On Thursday night, hopes that Cleveland’s long-running championship drought would soon come to an end were all but extinguished in a matter of minutes. For the first 48 minutes of game one of the finals, the Cavaliers played the heavily favored Golden State Warriors to a 98-98 draw and looked poised to take control of the series. Five minutes of overtime later, the Cavaliers had lost the game, and their second most valuable player.
Cleveland point guard Kyrie Irving hurt his knee on a non-contact play roughly two minutes into overtime. Without their secondary offensive option, the Cavs managed to score a paltry two points after the end of regulation in what ended up being a 108-100 Warriors win. This setback was compounded by Friday’s news that Irving had a fractured kneecap, which requires surgery that will sideline him for up to four months.
The shorthanded Cavaliers were already playing without power forward Kevin Love, who suffered a shoulder injury courtesy of the Celtics’ Kelly Olynyk in the first round. Irving’s injury puts them at even a greater disadvantage against a Warriors team that has remained remarkably healthy throughout a NBA postseason featuring a body count of a Tarantino film.
Although LeBron James is obviously their most important player, the Cavaliers needed every one of Irving’s 23 points, and his late game block on the Warriors’ Steph Curry, just to push things to overtime.
Irving’s game one performance was doubly impressive considering that his knees were already hurting heading into the Finals. An injury, which the team claimed was “knee tendinitis,” kept Irving out of several games during the Eastern Conference finals. In the aftermath of Irving’s fracture, there’s some thought that the clearly hobbled guard shouldn’t have played the full 44 minutes he did on Thursday, no matter how badly the Cavaliers needed him on the floor.
Immediately following the game, it wasn’t clear how exactly Irving had furthered aggravated his knee, but it didn’t look like something he would be able to play through. On Friday afternoon, MRI results confirmed this would be the case. Irving had suffered a fractured left patella which would require surgery that would lay him out for 3-4 months. He addressed his injury on his Instagram account:
I want to thank everyone for the well wishes. Saddened by the way I had to go out but it doesn’t take away from being apart of a special playoff run with my brothers. Truly means a lot for all the support and love. I Gave it everything I had and have no regrets. I love this game no matter what and I’ll be back soon. To my brothers: You already know what the deal is. And to Delly: “ICE it down del” *Big Perk voice *
“Delly” refers to Matthew Dellavedova, the Australian guard who will most likely take Irving’s place in the starting lineup, a move that weakens both the Cavaliers’ starting rotation and now paper-thin bench.
Without Love and Irving, the Cavaliers have reverted back to the team they were back in James’s first stint: a ragtag group of role players and veterans that resembles a playoff contender only because of the presence of one of the best basketball players ever.
There was a reason that James had to leave those Cavaliers teams behind and team up with stars like Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in the Miami Heat before he could finally start winning championships. It was hoped that James, Love and Irving would similarly form the core of a new championship-caliber team in Cleveland. Now it’s all on LeBron.
Now, James is good enough that he can beat many, perhaps even most teams, by himself. The 44 points he scored in Thursday’s game one loss should be a testament to that. Unfortunately these are the NBA Finals and the Warriors are much, much better than “most teams,” These Warriors might have been the best offensive team and the best defensive team during the regular season and were able to survive the playoffs without suffering any major injuries. Cleveland’s hopes of even making this a six or seven game series could very well have been crushed by the news that Irving’s season is officially over . (One projection from Nate Silver has put Cleveland’s odds of winning at 7%.)
It would be a fitting end to this NBA postseason if the finals end up being decided by an injury to a star player. Almost every outcome in the playoffs has been at least partly determined by which teams have been healthier. The Oklahoma City Thunder missed the postseason altogether after season-ending injuries to Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka. The Portland Trail Blazers had little hope of going deep into the Western Conference playoffs without Wesley Matthews. The Atlanta Hawks, the best team in the Eastern Conference during the regular season, lost any chance they had at upsetting the Cavaliers after three-point shooting savant Kyle Korver went down.
And just when it looked like the Cavaliers had a chance without Love and with a hurting Irving, the basketball Gods decided to hand Cleveland yet another brutal break.
Apparently, a single calamity is never enough when it comes to Cleveland sports. The city hasn’t seen a professional team win a championship since the Browns won the 1964 NFL Championship Game back in the pre-Super Bowl days. Something painful and unexpected always seems to happen whenever a Cleveland team gets anywhere close to a potential championship. The image of Irving collapsing in pain in overtime might join images of Earnest Byner fumbling away the football in the 1987 AFC Championship Game or Jose Mesa blowing the lead in game seven of the 1997 World Series.
If you are a Cleveland Cavaliers fan it’s very difficult not to imagine a “what if” scenario where Iman Shumpert’s oh so close potential game winner at the end of game 1 had actually fallen in. The Cavaliers would have stolen the first game of the series, taken home court advantage, and, most importantly, wouldn’t have had to put Irving back on the court with his already compromised knees.
Instead? Instead, the Cavaliers will quite likely fall to the Warriors sometime in the next few weeks, barring a miracle. And there’s nothing in Cleveland sports history that suggests anyone should expect one of those anytime soon.
