The Official NBA Finals Thread: Game 7 - Cleveland Cavaliers are your 2016 NBA Champions

[shoeking2102]

That's kind of the issue that you run into with trying to beat the Warriors.

You need a team full of guys that can create and knock down shots at a ballistic rate on one end, then have those same guys be able to have enough length, athleticism and size to switch and defend at an elite level.

With the Cap the way it is in the NBA, teams just aren't financially capable of putting together this type of team. It's just not financially feasible to put together a team full of 6'8, 6'9 guys that can shoot, create, and defend, at an all world level.

Hell the warriors wouldn't be able to put together a team like that w/o steph's bargain. It is what it is.

 

[finallyfamous]

Unload the clip bro

Its ready.

 

[shoeking2102]

 
Is Morrow that trash On D?

They really needed his shooting in Game 6-7

Yes he really is tbh

 

[Mamba4life]

Cavs in 6. Channing Frye signing will prove to be invaluable. Spread the floor. 3 ball threat from all 5 positions. Lebby/Kyrie killing the paint. The slander stops this year.

 

[comptonprince]

Kawhi

PG13

Bron

DeAndre

Iggy

Draymond

Tony A

Batum

Bradley

Oladipo

 

[jsindaa]

Offensive team or offensive player?

Team. Are you serious? You don't reach THIS level with a single player.

 

[MVP]

Somebody really said the Cavs defense is better than OKC? Yikes.

 

[shoeking2102]

 
Kawhi

PG13

Bron

DeAndre

Iggy

Draymond

Tony A

Batum

Bradley

Oladipo

Kawhi

Avery Bradly

Deandre from the center position

But that's literally it. 

 

[pmatic]

Is Morrow that trash On D?

They really needed his shooting in Game 6-7

There's a reason he's bounced from team to team, and not be able to get consistent minutes even though he's a great shooter.

 

[friscostylez]

Cavs in 6. Channing Frye signing will prove to be invaluable. Spread the floor. 3 ball threat from all 5 positions. Lebby/Kyrie killing the paint. The slander stops this year.

Frye will be useless if dray or barnes guards him.

 

[squatchnt]

I dont think anybody wants to replicate the OKC choke I'm picking Gs in 7 but hope the Cavvies win ....

if cavs replicate their defense which i doubt they will, they will be put into REALLY good position to win it, but they have no ibaka or roberson to guard perimeter, but they do have TT who is just as agressive as adams on the boards

OKC goofed it no one wants to replicate that performance bruh...

 

[deekaleci]

 
Kawhi

PG13

Bron

DeAndre

Iggy

Draymond

Tony A

Batum

Bradley

Oladipo

 

[Mamba4life]

Frye will be useless if dray or barnes guards him.

We shall see. You have to guard him on the perimeter. It takes a big away from the paint if he's playing the 5. That alone makes him useful....

 

[pmatic]

I wonder if Lue will ditch the defense and just go Frye, Bron, J.R., Delly and Kyrie to fight firepower with firepower.

 

[comptonprince]

 
Kawhi

Avery Bradly

Deandre from the center position

But that's literally it. 

So Roberson is a better Defender than PG13 and Tony Allen?

 

[rafabio]

Look! Over Here! Cleveland in the NBA Finals!

View media item 2051031

Oh right, them.

The other guys. The Cleveland Cavaliers.

How did we reach the point in the 2015-16 NBA season that the Finals return of the Cleveland Cavaliers, again four wins removed from delivering the city’s first championship in 52 long, barren years—which would be, without a doubt, a thrilling, gravity-altering, pigs-flying Page One cultural event, not just for northeast Ohio, but around the country—is somehow the bland, blah, less-exciting story line of these basketball playoffs?

Everyone does realize that Cleveland winning a title would be nut-bonkers, right? There is also this:

1. If Cleveland wins a championship, we’re all supposed to get two days off, plus $150 in spending money, no matter where you live in the U.S.


