Finals PodCap: Warriors 118, Cavs 113 (or, Defeat from the Jaws of Victory)
2017-06-08
https://soundcloud.com/ctb-5/episode-138-0-3-commisseration
Commiseration time. In the infamous words of Roy Scheider… “we’re gonna need a bigger boat.” The Cavs played much better overall in returning home for Game 3 of the Finals… had their biggest lead of the series (seven) in the fourth quarter, and still led by six with just over two minutes remaining. Unfortunately, they allowed the Warriors to score the final 11 points of the game, while missing the final seven shots of their own. Maybe they ran out of gas after digging out of another first quarter hole and playing their most intense two and a half quarters of basketball in the series. Or, maybe they just missed too many three point shots (27%) while giving up too many to the Dubs (49%). Or, maybe it’s too much to overcome the combination of mistakes and questionable officiating to edge out an all-time talented team. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, because the result is an 0-3 deficit. If any team can rebound from this predicament… it would naturally be the team that overcame improbable odds to come back from being down 1-3. But, are the odds this time around improbable… or just straight impossible?
Join Nate and EG as they spend a while sifting through the remnants of this game like the contents of a great white’s stomach. We examine what the Cavs did right, what they did wrong, what they could have done differently, and whether or not the hole in their boat can be fixed… or if they’ve already taken on too much water. Time will tell… Game 4 comes Friday.
Listen above, on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Google Play.
Go Cavs!!!!
GOT THE BEER ICED DOWN FOR FRIDAY NIGHT WIN # 1
I’m really excited for tonight. There was a bitter taste in my mouth, as for us all, from the way Game 3 fell apart. But I’m ready for tonight. Last year, if Kyrie doesn’t hit that 3 and Curry does instead, we would all be walking around with vomit in our mouths right now. The Warriors would be undisputed best team of all time on the cusp of a three peat. But we’re not. Today may well be the last day we’re defending Champs. And whether it is or it isn’t, it is indisputable that we won the title and… Read more »
Yep
Plus we got to be introduced as defending champs for every game and had so much freaking fun this season just rolling over everyone in the ECP.
Well said, JoeyB
Considering that the warriors have taken TT off the board, I wouldn’t mind seeing them start Korver instead. Just gives more shooting and I don’t think we (the 2nd best three point shooting team in the league) will shoot 25% from three again.
It would be so nice to just get super hot and rain fire down on them for a game.
You’ll start Love at center?
Yep. Let it rain down.
Did KD take TT off the board ?
Dude GTFO!
I still love this team.
Agree with Cols!
What the heck?
This is why I missed the 90’s, this little punk should get knocked down tonight. Activate DJones!!
And the other
http://stats.nba.com/events/#!/?flag=1&GameID=0041600403&GameEventID=427&Season=2016-17&title=Irving%202'%20Cutting%20Layup%20Shot%20(31%20PTS)%20(Jefferson%201%20AST)&sct=plot
On a brighter note, here’s one of those two straight third-quarter possessions with great passing
http://stats.nba.com/events/#!/?flag=1&GameID=0041600403&GameEventID=424&Season=2016-17&title=James%20%20Dunk%20(32%20PTS)%20(Irving%202%20AST)&sct=plot
This was not called a foul, when Klay klubbed Kyrie in the shoulder…
http://stats.nba.com/events/#!/?flag=1&GameID=0041600403&GameEventID=494&Season=2016-17&title=MISS%20Irving%201'%20Layup&sct=plot
Oh Yeah one more thing and I’ll repeat. Tomorrow we’re All In No Matter What! We Ride Together, We Die together! Let’s Go Cavs!!! Whoot! Whoot!
Good podcast as always among Cavs friends! It stunk they lost but to hear your voices made the sting a little less. So many good points. Those mins racked up was a difference. I wished Ty Lue developed the bench more. It’s crazy to say that considering the talent they are compared to 2 years ago. 1 point I’ll say is .. Deron Williams , you ain’t no Delly!! He gave the Cavs much more than we are getting from the vet. It doesn’t make sense on not going to a faster athletic player in Derrik Williams.
