3rd period of game 1) - if they had to go 82 games with the lineup they rolled out in game 4 they'd be a 35-40 win team even in the east EDIT: Another issue here is that the Rockets RAPM is a bit misleading - they were a much tougher team in the playoffs than in the regular season largely because they had a healthy Dwight Howard which they rarely had during hte regular season. RAPM puts them about the same level of the Bulls due to the Rockets not getting a ton of blowouts but it's laughable to argue that the Rockets at the end of the season weren't significantly better than a mid-tier eastern conference team.
Can't wait to see what you come up with to downplay the Cavs' success when they beat GS and win the titles. Here are a few to get you started: 1. Klay and Steph were still dizzy from the fall and Ariza's knee. 2. The refs. 3. GS weren't a "real" 67-win team and had an easy road to the finals which was helped by the refs. 4. The NBA decided it was Cleveland's time. and my personal favorite: 5. LeBron is the head coach, bla bla bla, he carried them all by himself bla bla bla even though he shot like 30% from the field bla bla bla all of their other players suck lol dellavewho?
Yeah, I can't wait for that to happen, except you have me confused with somebody else. I've pretty much been a charter member of the "Stop ignorantly bashing LeBron he is one of the greatest players of all time, IF HE RETIRED TODAY" club since the first time he was with Cleveland. That remains true, and if he can somehow drag this squad of rejects to a title over what is a juggernaut Golden State team - then this may be his most tremendous accomplishment even though he isn't quite at the same level of otherworldly birlliance as in years past. That doesn't really change the fact that the Cavs playoff run this far has been overall lackluster, not seen since the Nets were triumphantly taking home eastern conference crowns, due to the huge imbalance between conferences, with the East's only other legit team in Atlanta becoming a mockery of its former self before the playoffs even started and getting worse from there. Yep, they've beaten up on the weak teams - like they are supposed to - but they're still weak sauce teams. I can't wait for you to come back and apologize for your ignorance here today.
Um, I'm pretty sure you are preparing excuse #5... You are still adamant in downplaying the Cavs success while it's becoming even more obvious that you haven't really watched their playoff run. The Cavs have not had an easier route than the Warriors, they just made it look easier. No one was calling the Bulls and Atlanta "weak teams" before the Cavs made them look so bad. Certainly the Hawks were more of a contender than the Rockets, and the Bulls are superior to Memphis sans Tony Allen and Conley. Boston had the second best record in the NBA after the AS break. And to say that it was LeBron who carried a bunch of rejects just reeks of ignorance. In many games it was the "rejects" carrying LeBron.
The Celtics were 40-42. The Hawks with essentially a 0 RAPM by the time they played Cleveland are on the level of most lottery teams. Certainly in the west they would be. I said in my first post that I hadn't really watched it - I'm not sure how much more obvious I can get than that. I don't need to have watched it to know that it really doesn't compare due to Eastern conference's overall weakness, which has been as apparent this year as ever. , THe Hawks were more of a contender than the Rockets in February. Not so by May when Cleveland played them when they were struggling to get past the Bucks. THE BUCKS...prior to losing 3 more players to injury. Except that Conley and Allen boht played 5/6 games and further the "Tony Allen game" (the one game in the seires where he plays really well) already happend by the time he got injured.
I have to assume that the results of the poll are heavily influenced by bitterness and wishful thinking. These seem to me to be the most lopsided finals in a decade or more and I'll be shocked if GS needs more than 5 games. But maybe I just don't have a clue. We'll see.
