Vote now only if your mind is made up.
Poll open through Game 7 (if necessary).
LeBron should join The Logo, become second losing Finals MVP
Bill Reiter
FOX Sports
JUN 15, 2015
Make no mistake: Come what may the rest of the way in this wild and frantic NBA Finals, LeBron James should be named the series' Most Valuable Player.
Yes, the Cleveland Cavaliers seem almost certain to lose, in Game 6 or Game 7, to a Warriors team that in Game 5 found its swagger and the version of its regular-season MVP that make Golden State so dangerous.
In taking a 3-2 series lead Sunday night behind Steph Curry's 37 points and growing confidence, the Warriors asserted the obvious with their 104-91 win: They are this league's best team.
LeBron, the futility notwithstanding, carved out with his 40 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists his own resounding message: His is a level of greatness like few we have ever seen.
Which he wanted you to know Sunday, just in case you missed it: "I feel confident because I'm the best player in the world. It's that simple."
He's right. So, when and if the Warriors finish off the Cavaliers, let them hoist that Larry O'Brien Trophy. They'll have earned it. Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Curry -- on and on the list goes, a deep and formidable roster crafting before us an impressive regular season (67 wins) and championship run (beating LeBron even as he puts on one of the greatest postseason performances in NBA history).
But let the media who vote (if I happen to get a vote, I'll follow the plea of this column) give LeBron what he deserves: The Finals MVP, his team losing be damned.
There is historical precedent for this. Jerry West, a man who now works, interestingly enough, for the Golden State Warriors, is the only person in the game's history to have been named the Finals MVP after his team -- the Los Angeles Lakers -- failed to win the series. That was in 1969, against the Boston Celtics.
The Logo set the precedent. No reason the Chosen One shouldn't keep it going, all these years later.
He's averaging 36.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists. He has lost Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao to injury. He is alone, with players who cannot be counted on, and he has single-handedly kept his team in a series it has no business competing in.
Alone, he has controlled the pace of play, hit huge shots and somehow by himself battled a Warriors team that deserves a large measure of respect and awe. They -- like LeBron -- are a joy to watch play.
The Warriors will be the 2015 champions. But LeBron James should still be the Finals MVP.
Stephen Curry finally has his MVP moment in these NBA Finals
Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY Sports
June 15, 2015
It is always just a matter of time before Stephen Curry gets into a zone.
Yet the time, place and circumstance on Sunday night — with the Golden State Warriors engaged in another tooth-and-nail battle against the Cleveland Cavaliers — made this a necessity.
LeBron James was going off, as usual, carrying the Cavs on his back with a 40-point, 14-rebound, 11-assist triple-double, leaving the thousands packed inside Oracle Arena to seemingly hold their breath for much of the fourth quarter.
Curry, more than anyone, needed to answer King James.
Done.
The Warriors are headed back to Cleveland with a chance to claim the franchise's first NBA title in 40 years on Tuesday night, thanks to the sizzling heroics in crunch time from their MVP point guard.
Curry caught fire by scoring 17 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter, and he ignited the explosion that broke open the game.
I mean, it was a one-point game with five minutes left.
A little more than two minutes later, it was a 10-point game with Curry bringing down the house with a pull-up three-pointer.
That's what an MVP is supposed to do: Smell blood, then strike with the dagger.
"I thought he was great," complimented James, who scored 16 in the fourth. "You tip your hat off to a guy like that. He made seven threes. I don't know, were any of them not contested, hand-in-face, falling, step-back off the dribble?"
Probably not.
For my money, James is still the MVP of these NBA Finals, whether the Cavs rally to spring a Game 7 upset or wear down and take the 10-count against a deeper opposition.
Move over, Jerry West. At the moment, West is the only person from a losing team to be named NBA Finals MVP, in 1969. Now it's possible that James can have that distinction, too, although if you heard him after the 104-91 verdict in Game 5 you realize that he is not conceding anything yet.
But, classy guy that he is, James was quick to praise Curry.
"He's the best shooter in our league," James said. "But that's not why we lost. We gave up 18 fast-break points. We gave up 15 second-chance points. Steph was special, obviously, but him hitting those step-back threes is not why we lost the game."
Put it this way: Without those big treys from Curry, the Warriors might not have won.
Curry came through like an MVP is supposed to deliver. For much of these Finals, he has hardly resembled an MVP. Especially early in Games 2 and 3, when Matthew Dellavedova got the best of him. If you had to pick a Warriors MVP for the series, it has been Andrew Iguolada, with his consistent versatility.
