Steph Curry finished with a 32 point, 11 assists, 10 rebound triple-double. And LeBron James also had had a triple-double and finished with 29 points, 14 assists, and 11 rebounds. But it was the Warriors who moved on to have a 2-0 lead in the series beating the Cavaliers 132-113. Here are some thoughts I had about the game:
Steph and KD are unstoppable
The biggest problem that the Cavaliers have is that they don't have enough talent to matchup against Steph Curry and Kevin Durant's greatness. The duo had a combined 65 points, 23 rebounds, 17 assists, 4 steals, and 5 blocks. This may be the greatest offensive duo in the history of the NBA, and It's being defended by J.R Smith and at times, Richard Jefferson. I just don't see the Cavaliers being able to defend the Warriors at all. And to add on to it, Klay dropped in 22 points.
Cleveland's Role Players
Lebron had his best game of the series, having a triple double, in the 9 minutes LeBron was off of the floor, the Cavaliers were a -8. He was not the problem in the Cavaliers loss this afternoon, but his teammates were for some of it. The trio of Channing Frye, Deron Williams, and J.R Smith who played a combined 38 minutes had a combined 2 points on 2-13 shooting. Combined for a -26 while on the floor. These guys have to step up for Clevland to even have a chance.
Golden State Turnovers
The Warriors had 20 turnovers and 8 by Steph Curry. It became a problem in the first half when they had 14 and Curry had 6. But they quickly made up for their mistakes and cleaned up the offense and stopped being passive with the ball. The only reason we saw the Cavaliers within three at the half was because of the Golden State turnovers.
Warriors' Quick Rotations
During the second half, you could see the Warriors flying around the court. They were able to help in the right positions and know where they were supposed to go to next. If Curry got switched out on Kevin Love in the low post, Draymond Green would slide over and help on the back side, if they threw a lob over the top to Channing Frye, Klay Thompson would side over and close out on the shot, etc. Everything the Cavaliers did, the Warriors were on top of it. For the Cavaliers scoring 62 points in the first half, the Cavaliers only had a 51 point half after that.
Kyrie's Weak Performance
I don't ever mean to bash on just one person, but Kyrie Irving was just flat out awful. He shot 6-23 from the floor, had 3 turnovers and was an atrocious -18 while on the floor. He made all of the wrong decisions, if he should shoot it, he would pass it, if he should pass it, he would shoot it. All of this is without mentioning his defense. The biggest problem with Kyrie is he dies on every single screen. It doesn't matter if it's an off-ball screen or on-ball screen. He collapses.
Summary
This game was worse case scenario for the Cavaliers. Not only did it look like they made a ton of adjustments, some of them worked, but most of them didn't. A lot of this just comes down to the significant talent difference between the Warriors and Cavaliers. There is not much to do when the talent discrepancy is just this vast. Kyrie has to play better on both ends. He has to realize he can't replicate his performance from a year ago, the Warriors have been preparing him for the whole year, Steph in particular. The largest factor and most important number in this game for me were the Warriors' 43 three-point attempts versus the Cavaliers's 29.
Game 3 Prediction: Warriors 112-108. Updated series Predictionn: Warriors in 4
No comments:
Post a Comment