It’s June, and in the NBA it means that we have only two teams standing. No big surprises, it’s the best two teams in the league, not only this year, but a couple of years back. The Golden State Warriors will meet the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2017 NBA Finals. It’s the third consecutive time two teams will meet in a claim for the NBA supremacy and fans are excited to see another battle of the superstars such as James, Curry, Durant and others. It’s big boys time.
Golden State Warriors vs. Cleveland Cavaliers
Unlike most of the times when two teams meet in the NBA Finals, the Warriors and the Cavaliers have much recent history. They’ve split the last two series that had landed them each a championship and being such dominant forces in their conferences, the other team must have been on their mind the whole way. It’s as close as to a rivalry between two teams not playing in the same conference can be.
The Warriors feel like they’ve been robbed of the last year’s title after having lost the NBA Finals following the 3-1 lead, so they feel it’s a payback time. They added Durant to bolster their chances, another player who had came up with the short end of the stick against LeBron James having lost the 2012 NBA Finals to his Miami Heat team. The Cavaliers responded by adding depth, so both sides have improved since the first dance. Still, let’s take a quick look at how have they fared in the last couple of years against each other.
2016 NBA Finals results:
06/04/15 GSW 108 – CLE 100 (ot)
06/07/15 GSW 93 – CLE 95 (ot)
06/09/15 CLE 96 – GSW 91
06/11/15 CLE 82 – GSW 103
06/14/15 GSW 104 – CLE 91
06/16/15 CLE 97 – GSW 105
2017 NBA Finals results:
06/02/16 GSW 104 – CLE 89
06/05/16 GSW 110 – CLE 77
06/08/16 CLE 120 – GSW 90
06/10/16 CLE 97 – GSW 108
06/13/16 GSW 97 – CLE 112
06/16/16 CLE 115 – GSW 101
06/19/16 GSW 89 – CLE 93
Regular season results:
12/25/15 GSW 89 – CLE 83
01/18/16 CLE 98 – GSW 132
12/25/16 CLE 109 – GSW 108
01/16/17 GSW 126 – CLE 91
The Warriors had won a couple of games more, but what’s most apparent is that game scores pinballed across the entire possible spectrum. The Warriors won by as much as 34, but the Cavs had their own marquee victory winning by 30. And some games were really close – two even went to overtime. We saw slow, sluggish games like the Game 7 of the last year’s NBA Finals edition, and high-octane ones were teams combined for 220 points.
The books have been clearly considering the Warriors as a better team between the two. The Cavaliers have been favored fewer times and by fewer points at home. This season, the Warriors were an away jolly in the Q on Christmas, although Cleveland admittedly missed J.R. Smith and haven’t acquired Korver and Williams yet. The Cavs took that one, but the Warriors tried to make a statement by putting on a show in the last encounter, scoring 78 points by the halftime to blow the rivals out. Except for the Cavs’ late addition Williams, the teams have shown their best squads in that game. Betting wise, the Cavaliers had more recent success, going 4-1 ATS in the last 5 meetings. Under has been prevalent in Oakland (8-1-2) and in the recent meetings (4-1-1).
The Warriors have earned the home court advantage again with the best overall regular season record, so the series will begin on Thursday in Oracle Arena. Both teams will start the series with a clean bill of health as McCaw, Pachulia and Iguodala healed from the minor injuries that they suffered in the previous series. Golden State are still without their head coach Steve Kerr, who is unable to perform his sideline duties, but is present with the team in practice and preparation.
Playoff results and schedule:
Game 1 – CLE @ GSW (Thursday 6/01/17, 9:00 PM ET – ABC)
Game 2 – CLE @ GSW (Sunday 6/04/17, 8:00 PM ET – ABC )
Game 3 – GSW @ CLE (Wednesday 6/07/17, 9:00 PM ET – ABC)
Game 4 – GSW @ CLE (Friday 6/09/17, 9:00 PM ET – ABC)
Game 5 – CLE @ GSW (Monday 6/12/17, 9:00 PM ET – ABC, if needed)
Game 6 – GSW @ CLE (Thursday 6/15/17, 9:00 PM ET – ABC, if needed)
Game 7 – CLE @ GSW (Sunday 6/18/17, 8:00 PM ET – ABC, if needed)
Warriors in the rearview mirror
The Warriors have swept each of their first three playoff opponents, so they are coming into the Finals largely untested. At the same time, it gives them time to prepare and to rest and heal, while also great deal of confidence that they could finish any opponent quickly if they play their best basketball. They caught a big break with Spurs’ Leonard’s injury in the first game of the Western Conference Finals, as the Spurs were dominant up to that point. Perhaps the Dubs got enough of a scare to realize that they are mortal and that they have to play their best, as they had no problem disposing of the shorthanded Spurs afterwards.
The Warriors scored only 42 points in the first half of the first game against the Leonard-headed Spurs defense, but managed to drop at least 57 points in each of the following halves in the series, showing tremendous understanding on where to attack from and showcasing their full offensive repertoire. Still, it was Stephen Curry’s series. After slightly limiting his role to accommodate his teammates during the regular season, Curry has come to a more prominent role in the playoffs and especially in this last series. He scored 31.5 points on the Spurs, taking most shot attempts and combining his aggressiveness with great efficiency.