Yet there was no debate as the fourth quarter progressed in Game 5, which is traditionally so huge when it comes to settling NBA titles. Curry drove hard to the basket for layups. He worked hard to create space to allow room for the step-backs. One shot was so deep — and over "Delly" — that it should have been a four-point basket. He was suddenly the man of the moment.
No one could question Curry's energy this time, as his own coach, Steve Kerr, did after Game 3.
Curry — who entered Game 5 averaging 23.5 points in the Finals, with his best offensive impact coming in a Game 3 loss — gave his team exactly what they needed when they needed it most.
"I called all of those plays," Kerr deadpanned on Sunday night. "Those were my genius inventions. No, that was just Steph taking over the game."
Kerr left his imprint by going with his small-ball lineup again, which called for Iguodala to start at forward and Draymond Green to switch to center, with Andrew Bogut hitting the bench. The Cavs tried to counter with their own small lineup, barely playing center Timofey Mosgov, but it backfired.
Mosgov scored a game-high 28 points in Game 4, but had zero points in nine minutes in Game 5, when the Cavs were out-rebounded 43-37.
Yet for all of the questions about Cavs coach David Blatt's use of Mosgov, the game swung with Curry's hot streak in crunch time.
It came with the type of breathtaking play that we're liable to see replayed for decades — and hopefully in slow-motion. Curry lost Dellavedova with a deft move that might be best described as a behind-the-back, crossover dribble, capped by a fade-way three-pointer from 27 feet away.
Was that his signature moment of the series?
Curry wanted to hear none of that.
"I mean it was a fun moment, but it'll only mean something, and I'll probably have a better answer for that question after we win the championship," Curry said. "Signature moments only come for players who are holding the trophy at the end of the day."
Maybe that will come on Tuesday night. Thanks to Curry's flurry, the Warriors are surely better positioned to close out this deal. Remember, the team that won Game 5 in a series that was tied 2-2 went on to win the NBA crown 71.4% of the time (20 of 28).
"We're not getting ahead of ourselves," Curry said. "But we know the sense of urgency of the moment."
And how.
Andre Iguodala was 125-1 to win NBA Finals MVP and now is the favorite:
The Case For Iguodala As 2015 Finals MVP
By Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports
Jason Alsher, Cheat Sheet Sports
June 12, 2015
Golden State Warriors forward Andre Iguodala started a total of zero games this season, as coach Steve Kerr opted to use the 11-year veteran off the bench. This led Iguodala to career lows in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and pretty much every other major category.
With that, Iguodala was installed a 125/1 long shot to win the NBA Finals MVP before the Warriors-Cavs series started, behind Steph Curry (5/8) and LeBron James (17/10) and a dozen other players. Yet, somehow, even those odds seemed too good for a guy who scored 20+ points just three times this season. (Some books didn’t even list Iguodala; he was included in the broader “field” category.)
But now that Iguodala has proved instrumental in coming off the bench to defend LeBron James and answered his first call to start this season by scoring 22 points (a season high) and keeping LeBron to 22 points on 20 shots. If Golden State wins, Iguodala is likely to be the MVP unless Curry goes unconscious in the next two or three games. Should Iguodala win, it’d be like the Washington Redskins winning the Super Bowl this year (125/1) and twice as likely as the lowly Oakland Raiders doing so (66/1). Like we said: long shot.
Some will say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. If the Golden State Warriors continued on the same path they had followed in the first three games of the 2015 NBA Finals, there’s a very good chance the Western Conference champions would be heading back home for Sunday’s Game 5 down three games to one.
So with their season essentially on the line, Steve Kerr and the rest of the Warriors’ coaching staff decided they would no longer stick to the status quo. They inserted veteran Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup, and finally found the spark this team was missing. The Warriors found their pace, controlled the game from pretty much the get-go, and knotted the series at 2-2, with a convincing 103-82 victory. In one fell swoop — with one bold move — the momentum has changed hands. Once again, we have ourselves a series.
Iguodala had spent the better part of his 11-year career in the starting lineup of every team he’d ever been a part of. In fact, this past 2014-15 season was the first time he had ever come off the bench. And while that may have proved effective during the regular season, it wasn’t doing the Warriors any good in the Finals; especially when you consider the impact he’s made, which Kerr finally acknowledged after the contest when he stated of the 31-year-old, “He’s been our best player through four games.”
But we’ll take things a bit further. If Iggy keeps up this level of play, he could very well find himself taking home some extra hardware when this series comes to a close.
