The city of Cleveland’s worst nightmare just became a reality. Superstar point guard Kyrie Irving has been ruled out for the remainder of the NBA Finals with a fracture in his kneecap which will result in him being sidelined for 3-4 months. Nobody knew the severity of the injury until MRI results came back Friday evening and indicated a fracture in his left kneecap. Irving’s knee gave out on him with less than 2 minutes remaining in the overtime session of a game one 108-100 NBA Finals loss against the Golden State Warriors.
The 6’3″ guard suffered through knee tendinitis last round in the Eastern Conference Finals against the Atlanta Hawks, leaving some experts to believe that he wasn’t one hundred percent healthy coming into game one. Kyrie sure looked the part of the all-star caliber player he is as he had a stellar night prior to the injury, putting up 23 points in 44 minutes on 10-22 shooting while also chipping in 7 rebounds and 6 assists. The Golden State Warriors outscored the Cavs by thirteen points when Kyrie Irving wasn’t on the floor as back up, now starter, Matthew Dellavedova struggled. This is not an encouraging sign for a team that has stumbled to a 3-6 record without Irving this season. Game one couldn’t have gone much worse for Cleveland as they somehow managed to butcher a herculean 44 point performance from LeBron James and lost their star point guard.
Obviously any time you lose your second leading scorer it is a massive blow to the teams title hopes. The Cavs were already crippled enough, missing star power forward Kevin Love due to a torn labrum. This latest development means LeBron James will have to string together multiple heroic performances for them to have a shot at taking down Golden State. We all already know how incredible James is but the greats always find a way to battle through adversity. Time to see exactly what LeBron is made of now that the pressure levels are higher than ever before.
