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2015-2016 NBA playoff edition: Finals - Cavs vs Warriors - Cavs win 4-3

Who's you going with Cavs or Warriors!!!

  • Total voters
    83
  • Poll closed .
My Take on Game 3:

Looking at Games 1-2, even though there was never a sense of Cleveland actually winning those games, they really were done in by specific runs. Game 2 for instance was an 8 point game 4 minutes into the 3rd quarter.

I fully expect the Cavs to come out with more energy and feed of the home fans, and I think LeBron specifically will have a HUGE game. After the way Green played against him and dealing with the backlash of a 33 piece, he will be on a mission.

I also see Curry having a better game, because the Cavs will have to adjust their game plan. The old adage of stopping the star and letting the other players beat you doesn't work with GS, and their is really no one on the Cavs who can contain him for a whole game one on one, so I see at least a 25 point game from him.

Ultimately, the games comes down to Kyrie giving the Cavs CONSISTENT production. Doesn't have to have a monster game but cannot go on extended periods of no production, and Love if he plays, has to be a bigger threat offensively, so the Cavs can ride the wave of a huge game by LeBron.

I see a closer game, and if the Cavs can stick around into the 4th quarter, I believe LeBron will be more focused and the Cavs win. A lot of IFs, but I think pride will have the Cavs good for one game at home at least... and this is the game IMO...
 
Really though, Curry is doing it right and deferring to his teammates, and they are coming up big. Cavs know if they play 1 on 1 the beige bros are going to toast them from behind the arc.

The fact that Steph is not going black mamba and passing the ball instead of scoring says a lot. Also, LeBronze going all out in attack mode will be even worse for the cavs. It will keep the other guys out of the flow, and once Bronze starts to cramp up, they will fail.
 
LordSinister said:
Really though, Curry is doing it right and deferring to his teammates, and they are coming up big. Cavs know if they play 1 on 1 the beige bros are going to toast them from behind the arc.

The fact that Steph is not going black mamba and passing the ball instead of scoring says a lot. Also, LeBronze going all out in attack mode will be even worse for the cavs. It will keep the other guys out of the flow, and once Bronze starts to cramp up, they will fail.
Click to expand...
MVP is not TOTALLY about stats but about being a TEAM player. That mentality is what makes a teammate better. Instilling confidence in them by being willing to defer as the flow of games dictates and doing it in a way that you actually help facilitate their increased production... That above all else is why he is... The unanimous MVP! This season, Curry >>>> than the field in every relevant way :yes:
 
IT IS WHAT IT IS said:
MVP is not TOTALLY about stats but about being a TEAM player. That mentality is what makes a teammate better. Instilling confidence in them by being willing to defer as the flow of games dictates and doing it in a way that you actually help facilitate their increased production... That above all else is why he is... The unanimous MVP! This season, Curry >>>> than the field in every relevant way :yes:
Click to expand...

Is the Kool-aid too sweet or just right? :hmm:

Steph's being a team player by passing, his teammates are carrying him and they're winning so he's the "Unanimous MVP".

Lebron's being a team player averaging damn near a triple double but his teamma losing.

He's been told he needs better leadership skills and needs to bring out his "Inner MJ".

Winning makes everything better
 
Picasso said:
Is the Kool-aid too sweet or just right? :hmm:

Steph's being a team player by passing, his teammates are carrying him and they're winning so he's the "Unanimous MVP".

Lebron's being a team player averaging damn near a triple double but his teamma losing.

He's been told he needs better leadership skills and needs to bring out his "Inner MJ".

Winning makes everything better
Click to expand...
Hes the MVP because hes smart enough to understand them team concept and is a winner because of it. Hes not standing around but is still a threat ro keep the defense honest and free up his teammates. Carrying him? #insertchuckle.gif# :lol:

And all those pretty numbers arw hollow as fuck and translates into a historically embarrassing first two games of any finals and are deceptive. Especially when u look beyond the numbers and eee just how ineffective LeBron has been, like doing 90 peecent of his work in the first half of game 2 and disappearing in the second half when GS ran away from them, getting outplayed head to head by the warriors 3rd best offensive player and doing absolutely NOTHING while being locked up while Iggy is on him.... Miss me with that triple double bullshit... Means nothing...

So...

