NBA Finals Game 2 Recap: Cleveland 95, Golden State 93 (OT) (or, the Wombat Rises)

I stopped checking out the media on Friday. I stopped talking to most of my fellow Cavs fans. I couldn’t take the negativity, the self pity, and the inevitable sense of doom so many had with regards to the Cavs and their finals chances. Fortunately, it seems the Cavs ignored all that too. In the junkiest finals game in NBA finals history, the Cavs beat the Golden State Warriors on their home court to capture home field advantage and go back to Cleveland, tied 1-1. The Cavs have won their first NBA finals game in franchise history.

The Cavs came out playing their own pace in the First Quarter, and they grinded the Warriors into playing at Cleveland’s pace. The Cavs walked the ball up the court, and forced Golden State to play a half court game. Klay Thompson started the game white hot and had nine first quarter points, shooting off screens, catch-and-shoots, and as a ball handler. Iman and J.R. were aggressive early, putting the ball on the floor, and getting to the rim and the line. The Warriors were giving LeBron long twos and he was hitting them in isolation. He was lobbing bombs over the defenders who were walling off the paint, but make no mistake, both teams were missing a lot of shots.

Cavs Commenter Scotch had the post of the live thread (it would prove prescient later).

In the Second Quarter, Klay Thompson was even hotter, scoring 12. He especially exploited Dellavedova when Matt switched on him. He took Delly straight to the post and hit rhythm turnarounds over a helpless Mad Matt. But the Cavs were forcing misses and turnovers from everyone else. Offensively, the King was scoring, canning layups and even nailed a rare playoff triple. He needed help though, and James Jones came off the bench to provide it. Jones hit two triples off ‘Bron feeds, and Champ even put the ball on the floor and hit a pull-up at the elbow. ‘Bron attacked, attacked, attacked, and kept getting to the rim and the line. He had 10 points in the quarter, and added six dimes. Mozgov played 19 first half minutes and was a beast of a target in the pick-and-roll. Mozilla tried to devour the rim like it was a goat in a T-Rex pit. He was rewarded with nine points in the period on a mix of post-up layups and free throws.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA0YSfGYmhg

Delly struggled on offense where his contributions were turnovers and an over-amped jump shot. But he was defending. He chased Curry around every screen and never gave him an open space to shoot. Curry got a three on a switch, but nothing else.

Despite being down seven with three minutes left, the Warriors battled back, taking advantage of the Cavs’ tendency to go over every screen. Golden State stepped in, hit long twos, and ran double screens for Steph and Klay. They forced switches, and gave the Splash Brother the slivers of daylight they needed to hit jumpers. The Cavs struggled at the line and missed three late freebies to end the half up just one. Fortunately at halftime, the officials corrected a Klay triple and turned it into a deuce to put the Cavs up, 47-45.

The Third Quarter started with an LBJ ten-footer, and then the Cavs didn’t score for another five minutes. But the grindfest was on, and the Grindaliers held the Dubs to just four points in that span as well. Part of the trench warfare was dictated by the Cavs’ ground control offense. TT and the guys had four offensive rebounds in the stretch, and completely dominated the time of possession. The Warriors were impatient. They would either fire up a quick shot or overthink things and try to set up the perfect shot.

Finally, after a long drought, Timofey Mozgov drained an outlet shot off a LeBron drive: a 12-footer on the left baseline. Timo continued his strong play, getting to the line off passes from Delly and LBJ, and canned 4-4 freebies.

After a dustup with Draymond Green that resulted in double technicals, J.R. Smith hit the inevitable rage triple. J.R. is telekinetic when angry.

We even had a Mike Miller sighting. He came in because Dellavedova was gassed from chasing Steph Curry around. Miller gave them a body for a few minutes but missed a wide open triple that would have been huge. LeBron was a scoring machine, getting bucket after bucket, but Klay kept hitting to keep the ‘Dubs close at 62-59.

