I'll take the Cavs in 7. LeBron has his stars healthy and can beat the Warriors unless Draymond suplexes a Cavs player into an injury.
No... how did you come to that conclusion based on what I said? Last year, they were able to win two games by playing really tight defense and slowing the game down. Once the Warriors adjusted, they dominated the Cavs. This year, they won't be able to turn it up defensively with two guys that play sub-par defense at best. Offensively, they're better than they were last year, but they still won't be able to outgun the Warriors.
Not really. This year's Rockets would've lost to the Pistons and Hawks easily. Ironically we might've beaten the Raptors, but we never would've made it that far to find out.
If Warriors win the first 2 games, it's over. Cavs have to steal one early & then I say they have a chance. It's a toss up.
Your follow up to the theory that Cleveland will be worse and adding they'd get 'slaughtered' on offense seemed to imply that. Anyways Cleveland basically ran one offensive play for five games with Delly ending up as the second best offensive player. I think it will be a significant difference. Defensively I think they are well aware of the Warriors' offensive prowess. I doubt they'll gameplan for detrimental trade offs.
I've got the Warriors in six. The Cavaliers can go small and shoot the ball in a super offense lineup...but they can't defend for **** with that lineup. The Thunder were able to get a lot of offense while defending. The Warriors' most used lineups are also mostly full of two-way players.
This is good, because one story will be put to rest, did gsw deserve it or was it because the cavs were unhealthy?
i think it will be an easy series for the warriors That being said, I have no interest in watching this series, can't stand either team
while i greatly want cleveland to win, can you explain your confidence in them? i don't get others confidence in this warriors team losing to anybody and this cleveland team isn't even a good matchup the way the thunder were. i just don't see how love is going to have absolutely anybody to guard whenever he is on the court. and kyrie is basically going to be the same way. him trying to guard curry or thompson is just going to be a nightmare. tristan thompson is basically the only big who can switch and have a hope of guarding the 3's. i just don't see where cleveland is going to get stops. even someone who hustles like jr has shown to be prone to fouling 3 point shooters coming off picks and will probably do that several times in the series. cleveland hasn't even shown great defense in their other series and now they're stepping up to the big leagues. and gsw has all sorts of people to guard lebron and big guys at the rim to challenge him and kyrie. and i don't think anybody thinks love is going to be beasting draymond in the post or making big plays. frankly i think gs has to have an off game for cleveland to even get 1 in this series.
Yeah, but they played defense with Dellavedova and Tristan Thompson/Timofey Mosgov. Did the Cavs get different results this year when they played the Warriors with Irving and Love? As I recall, they lost both games and got blown out by 30 at home. Irving and Love are certainly bigger names, but they give a lot of value back on the defensive end. Love looked like he had never played basketball before in that home loss, when the Warriors put him into endless pick-and-rolls. I think the Cavs are about as good as they were last year and the Warriors are better.
the dirty secret of taking gsw to 6 without love and irving is that i'm not sure love and irving would have meant that much. the cavs simply played harder and played defense much harder than the warriors in games 1, 2, and 3. rarely has the phrase "one team wanted it more" been as real as it was in those 3 games. the warriors got straight up outworked. then gsw tried equally hard and won easily. and love and irving would have never brought that attitude. now, the cavs offense ultimately undid them because they only had lebron but i'm not sure love and irving's offense can match up with just how hard and desperately cleveland was playing defense in that series. combine that with the fact that curry is on another level from his "getting shut down by matthew dellavedova" overall game last year and lebron probably can't match what he did last year and i think last year is fool's gold as it relates to this year.
rooting for the warriors, will always root against whatever team JR Smith is on. Not a Lebron fan either.
I have not seen anything from the Cavs that makes me think they're going to win against the Warriors. I mean, OKC just gave it there all in that series and Warriors never faded.