Yes, Yes and Yes... And Yes
 
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BeatDownRecords said:
Fam I called that ninja out a couple years back when he said a bgol quote
Click to expand...

that man aint slick I swear this is NOT the first time either...

I don't watch the show like that so I can't confirm

but I used to listen to their podcast religiously and I would HEAR direct QUOTES from bgol members.

btw:

Hey Mike Smith tell my baby Jemelle she looking thick as hell in those skirts...I'mma eat all the groceries when I get back.
 
Last edited:
playahaitian said:
that man aint slick I swear this is NOT the first time either...

I don;t watch the show like that so I can;t confirm

but I used to listen to their podcast religiously and I would HEAR direct QUOTES from bgol members.

btw:

Hey Mike Smith tell my baby Jemelle she looking thick as hell in those skirts...I'mma eat all the groceries when I get back.
Click to expand...
Werd! LMAO
 
Bad News, Cavs Fans: The Warriors Don’t Care How Good Your Team Is


With a 2-0 series lead in the NBA Finals heading to Cleveland, the FiveThirtyEight NBA Elo model gives the Golden State Warriors an 89 percent chance of repeating as champions, which — admit it — feels low. I’m personally on record as being more bullish about the Warriors’ chances than the models, mostly because the playoffs are typically super-deterministic, and the Warriors — as defending champs and the winningest team in history — seem super-determined.

Moreover, they’re now 4-0 against the Cavaliers this season, winning by an average of 22 points per contest. Kevin Love will reportedly be out in Game 3 — though he was also out the last time Cavs put up much resistance against the champs, in last year’s finals. To take this series, the Warriors need only win two of their five remaining games — a feat they have accomplished in every five-game stretch they’ve played this season (they have only lost three of five once, against the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals).

But there’s one other thing about the Warriors that has flown under the radar and may also speak well of their chances: their complete lack of regard for their opponent.

Simply put, the Warriors haven’t been losing much more against stronger teams than against weaker ones. In the regular season, there was literally zero relationship between the strength of the Warriors’ opponents and how well they performed. Against teams that won 50 games or more, they went 14-1. Of their eight losses suffered with Stephen Curry playing, four came against teams with losing records — including a schlubbing at the hands of the 17-win Lakers. Their “trend” actually has a slightly downward slope at either location:

morris-cavaliers-1-2.png

Now, it’s a crazy result, but does it make any sense?1

To some extent, I think so. As we know, Stephen Curry is virtually immune to defense.2 He also gives the Warriors the ability to speed up when behind (transition buckets) or slow down when ahead (run offense then drop bombs under pressure), which may help normalize margins. And of course he sat quite a lot in blowouts, keeping the Warriors’ margins in check on either side. Or it’s possible that the Warriors really are winning machines and generally only lose when they are unfocused or out of sorts. All of which would be bad news for the Cavs, as it would suggest that the strength reflected in the models may not reflect the Warriors’ true strength.

Here’s the good news for the Cavs: Three of the five remaining games are in Cleveland, and the Warriors have been significantly weaker on the road than at home. Their average margin was 7.4 points lower on the road (relative to expectation based on SRSdifference) than at home –- good for the league’s sixth-largest such differential. That’s pretty remarkable for a team whose road win percentage was higher than the vaunted Spurs’ overall win percentage (the Road Warriors were the equivalent of a 68-win team).

But better news for the Cavs is that the Warriors haven’t really kept this phenomenon going in the playoffs. There, they’ve looked mortal and lost to stronger teams more often than they have to weaker ones:

morris-cavaliers-21.png

Of course, with such small samples, already shaky trends are even less meaningful. The two huge losses on the road against Oklahoma City are enough to drag down the Warriors’ playoff road results. The Warriors have lost four of seven road games in these playoffs, with two of those losses coming with Curry out of the line-up. Further, it’s not really clear whether Curry was back to 100 percent during the Warriors’ worst stretch of the season against the Thunder — or if he is now.

For comparison, let’s take a look at Cleveland:

morris-cavaliers-31.png

The Cavs — who made the second-most 3-pointers during the regular season — also had a weakish relationship between opponent strength and performance. However, they were certainly closer to standard than Golden State was, particularly at home (including a34-point loss to the Warriors in January). But they have yet to lose at home in these playoffs.