Iguodala is not the Warriors leading scoring in these Finals. Despite his average shooting — by his standards — Stephen Curry is still leading the way with 23.5 points per game. However, you could easily say that Golden State’s No. 9 has been the team’s most effective offensive contributor. Through four games, Iggy is averaging 14.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 3.0 assists. He’s giving the the Dubs 35.9 minutes a game and is shooting 57.5% from the field, including 40.9% from beyond the arc. He’s shown no hesitation on his release, and seems to consistently be the guy who hits the bucket that sucks the air out of the Cavaliers’ sails. This happened often during Game 4.
Getting the chance to start for the first time all season, Iguodala took full advantage of the opportunity. He had a team-high — with Curry — 22 points on 8 of 15 shots. He was also perfect from the line and 4 for 9 from three-point land. Iguodala also snagged 8 rebounds and through in a steal, for good measure. But it was his ability to lock down LeBron James on defense that, ultimately, showcased his true worth.
Coming into Thursday night, James had been averaging a remarkable 41 points, 12 rebounds, and 8.3 assists per games. He had set a new record for the most points scored through three games of an NBA Finals with 123, and he was finding a way to bend Golden State to his will. But Game 4 was different. Game 4 saw the King only notch 20 points — 7 of 22 — 12 rebounds, and 8 assists. And that all started with Iguodala’s smothering defense. With Iguodala guarding him, James was only 4 for 14 from the field. Considering the planet’s best player has shot a combined 18 for 54 this series with Iggy up in his grill, we’d say this wasn’t a coincidence.
The Cleveland Cavaliers need LeBron James to be at his best if this team hopes to have any shot at winning the championship. But with Andre Iguodala as his primary defender, the King has been anything but. On the flip side, the Golden State Warriors have been at their best when No. 9 is on the court – plus-32 — and struggling — minus-10 — when he’s riding the pine. As long as the Warriors continue to utilize this small lineup, with Iguodala at the forefront, it will be the underdog Cavaliers who’ll need to find a way to adjust.
The story lines for most of the Finals so far have centered on the unlikely rise of Cleveland’s Matthew Dellavedova and the historic play of King James. ‘Bron had been performing at such a superior level, that many thought — win or lose — he was a clear favorite for the MVP award. After Thursday night’s Game 4 performance, a new individual made his case for consideration. When the Warriors needed him most, Andre Iguodala stepped up to the place, and led them back into contention. Funny thing is, he’s been doing it all series. It’s about time people finally took notice.
Poll open through Game 7 (if necessary).
LeBron should join The Logo, become second losing Finals MVP
Bill Reiter
FOX Sports
JUN 15, 2015
Make no mistake: Come what may the rest of the way in this wild and frantic NBA Finals, LeBron James should be named the series' Most Valuable Player.
Yes, the Cleveland Cavaliers seem almost certain to lose, in Game 6 or Game 7, to a Warriors team that in Game 5 found its swagger and the version of its regular-season MVP that make Golden State so dangerous.
In taking a 3-2 series lead Sunday night behind Steph Curry's 37 points and growing confidence, the Warriors asserted the obvious with their 104-91 win: They are this league's best team.
LeBron, the futility notwithstanding, carved out with his 40 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists his own resounding message: His is a level of greatness like few we have ever seen.
Which he wanted you to know Sunday, just in case you missed it: "I feel confident because I'm the best player in the world. It's that simple."
He's right. So, when and if the Warriors finish off the Cavaliers, let them hoist that Larry O'Brien Trophy. They'll have earned it. Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Klay Thompson, Curry -- on and on the list goes, a deep and formidable roster crafting before us an impressive regular season (67 wins) and championship run (beating LeBron even as he puts on one of the greatest postseason performances in NBA history).
But let the media who vote (if I happen to get a vote, I'll follow the plea of this column) give LeBron what he deserves: The Finals MVP, his team losing be damned.
There is historical precedent for this. Jerry West, a man who now works, interestingly enough, for the Golden State Warriors, is the only person in the game's history to have been named the Finals MVP after his team -- the Los Angeles Lakers -- failed to win the series. That was in 1969, against the Boston Celtics.
The Logo set the precedent. No reason the Chosen One shouldn't keep it going, all these years later.
He's averaging 36.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists. He has lost Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Anderson Varejao to injury. He is alone, with players who cannot be counted on, and he has single-handedly kept his team in a series it has no business competing in.
Alone, he has controlled the pace of play, hit huge shots and somehow by himself battled a Warriors team that deserves a large measure of respect and awe. They -- like LeBron -- are a joy to watch play.
The Warriors will be the 2015 champions. But LeBron James should still be the Finals MVP.
Stephen Curry finally has his MVP moment in these NBA Finals
Jarrett Bell
USA TODAY Sports
June 15, 2015
It is always just a matter of time before Stephen Curry gets into a zone.
