The 2017 NBA Finals have not been a memorable occasion thus far for the Cleveland Cavaliers. This final is truly the ‘be all end all’ for these two teams. Winner takes all is the name of the game with the two of them splitting the title the past two seasons. Now that we’re a pair of games deep and have seen two dominant Golden State performances, is it time to jump off the Cavs wagon? Well, perhaps not just yet.
We are about to see the culmination of a solid Cleveland season and playoff run all wrapped into one in game three. If they lose this one, who are we kidding, it’s over. So, now the LeBron-run side needs to pull it all together and defy the odds because they are definitely not on their side. With Game 2 in the books, the NBA betting line now favors the Warriors by a landslide to take the upper hand in the rivalry.
‘The City’ is favored by -3 points in game 3 and is also -1,500 overall to take the title. This is not good for Cleveland, however, they have proven us wrong before. Let’s take a look back at this playoff run alone, shall we? While everyone is making a big deal of the Warriors undefeated run, the Cavs had only lost one game heading into this finals series. They dropped game three of the Eastern Conference final to Boston at home 111-108 and then decided to turn it on. They won the next game by 13 and ended the series with a commanding 33-point win on the road.
They have come back with a vengeance to silence their critics, although, said critics are stacking up after dropping the opening pair in California by 14 and 19-points. So what has to change? They need to start defending the long ball. The Cavs are a tormenting bunch based on their size and power. However, their speed on the backend defending the trey has proven faulty thus far.
In game 2, the Warriors took 43 three-point attempts and hit 41.9% of their shots. That’s a surreal statistic that will need to change if Cleveland wants a leg to stand on. After setting a new Finals record with 18 three balls, the writing is on the wall – these guys can shoot. So, how do you defend that?
You could always say the best defense is a good offense, in this case though, let’s say that relates to rebounds rather than points. Kevin Love (10.9) and LeBron (8.7) lead the team in playoff boards per game, but they will need to be better at boxing out underneath to turn the tides on Wednesday.
As for the perimeter, Kyrie Irving, JR Smith, Kyle Korver and Iman Shumpert have been getting roasted in their matchups; not to mention Smith has only scored three points in this series. They will need to start playing man-to-man to defend against the pull-up jumpers, something the Warriors have mastered in the opening two games.