View media item 2051032Cleveland’s Earnest Byner showed his disappointment after fumbling in the closing minutes of the AFC Championship game against Denver on Jan. 17, 1988. Photo: Associated Press


2. If you live in the Cleveland area, or are a long-suffering Cleveland sports fan—you’ll need some emotional receipts, like you crawl under a coffee table when anyone ever brings up The Fumble in the 1987-88 AFC Championship game versus the Broncos—you get the month off, plus a frozen margarita machine, and a rescue dog of your choice.

And yet, since these playoffs began, Cleveland’s run to the Finals has been relegated to the B story line. The A story line, are those record breaking Golden State Warriors, triumphant monday night in a sizzling, seven-game Western Conference semifinal over Oklahoma City. The Warriors are as much of a pop culture phenomenon as they are a sports team; they’ve captured the imagination of people who’d rather count the hair on a goat than watch a basketball game. That Golden State/OKC series had amazing, seesaw drama. Golden State/OKC had glamour. You’ll be talking about Golden State/OKC five decades from now, sitting in your lakefront condo on Mars, drinking life-extension grass juice, complaining about the life-extension grass juice prices at the Mars gourmet market.


The Cavs, meanwhile, played their Eastern Conference final against the Toronto Raptors. Just reading that sentence made you take a 10-minute nap. Fine, I know, I know: this was a major moment for Canada’s basketball franchise, and they gave the Cavs a scare when they knotted the series at two games to two. Yay! But come on. You and I both know you’re not ordering the commemorative DVD of the Cavaliers-Raptors series. It just ended on Friday and you can barely remember how many games it took the Cavs to win it. Well, they won it in five. I mean, six. Sorry. You see what I mean.

None of this is intended to minimize Cleveland’s accomplishment. It isn’t easy to make it back to the NBA Finals, not even in the Eastern Conference, where half of the basketball teams appear staffed by players who learned basketball online three weeks ago. You still have to win. You still have to get there. Once more, it’s Cleveland at the Eastern summit.

The catalyst of this Cavs ascension is, of course, Akron’s own LeBron James, now 31 and in his 13th professional season. This is James’s second go-around after breaking through with his home state franchise in 2003 as a straight-from-high-school rookie. In between was a four-year run to the Finals with Miami, and a pair of championships. Oh right: there was also a bit of a tempest about James leaving Cleveland for Florida. Jerseys burned, his name prohibited from public discussion statewide, a poison pen letter from the owner, etc., whatever! It’s all forgiven, now that James has returned home, with a single, poetic, crowd-and-media pleasing intention: bringing a sports title to a city denied for a half-century.

If only it were so easy. Last year James managed to get Cleveland to the Finals, doing so with an injured and depleted team, and there was a moment in which he appeared to be personally willing the Cavs to the championship. It looked like someone lifting up an 18-wheeler by himself. The problem was that Cleveland was facing Golden State, which after a wobbly beginning recovered to win in six games.

These Cavs remain a funky bunch, inorganically built, hard to read, occasionally maddening. James has a pair of star associates who were out injured during last year’s Finals—point guard Kyrie Irving and forward Kevin Love—but they have a hard time locating the on-court telepathy that makes a trio of gifted players a genuine Big Three. Love is habitually singled out for appearing lost. Irving has a casual to diffident interest in defense. And yet the three can be so sublime offensively that when the Cavs really get it going—and you throw in the 3-point chuck artist J.R. Smith—Cleveland can seem even more formidable than James’s peak Heat outfit. And then there are moments in which they look like they could lose to The Wall Street Journal Sports department’s intramural team.


View media item 2051033LeBron James and Kevin Love celebrate during the Eastern Conference Finals. Photo: Mark Blinch/Getty Images


(OK fine, the Cavs would never lose to The Wall Street Journal Sports department’s intramural team. Not even if my skyhook was cooking.)

Cleveland jettisoned its coach midway through the year, replacing David Blatt, 30-11 at the time, with assistant Tyronn Lue, who went 27-14, but seems to have found a better equilibrium with his team. Before dropping those two road games to the Raptors, Cleveland started these playoffs 10-0. When they’re rolling they appear loose, gelling, and supportive of each other. This isn’t complicated: Winning makes the love flow.