Yet the time, place and circumstance on Sunday night — with the Golden State Warriors engaged in another tooth-and-nail battle against the Cleveland Cavaliers — made this a necessity.
LeBron James was going off, as usual, carrying the Cavs on his back with a 40-point, 14-rebound, 11-assist triple-double, leaving the thousands packed inside Oracle Arena to seemingly hold their breath for much of the fourth quarter.
Curry, more than anyone, needed to answer King James.
Done.
The Warriors are headed back to Cleveland with a chance to claim the franchise's first NBA title in 40 years on Tuesday night, thanks to the sizzling heroics in crunch time from their MVP point guard.
Curry caught fire by scoring 17 of his 37 points in the fourth quarter, and he ignited the explosion that broke open the game.
I mean, it was a one-point game with five minutes left.
A little more than two minutes later, it was a 10-point game with Curry bringing down the house with a pull-up three-pointer.
That's what an MVP is supposed to do: Smell blood, then strike with the dagger.
"I thought he was great," complimented James, who scored 16 in the fourth. "You tip your hat off to a guy like that. He made seven threes. I don't know, were any of them not contested, hand-in-face, falling, step-back off the dribble?"
Probably not.
For my money, James is still the MVP of these NBA Finals, whether the Cavs rally to spring a Game 7 upset or wear down and take the 10-count against a deeper opposition.
Move over, Jerry West. At the moment, West is the only person from a losing team to be named NBA Finals MVP, in 1969. Now it's possible that James can have that distinction, too, although if you heard him after the 104-91 verdict in Game 5 you realize that he is not conceding anything yet.
But, classy guy that he is, James was quick to praise Curry.
"He's the best shooter in our league," James said. "But that's not why we lost. We gave up 18 fast-break points. We gave up 15 second-chance points. Steph was special, obviously, but him hitting those step-back threes is not why we lost the game."
Put it this way: Without those big treys from Curry, the Warriors might not have won.
Curry came through like an MVP is supposed to deliver. For much of these Finals, he has hardly resembled an MVP. Especially early in Games 2 and 3, when Matthew Dellavedova got the best of him. If you had to pick a Warriors MVP for the series, it has been Andrew Iguolada, with his consistent versatility.
Yet there was no debate as the fourth quarter progressed in Game 5, which is traditionally so huge when it comes to settling NBA titles. Curry drove hard to the basket for layups. He worked hard to create space to allow room for the step-backs. One shot was so deep — and over "Delly" — that it should have been a four-point basket. He was suddenly the man of the moment.
No one could question Curry's energy this time, as his own coach, Steve Kerr, did after Game 3.
Curry — who entered Game 5 averaging 23.5 points in the Finals, with his best offensive impact coming in a Game 3 loss — gave his team exactly what they needed when they needed it most.
"I called all of those plays," Kerr deadpanned on Sunday night. "Those were my genius inventions. No, that was just Steph taking over the game."
Kerr left his imprint by going with his small-ball lineup again, which called for Iguodala to start at forward and Draymond Green to switch to center, with Andrew Bogut hitting the bench. The Cavs tried to counter with their own small lineup, barely playing center Timofey Mosgov, but it backfired.
Mosgov scored a game-high 28 points in Game 4, but had zero points in nine minutes in Game 5, when the Cavs were out-rebounded 43-37.
Yet for all of the questions about Cavs coach David Blatt's use of Mosgov, the game swung with Curry's hot streak in crunch time.
It came with the type of breathtaking play that we're liable to see replayed for decades — and hopefully in slow-motion. Curry lost Dellavedova with a deft move that might be best described as a behind-the-back, crossover dribble, capped by a fade-way three-pointer from 27 feet away.
Was that his signature moment of the series?
Curry wanted to hear none of that.
"I mean it was a fun moment, but it'll only mean something, and I'll probably have a better answer for that question after we win the championship," Curry said. "Signature moments only come for players who are holding the trophy at the end of the day."
Maybe that will come on Tuesday night. Thanks to Curry's flurry, the Warriors are surely better positioned to close out this deal. Remember, the team that won Game 5 in a series that was tied 2-2 went on to win the NBA crown 71.4% of the time (20 of 28).
"We're not getting ahead of ourselves," Curry said. "But we know the sense of urgency of the moment."
And how.
Andre Iguodala was 125-1 to win NBA Finals MVP and now is the favorite:
The Case For Iguodala As 2015 Finals MVP
By Chris Chase, USA TODAY Sports
Jason Alsher, Cheat Sheet Sports
June 12, 2015
Golden State Warriors forward Andre Iguodala started a total of zero games this season, as coach Steve Kerr opted to use the 11-year veteran off the bench. This led Iguodala to career lows in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and pretty much every other major category.