Curry has much to do in the NBA Finals as well as he didn’t play up to his standard last June. Same goes for Green, who had been suspended and possibly caused the turnaround. These two, and Kevin Durant, have had a great postseason, masking an underwhelming contribution of Klay Thompson, who’s been out of sorts recently. He’s not hitting his shots and has been out of position on the defense unusually high number of times. Stating that the Warriors need him to wake up would be overstatement, as they are doing just fine.
The Warriors are winning by 16.3 points in the playoffs as they score 118.3 points on 50.2 percent shooting and allow 102.0 points to opponent field goal percentage of just 41.6 percent. They rebound, they take care of the ball and play defense without fouling. And they do all of that while playing at the second highest pace during this postseason.
Golden State Warriors Betting Trends:
ATS Score: 48-43-3 overall, 8-4 playoffs
Over/under Score: 41-53 overall, 9-3 playoffs
Cavaliers in the rearview mirror
The Cleveland Cavaliers haven’t been as dominant as the Warriors during the regular season, but came to life when it matters the most, following last year’s script. They were heavy underdogs to win it last year and despite losing just a single game to the Celtics, they are not taken too seriously this time either. But this is a good, experienced team led by one of the all time greats. LeBron James keeps rewriting records books with his night-in-and-night-out stats, but his contribution is even greater than that. His aura of greatness instills confidence to his teammates, his leadership pushes their buttons and he even makes a below average coach look good with his high intelligence and control of the game flow.
Make no mistake, even without the supporting cast the Cavaliers managed to assemble for him, LeBron James is incredibly tough to beat with any team. The entire Eastern Conference makes all-year-long moves to account for his presence for a decade but this Cavaliers team with him on the tip of the sword sliced through all these teams with almost the same ease as the Warriors did three time-zones away.
The Cavaliers have shot extremely well from the deep this postseason, hitting such shots at 43.5 percent clip. Such high percentage also increased their offensive rating to best in the league in the playoffs, so Cavs can parry Warriors with the shooting ability, at least on paper. They have beat the opposition by 13.6 points on average as they have improved on the defensive side as well. Still, they allowed 45 percent shooting to teams of a less offensive capability, so it’ll take another level to limit Warriors’ game.
Cleveland Cavaliers Betting Trends:
ATS Score: 44-47-4 overall, 8-4-1 playoffs
Over/under Score: 56-38-1 overall, 9-4 playoffs
Matching them up
Even with the added firepower on both sides, don’t expect this to be a shooting range. Sure, teams have proven they can score, but judging by their previous meetings, the points on their games tend to drop on average, with most of the games having at least one side kept below 100 points for the night. The main reason for this is that the Cavs purposely slow down the tempo of the games to make sure each possession counts.
They like their chances in such games, so even if they get caught in running game for short periods, James will get a grip on the flow of the game and keep it simple. Half court possessions favor physically stronger and taller teams and with Thompson’s and Love’s ability to go after each offensive board, the Cavs are going to continue to play the same way.
This means that we’ll see plenty of isolation plays for James on the left side and Irving on the right side of the court. Golden State will counter by switching almost everything so there will be plenty of late shot clock situations.
On the other side, the idea is to steamroll over the Cavaliers with speed, precision and multidirectional offense. Cavs may limit Warriors point production, but aren’t likely to throw them off their game. They simply don’t play enough of a good defense to repeat the last year’s success. Expecting them to turn it on now is not realistic, so while the Warriors can stop the defending champions from getting much offensive flow, the Cavs will need plenty of luck to do it at the same level.
A closer look to the previous contests justifies such a prognosis. The Dubs have been able to stop Cavs from scoring more often than not and were very rarely troubled by their rivals offensive output. They’ve only experienced difficulties when they weren’t able to get it going on the offensive side, and that was far less frequent, even without Durant in the mix.
Series prediction
Golden State in 5. Yes, I predicted that the Warriors will lose a game in the Western Conference Finals already (and that probably would have happened if not for Spurs bad fortune), but I’m even more confident that the Cavaliers can take at least one game. The media probably expects a long series, but wishes and reality don’t go well here, despite all what the Cavs have shown us in this postseason. They are rightfully a big underdog to repeat, but this has mostly nothing to do with their own ability. They are a great team, but the Warriors are a class above.
NBA Finals MVP
Kevin Durant. Oh yes, Durantula will dominate this NBA Finals series. He’s in excellent form coming in and should be the most motivated superstar as others have already flashed the champions’ rings before the cameras. On top of the extra motivation, Durant is also a nightmare match-up for the Cavaliers. They have to put James on him on all times, but once the Warriors downsize with Iguodala it will either put Cavs off their rotation or they’ll have to put Love on KD and he’ll destroy such a mismatch.
X-factor
Andre Iguodala. Warriors’ super sub has been taking the most difficult defensive tasks for a long time and is a factor that often goes unaccounted for, despite the MVP Finals recognition two years back. The Warriors need him again, they need him to slow down the force that rarely gets slowed down. He’s only 33, but has a lot of mileage behind him and has seen the fast approaching father time. The Warriors are counting of him to do such a big job that his current ability on producing top defense once again can shift a series to both ways, depending on how much fuel he has left.
