Once the NBA finals were an inquiry into whether the Cleveland Cavaliers had a legitimate secondary star to go with LeBron James. Now, after almost two weeks, five games and the realization that James and at least Kyrie Irving can indeed play very well together, the question becomes: are James and Irving enough to save the Cavaliers?
No team in finals history has come back from the 3-1 deficit in which Cleveland found themselves after Game 4, which makes it seem impossible to imagine they can find a way to win two more games in this series. But rarely have two team-mates been as dominant in a playoff game as James and Irving were on Monday night when they combined for 82 points in the Cavs’ 112-97 victory in Game 5. That gives Cleveland hope that they have found a magic formula for the future: see if James and Irving on their own can pull them through games. The only problem with this is the Cavaliers will ultimately need more than two players every night night.
“To repeat a performance like this would definitely be tough,” Irving said after Game 5.
Still, this is what the Cavs may have to do if they hope to somehow pull off an upset of the Golden State Warriors. They will need to have James and Irving carry them the rest of the way, maybe even scoring the bulk of the team’s points as they did on Monday night. For while Irving’s emergence as a near-equal to James has allowed Cleveland to believe they have a chance in these Finals, they also showed the gaping holes in the rest of the Cavaliers line-up.
Kevin Love continues to look lost and the rest of the Cavs aren’t talented enough to give Cleveland much hope of finding a magic extra option beyond James and Irving. JR Smith has had some big moments but hasn’t been consistent. Richard Jefferson has played well but he’s also 35 and long past his years of being a realistic option for a team in a long playoff series. If Cleveland are going to pull the greatest of all Finals comebacks they will have to ride James and Irving to the tile. And that is extremely hard to do.
“I think our spacing was pretty good tonight in terms of where guys were positioning and our weakside action, which I’ve been talking about almost this whole series waiting for it to happen, and it happened,” Irving said on Monday. “Guys were in the spots and it allowed myself and LeBron to see a lot of driving lanes. But also if we saw guys coming over to help we were ready to spread it out to our team-mates.”
With Draymond Green returning to the Warriors after his Game 5 suspension for an accumulation of flagrant fouls, the Cavaliers are not going to be able to drive the lane as well as they did in Game 5. Stephen Curry said on Wednesday that he did not expect Green would get lured into another flagrant foul, presumably suggesting that James taunted the Warriors forward into hitting him in the groin back in Game 4.
Green himself said on Wednesday he intends to change his behavior – to a point: “I think I’ve got to come out and play my game regardless,” he said. “But there are those little fine lines where you just know you can’t cross them.”
A motivated Green along with the Golden State players hitting their open three-point shots – they were 14-for-43 in Game 5 – will make it tough for Cleveland. In other words, James and Irving’s 82 points were enough to win on Monday – but would not be good enough to withstand a better shooting night for the Warriors.
Still, Cleveland have to ride with what they believe to be their best hope of a miracle in this series. That is hoping James and Irving can be outstanding again.
“At this point it’s whatever it takes,” James said after Game 5. “Obviously making shots and things of that nature are things that you sometimes really can’t control. Sometimes the ball go in, sometimes it don’t. How hard you play, how locked in you are on the keys to get a victory, what the coaching staff put out for us … Obviously [Irving] was special and we rode him to the victory lane.”
Can they really hope to do that two more times?