Now, this may seem like a trivial thing, but it matters immensely for these teams’ prospects. The Cavaliers need their strength to matter, or they’re toast. The Warriors need to win two of five, with three on the road. With their regular season home/away splits — that is, against an average regular season opponent — their chances of doing this would be somewhere along the lines of 99.7 percent, around a 1-in-300 proposition for the Cavs. The model, on the other hand — which gives the Cavaliers’ strength full credit — assigns the Cavaliers a relatively high 11 percent chance of winning four of five. Either way, the Cavs’ chances don’t look great, but that’s a 30-fold difference.
 
Steph Curry and the curiously wide-open race for Finals MVP

http://www.espn.co.uk/video/clip?id=16048846
CLEVELAND -- From the ultimate "Good Problem To Have" collection comes this gem from ESPN Stats & Information researcher Micah Adams:

Stephen Curry is halfway to an unwanted feat -- for the second time. It's a feat that was only accomplished once in league history before it happened to ‎Steph last season.

Allow us to explain.

Since the NBA introduced its Finals MVP award in 1969, 17 reigning league MVPs went on to win that same season's championship, according to Stats & Info:

Los Angeles Lakers’ Magic Johnson won the Finals MVP instead of league MVP Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1980.

The second was when Andre Iguodala beat out Curry in 2015.

As a result, one of the more interesting story arcs in the 2016 Finals, which resume with Wednesday night's Game 3 in Cleveland (9 ET, ABC), is the state of Steph, given that Curry averaged such a paltry (for him) 14.5 points per game in the Golden State Warriors’ first two victories over the Cavaliers.

Which means he's not exactly in pole position for Finals MVP in 2016, either.

Of course, there's still a long way to go in the series, and a strong argument could be made that it's ridiculously early to even be talking about candidates for Finals MVP, even though Golden State is off to the most lopsided start in Finals history, seizing a commanding 2-0 series lead by the whopping combined total of 48 points.

‎Yet how strange would it be if Team 73-9 mustered the two wins it needed to become a back-to-back NBA champion without Curry emerging as the difference-maker?

"I don't know how to answer that one," Curry said at the podium after Game 2 when presented ‎with this very conundrum. "You can fall in love with numbers and comparing averages to what people might expect or whatnot. Right now we're up two games to [none] and everybody's doing what we need to do to make that happen.

"So, looking forward to trying to get Game 3. That's it. That's all I'm worried about."

Fair enough.

Curry has certainly earned the right to ignore all but the next game, having averaged 26.7 points per game in 11 playoff outings coming into the Finals, while also having been robbed of six full games by knee and ankle injuries.

The basketball truth is that the relentless defensive attention Cleveland has paid to trapping and shadowing Curry keeps creating mammoth opportunities for his teammates, most notably Shaun Livingston (20 points in Game 1) and Draymond Green (28 points in Game 2).

"They're really collapsing on Steph and Klay [Thompson]," Green says.

Rest assured, Curry's mere presence has an effect even when he doesn't go into "Human Torch mode," as his fellow Splash Brother, Mr. Thompson, likes to say.

Still ...

The onus is on Curry to be Curry now that the series has shifted to hostile territory for Golden State. Steph has a chance to usher his team to the brink of the best two-season run this league has ever season by winning just one of the next two games in Cleveland, which countless observers now expect will happen.

The suspicion being whispered among Warriors coaches and players is that Steph, sensing the kill, will be much sharper at The Q than he was in the Warriors' two strolls at home.

Especially if he stays out of foul trouble.

"He picked up silly fouls," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Tuesday. "He was his own worst enemy in Game 2 and we were fortunate to play well without him and win the game. But he can't reach ... he had three just crazy reaches and slap-downs on guys' arms and wrists. He's got to be more disciplined than that. We need him on the floor.‎"

Something tells me Curry would learn to live with anyone in blue and gold snagging the Finals MVP if it meant another championship to tack onto Golden State's 2015 breakthrough crown, his two Maurice Podoloff trophies and the record-setting 73 wins.

The enthusiasm he showed on the bench in Sunday night's third quarter for his co-workers, while he was saddled with those four fouls, should have made that clear.

Yet, there's also no denying that it would be uncomfortable if No. 30 went 0-for-2 in the race for what is nowadays known as the Bill Russell Award.

Not quite as uncomfortable as LeBron Jamesfalling to 2-for-5 in the Finals.

But it's still something you'd be hearing about plenty, amid all the inevitable shouting down of King James.
 

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