In the end, Cleveland’s fate will invariably come down to James, as it’s meant to be. This will be James’s sixth straight Finals appearance, and seventh overall. I know there are only two rings at this point, but to find a comparable run of consecutive Finals appearances, you have to go back to Bill Russell’s Celtics, and any time you have to go back to Russell’s Celtics, you are amid greatness. I’m an unabashed James fan. I think he’s among the best ever, consistently a handful at both ends of the court, and unselfish with the ball. I also think he has been poked and prodded unlike any American athlete of the past decade and a half—psychoanalyzed from afar, scrutinized as much for his body language and tough-love commentary on his teammates as for his game on the floor. He is in an odd place: not close to his sunset, but no longer considered the league’s unquestioned monarch, and it’s obvious he’s struggling with the surrender of the throne. He needn’t worry. James has done virtually everything. All that’s left is this, a championship in Cleveland.

With all due respect to those remarkable Warriors, that’s not a B story line. That would be everything.

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com

 

[comptonprince]

 

Not 1 NBA team would pick Roberson as a defender over any of them cats

 

[yung16]

I think this is going all 7 games. Although Curry has found his swag. I will call it warriors win 4-3.

 

[everysingletime]

Frye will be useless if dray or barnes guards him.

We shall see. You have to guard him on the perimeter. It takes a big away from the paint if he's playing the 5. That alone makes him useful....

I'll live with the Cavs living in the paint as long as Dubs not giving up and1s

If all Cavs are scoring are 2s they won't be able to keep up..

 

[deekaleci]

OKC goofed it no one wants to replicate that performance bruh...

performance no, but defense yeah, they switched on most screens very well but curry and thompson make contested shots, when warriors went on their scoring runs, thunder couldnt punch back but that could be a diff story with cle

 

[dmxfury]

I was joking but cleveland has all my support this series

Ah I thought you were a Clevelandite

Cavs in 5. Ohio finally gets rid of the championship drought.

Ohio doesn't have a drought




Cavs winning would be huge for Cleveland but it's the Browns super bowl which would have the city in flames

 

[(*Fin)]

Warriors in 5. WCF already determined the NBA Champion, this series gonna be like those world exhibition tours the NBA champions do after winning the finals to promote the game.

 

[deekaleci]

 
Not 1 NBA team would pick Roberson as a defender over any of them cats

i believe many would..

 

[shoeking2102]

 
So Roberson is a better Defender than PG13 and Tony Allen?

Uhhh...yeah?

.

Did you watch TA this season defensively? He was good but not great.

It was the same case for PG13 as well.

 

[Hank Scorpio]

The whole "History only remembers the good" rhetoric will not apply to LeBron. He's too disliked.

I agree. If LeBron continues to lose in the grand stage, his career and legacy will be question and many will excoriate him for his shortcomings.

Lowkey..idk bout yall...but i am still in awe at this series/tonight.

I predicted/knew it would happen...but still...im still blown away at thr actual execution.

Nba is the goat league and nba basketball is the best sport in the world. Anything can happen even down to the last second. Unbelievable.

I knew these boys would take it in 7 after game 6. The way OKC had that meltdown and GSW took the souls and hearts of the Thunder and proceeded to have it for dinner was the nail in the coffin. There's no way you can come back from a collapse like that and win a game 7 on the road if you're OKC. The odds were ironically stacked against them at that point.

gsw has found the cheat code for the NBA.

Cavs need to dictate the flow of the game to have a chance, something akin to the Jordan rules. I don't mean focusing on one guy, but playing tough and delivering draymond-level cheap shots back. put the onus on the league/refs to call it even or expose their bias. JR Swish needs to catch fire AND showboat after every shot 10x what curry does, in Oakland, to get in the fans' heads.

at least that's what I'd love to see.

instead it's likely to end up a glorified version of the 3-point contest. maybe Kerr can play too.

Can Cleveland sign Hodges?

The issue with this is, the cavs cannot afford to play physical and slow the game down. They're a very different team from earlier this year. A lot of what they do is running up the court and looking for the open man beyond the arc. They're trying to play like the Warriors, but with obvious size advantages.

Can we get a breakdown of match ups? Strengths, weaknesses etc? Really looking forward to this series.