With that, Iguodala was installed a 125/1 long shot to win the NBA Finals MVP before the Warriors-Cavs series started, behind Steph Curry (5/8) and LeBron James (17/10) and a dozen other players. Yet, somehow, even those odds seemed too good for a guy who scored 20+ points just three times this season. (Some books didn’t even list Iguodala; he was included in the broader “field” category.)
But now that Iguodala has proved instrumental in coming off the bench to defend LeBron James and answered his first call to start this season by scoring 22 points (a season high) and keeping LeBron to 22 points on 20 shots. If Golden State wins, Iguodala is likely to be the MVP unless Curry goes unconscious in the next two or three games. Should Iguodala win, it’d be like the Washington Redskins winning the Super Bowl this year (125/1) and twice as likely as the lowly Oakland Raiders doing so (66/1). Like we said: long shot.
Some will say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. If the Golden State Warriors continued on the same path they had followed in the first three games of the 2015 NBA Finals, there’s a very good chance the Western Conference champions would be heading back home for Sunday’s Game 5 down three games to one.
So with their season essentially on the line, Steve Kerr and the rest of the Warriors’ coaching staff decided they would no longer stick to the status quo. They inserted veteran Andre Iguodala into the starting lineup, and finally found the spark this team was missing. The Warriors found their pace, controlled the game from pretty much the get-go, and knotted the series at 2-2, with a convincing 103-82 victory. In one fell swoop — with one bold move — the momentum has changed hands. Once again, we have ourselves a series.
Iguodala had spent the better part of his 11-year career in the starting lineup of every team he’d ever been a part of. In fact, this past 2014-15 season was the first time he had ever come off the bench. And while that may have proved effective during the regular season, it wasn’t doing the Warriors any good in the Finals; especially when you consider the impact he’s made, which Kerr finally acknowledged after the contest when he stated of the 31-year-old, “He’s been our best player through four games.”
But we’ll take things a bit further. If Iggy keeps up this level of play, he could very well find himself taking home some extra hardware when this series comes to a close.
Iguodala is not the Warriors leading scoring in these Finals. Despite his average shooting — by his standards — Stephen Curry is still leading the way with 23.5 points per game. However, you could easily say that Golden State’s No. 9 has been the team’s most effective offensive contributor. Through four games, Iggy is averaging 14.8 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 3.0 assists. He’s giving the the Dubs 35.9 minutes a game and is shooting 57.5% from the field, including 40.9% from beyond the arc. He’s shown no hesitation on his release, and seems to consistently be the guy who hits the bucket that sucks the air out of the Cavaliers’ sails. This happened often during Game 4.
Getting the chance to start for the first time all season, Iguodala took full advantage of the opportunity. He had a team-high — with Curry — 22 points on 8 of 15 shots. He was also perfect from the line and 4 for 9 from three-point land. Iguodala also snagged 8 rebounds and through in a steal, for good measure. But it was his ability to lock down LeBron James on defense that, ultimately, showcased his true worth.
Coming into Thursday night, James had been averaging a remarkable 41 points, 12 rebounds, and 8.3 assists per games. He had set a new record for the most points scored through three games of an NBA Finals with 123, and he was finding a way to bend Golden State to his will. But Game 4 was different. Game 4 saw the King only notch 20 points — 7 of 22 — 12 rebounds, and 8 assists. And that all started with Iguodala’s smothering defense. With Iguodala guarding him, James was only 4 for 14 from the field. Considering the planet’s best player has shot a combined 18 for 54 this series with Iggy up in his grill, we’d say this wasn’t a coincidence.
The Cleveland Cavaliers need LeBron James to be at his best if this team hopes to have any shot at winning the championship. But with Andre Iguodala as his primary defender, the King has been anything but. On the flip side, the Golden State Warriors have been at their best when No. 9 is on the court – plus-32 — and struggling — minus-10 — when he’s riding the pine. As long as the Warriors continue to utilize this small lineup, with Iguodala at the forefront, it will be the underdog Cavaliers who’ll need to find a way to adjust.
The story lines for most of the Finals so far have centered on the unlikely rise of Cleveland’s Matthew Dellavedova and the historic play of King James. ‘Bron had been performing at such a superior level, that many thought — win or lose — he was a clear favorite for the MVP award. After Thursday night’s Game 4 performance, a new individual made his case for consideration. When the Warriors needed him most, Andre Iguodala stepped up to the place, and led them back into contention. Funny thing is, he’s been doing it all series. It’s about time people finally took notice.