The quarter ended on this steal and missed dunk that Mo Speights will never forget.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD636Nsmy3s

Previous bullets dodged, the Fourth Quarter started with the first of several really awful fouls by J.R. Smith: a late foul on Klay coming off a screen, which led to a made three and-1 by Klay. Fortunately, Thompson missed the freebie. Things looked dark for the Cavs until The Wombat, Matthew Dellavedova, crawled out of the pit of despair, and hit his first field goals: two 16-foot knuckleball floaters from the right elbow. To say that those shots were a light in the darkness when the Cavs were struggling on offense would be an understatement. In the same stretch, Delly drew an offensive foul on Bogut, played great D on Livingston, and then grabbed a D-Board. That was five straight great plays in the span of just over a minute, if you were keeping track at home. Whoa Delly!

Klay Thompson hit again, LeBron countered with a 26-footer in Livingston’s grill, and then Klay bricked a heat check, the kind of impatient shot that played into the Cavs’ game plan.

The Cavs were up five, and J.R. drained a filthy falling-out-of-bounds shot from the left baseline as the shot clock expired. Then Earl got to the line, and followed that up by hitting a triple off a beautiful swing-the-ball-around possession to put the Cavs up 10. J.R.’s bench offense was ginormous.

After two Klay freebies, DELLY! hit his first trey to put the Cavs up 11 with five minutes left, as Cavs fans around the world collectively asked themselves, “could Cleveland actually win this?”

Crunch Time would prove to be much less edifying. After four Dubs points, LeBron hit a free throw and 28-footer from the right wing to put the Cavs up 11 with 3:14 left. Things were looking good, but the Cavs let down their energy just a little too much. The Warriors came out with a beautiful play to set up Iguodala for a three from the top of the arc. Then, Golden State went hack-a-Tristan and Thompson went 2-4. The Dubs started running Steph off screens to get The Wombat off of him, and the Cavs kept switching. First, Curry hit a three in the King’s eye. (Hand down, man down, LeBron). Then J.R. fouled Steph after a defensive rebound, sending Steph to the line when he was 70 feet from the basket. UGH, J.R., Ugh.

On a post-up, LeBron got hatcheted by Andre Iguodala. Tony Brothers just stared at it as he silently choked on his whistle (yeah, that Tony brothers). To be fair, ‘Bron walked before the missed call, but just call the game, Tony. The Cavs’ offense was as fetid as the the massive waste disposal pipe that runs out of Akron along the towpath trail, and the lead kept slipping away…

After two points from a Klay drive when Smith got caught on a screen, LeBron drained two freebies, and then J.R. committed his next awful foul: a very late, very dumb smack on a Harrison Barnes dunk. It led to a needless three point play, cut the Cavs’ lead to two, and almost destroyed this guy’s life.

https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/607759361360863232

Following an ugly LBJ Jumper, a Delly O-Board, and an Iman Brick, Curry had the ball down two with 15 seconds left. Cleveland completely overplayed Steph who glided right to the basket, finger-rolled a layup that hit nothing but net, and tied the game. I was ready to puke. A tie game…

On the final regulation play, LeBron got a screen, drove left, got converged on by three guys, and just missed a layup. TT had a chance at a tip-in, missed, and the Cavs went to overtime with absolutely zero momentum. There were gripes from the commentariat for a foul, but no one ever gets a call on that play unless they’re on the ground or bleeding. Cavs went to overtime where they crapped the bed and lost their best player in game one.

When Overtime started, more than a couple Cavs fans had given up on this game. To some, defeat seemed inevitable. More than a few of us were wondering where the heck Mozgov was, after a brilliant three quarters (17 points 11 rebounds), and an absence in much of the fourth. I understand putting Tristan in to switch every pick-and-roll, but one of my few criticisms of Blatt was not putting Moz in at least to start the OT and win the tip.

Thompson's been great all playoffs, but he was -21 tonight while Mozgov was +11. Blatt's gotta read the matchups in crunch time.

— a! (@JohnKrolik) June 8, 2015

But the Cavs kept grinding, kept defending, and somehow, Shumpert scored the first points of overtime: a much needed three from LeBron on the left wing.

Then the King got to the line after an offensive rebound to put the Cavs up five. Draymond Green got two straight putbacks, first in transition, and then on a switch where he posted Delly, and got his own miss. Cavs were only up one. And I was… irritated.