I'd LOVE to see this, but we all know this isn't the sexiest of posts

OP should've at least done this for the first post

I say Warriors in 6, 5 if CLE decides to continue to be that Aggressive shooting threes. if those aren't hitting GS is gonna kill them in transition and I Don't trust anyone on that team staying confident once those inevitable Warriors runs happen (outside of Kyrie).

The cavs best lineup during this playoffs has included THREE average at best defenders & guys who are terrible off ball defenders. You are now going to throw that in against GS who is elite as they come as far as screening for players and getting them open.

Also unlike WB, steph can guard Kyrie for large chunks of the game w/o expending all his energy because kyrie isn't a freakish athlete nor is he gonna over power curry in the paint. They also have Barnes, Klay, Iggy, Draymond & Livingston who can all share the task of guarding Bron and atleast making him work to get buckets.

I think people are really underestimating, a few things about the warriors this year compared to last.

1) They are coming off a season where they took the record, down 3-1 to a team that has two of the best players in the L and came back to win several close games to get to the finals. They have been tested a million times over compared to last season. That confidence and trust is going to come up HUGE in this series

2) Last year the thing the Cavs did to slow down the W's was play physical ball & minimize possesions. They are literally the exact opposite of that team right now. Mogsov was great for them in that series & i don't even think he sees the floor anymore, Thompson is getting his minutes cut in favor of a 7 foot spot up shooter. & Delly is clearly not gonna see the floor as much due to Kyrie being back. I don't see a rookie coach being able to just flip the switch and bring CLE out of this run & gun mentality.

3) CLE has yet to play one opponent who is even remotely similar to GS in regards of how they can attack. This team has not been introduced into any pressure & unlike the Heat days.. Bron and Bron only is gonna have to be the one to rally the troops and based off his career so far when he isn't getting things easy his game becomes less and less aggressive. LBJ who attacked them all game last year did that out of necessity. we've seen this guyin the Finals before and truthfully speaking the few times we have seen him really be completely aggressive were points where he had no other choice... CLE can't afford to be in a hole when Lebron finally decides to attack non stop and history shows us that will most likely be the case.

The difference between the Cavs and Warriors shooting 3's: Cavs could go a few games where the 3 wont go down for them and the offense stalls. The warriors won't go on long droughts. They have too many player who can shoot.

Draymond Green makes a difference this series against Love or Frye.

Hmm..GS offense is mostly based off the 3 ball..which is rightfully so considering they got the 3pt champ and the MVP. Clevelands D is alot more solid than OKCs was. If the 3 aint fallin for GS ..watch out..they might be in trouble(at least during that time). One thing i noticed in the last round..those games Curry wasn't all the way on point..Klay WAS basically the offense..and they lost. Curry always bounces back thou.. Im interested what will happen if Cleveland catches fire from deep..basically JR, Kyrie, Love, and Frye. GSs firepower vs. Clevelands D should make it interesting. Im just watching cuz i love hoops..my team couldn't close out GS..but at least made them sweat heavily for the first time in forever..and exposed their weakness..if any. Neutral in 6

In terms of what? OKC probably had the best defensive team this entire playoffs, purely based off of size mismatchs, and speed & athleticism from their roster. They're able to switch on EVERYTHING. Clev cannot do this. You have Thompson on Green, Curry or Klay and it's over.

Best believe GS is going to run that high screen on whoever is guarding Green.

He's going to have to be. If not this is going to be short series.

Love is most def the x-factor for the Cavs. His defense will be tested this series. Sure, he'll hold them down on the offensive end, but we'll get a repeat of what people were saying about Love after he went down before the Finals. Clev does a good job masking Love's defensive inefficiencies, but it'll be exposed this time around.

That's kind of the issue that you run into with trying to beat the Warriors.

You need a team full of guys that can create and knock down shots at a ballistic rate on one end, then have those same guys be able to have enough length, athleticism and size to switch and defend at an elite level.

OKC is the ONLY team in the league that could do this. To push the Warriors around, you need to be able to switch on everything and bother the shooters with size. The Cavs cannot do this when Thompson, Mozgov, and Frye are on the court.