After a Cavs’ shotclock violation, Shumpert got a fantastic steal, and then blew the layup in transition. Then LeBron got a steal, and got stuffed by Draymond Green and had to win a jump ball. Tony Brothers reared his head as Green climbed James’ shoulder on the jump ball, and James got whistled for catching the tip. Someone needs to check Tony for glaucoma.

Smith fouled out when he got stuck on Curry on a switch, bit on a pump fake, and Steph executed the fake-and-flail. Cavs nation groaned as J.R. fouled out (thankfully), and Steph went to the line for two automatics. Warriors up one with 29 seconds left. What the hell happened to that lead?

LeBron drove down the left lane, and had his layup obliterated by Draymond Green (his fourth ridiculously huge block). But Iguodala was unable to control the rebound and lost the ball. On the next play LeBron drove, pitched it to James Jones in the right corner, who missed… but DELLY GOT THE REBOUND AND GOT FOULED BY BARNES ON THE PUTBACK ATTEMPT!

Mad Matt, with his deep knee bends, coolly drained both free throws to put the Cavs up one. Klay Thompson would say after the game that not boxing out Delly would “haunt him for a long time.”

I woke my whole house up with a “DELLY!” yell on the play, and on the next play, The Wombat chased Curry around and closed out on a left baseline two, forcing a rare Steph airball, leading to the raw emotion in our title pic.

LeBron made one of two fouls, and with no timeouts, the Warriors rushed the ball up the court, but Shump got his hands on a bounce pass, and knocked it to Tristan as the clock ran out. CAVS WON! Somehow, the Cavs won. And as I sit here watching SportsCenter a few hours later, Cleveland’s basketball team was just referred to as “Matthew Dellavedova and the Cleveland Cavaliers.”

Thoughts

How the hell did the Cavs win this game? The Cavs had the lowest shooting percentage in a winning Finals game effort, ever: 32.2%, but they baited the Warriors into playing the half-court possession game, and used a 55-45 rebound advantage to take advantage of it. LeBron was transcendent, with 39, 16 rebounds, and 11 assists, but he could only shoot 11-35. It didn’t matter. The Cavs needed all of it, and they needed him to take shots. LeBron played point guard and power forward for 50 minutes, and only had three turnovers. More importantly, he never let the Warriors dictate pace.

Tristan struggled offensively again, 0-7 from the floor and -21 for the game, and yet his 14 rebounds were so needed. The fact that the Cavs got the win vindicated Blatt’s decision to play TT over Mozgov late. Shump defended, but couldn’t shoot (yet hit a huge three in OT), Smith provided offense (13 points), and four of the worst fouls you’ll ever see. James Jones gave the Cavs a boost in the second. Mozgov was the Cavs most efficient offensive player (the Warriors had no answer for him). Draymond Green fouls someone on every single play, yet gets away with it. But he made amazing plays on both ends of the floor in the clutch. He finished with four blocks, five steals, and 10 rebounds. The dude is a menace.

Klay was amazing: 34 points on 28 shots, and was unstoppable when he played under control. Cavs were lucky the Warriors failed to get him the ball in good spots down the stretch, but Cleveland’s defense had something to do with that too.

But ultimately this will be remembered as the game where Matty-D shut down the league MVP and made the two biggest plays of the game to give Cleveland their first NBA finals win. The Wombat had six turnovers and shot 3-10 from the floor, and was still +15 for the game. That’s how good his defense was. Curry went 5-23 with six turnovers and Delly was a large part of that. Curry did get inside on a couple of occasions, but Delly consistently ran him off the line, had a fantastic knee bend on defense, didn’t bite on pump fakes, contested almost everything, rebounded hard, and went after every loose ball (including a “dirty” play where he dove on a loose ball and used his body to shield it from Draymond). The heady play in crunch time (and J.R.’s lack thereof) vindicated David Blatt’s decision to start him.

And who can’t love Delly? Dunderheaded ninnymugginses, that’s who. For three straight series, he’s gotten into opponents’ heads: goading them into focusing on a guy who is possibly the league’s most inefficient offensive guard, instead of focusing on everything the Cavs opponents need to do to win. Like every member of this Cavs’ Justice League, the Wombat adds to a whole that is greater than the sum of its part. This Cavs team just keeps turning out heroes to go along with Superman. Tonight was Delly’s turn to rise to the occasion.