We played great last night for the most part. Unfortunately we started going for the kill shot with 3:30 left in the game instead of continuing to drive, which is what worked for us all game. We went up 7 and started to shoot threes on every possession to try to hit that 10 point mark. Kyrie’s iso three down 1 point under a minute left was dumb. I wish LeBron would have taken the layup instead of passing out to Korver, but at the end of the day, Korver has to hit that shot. Once again, overall, the bench… Read more »
Hey Gordo, Korver led the league in 3PT% this year.
I believe there is a like hidden message on that LBJ quote. ??
maybe when you’re up by 6 with two minutes left you don’t shoot three’s with 20 seconds left on the shot clock. i cannot fathom why the cavs kept not running the clock down and just putting up these dumb three pointers. lebron just needs to drive in those situations. he obviously can’t handle the whole load (which he does), but everyone STOP ARGUING WITH THE REF AND GET BACK ON DEFENSE. jr finally showed up, korver and tristan need to follow suit. keep deron williams off the friggin court. durant is playing out of his mind this series though,… Read more »
also can someone remind me what exactly happened that deron williams declined so fast? i can still remember the chris paul / deron williams best point guard in the league thing…
and if you’re blaming refs for losses you need to just stop now.
It’s weird too that Deron was straight awesome all playoffs and then turned into Delly in the Finals.
delly last year not hero delly of 204-2015 :)
LeBron did drive. And found a wide open Korver in the corner for three. That’s the game. Right there. A shot that Korver usually makes in his sleep.
blows my mind that korver was a friggin’ ALL-STAR last year and this year it’s a completely different guy. granted he’s 34-35 (?), that’s not a skill that diminishes over a year.
per the tristan question: he said himself not only do they have zaza or green grabbing him, they’ve been sending another guard to help box him out. still, don’t see the fire there he used to had.
Korver missed a shot. It was a good one. Kyrie’s 3jack when he was 3-14 from outside the key was the stupid one.
Curry was shrinking again in last night’s game. It was beautiful. Has there ever been a bigger frontrunning fraud than that guy?
Only one person I can think of…. His name starts with C.
The Durant is better than LeBron is comical. The talking heads are just trying to create a story to offset the lack of drama the NBA playoffs have produced. Durant is not in the same universe as LeBron now or ever. No one in the NBA is. The closest player is Leonard and he’s still pretty far away as far as impact. A few years ago CP3 was kinda close at total impact on the game but he has waned. LeBron reigns supreme. Durant might be second best. Or he might be like 10th best – less valuable than Paul… Read more »
Yep.
Lebron is the best. Who is next is debatable among few players. When all is said and done, Lebron will be top 2 players of all time and Durant, may be top 10 all time.
This basically sums it up for me.
https://medium.com/@BrockDenton/if-you-like-the-warriors-you-are-a-bad-fan-and-you-should-feel-bad-too-da412564b707
Thanks for sharing… that’s a pretty amazing piece
Thanks, EG! Coming from you I consider that high praise. I’ve really enjoyed your articles here. I’m sure it’s a little bit whiny, but it was sort of cathartic.
Also, I was really just hoping to get my followers for my puppy’s Instagram (@NBAChampionKyrieIriving).
Likewise, thanks for sharing. An excellent analysis with a point of view that matches mine. I really like the descriptions of the typical Warriors fans. I saw next to two last night that would fit the “nouveux riche tech douche” category. I asked the more obnoxious of the two if he thought Chris Mullin would fit into today’s Warriors, and he had no idea who Mullin was……….just like the article says.
Lance you wrote that?! Amazing work and dead on. I sent it out to a lot of friends.
Very nice work with the appropriate amount of self awareness. It reminds me very much of the in depth discussion on this blog of the Hinkie Sixers and quality. Nice work.
After last year — winning with a historic comeback to end the city’s 52-year drought — this year was bound to be an anticlimax, even if the Cavs won again.
Really, about the only they could top last year would be to fall behind 0-3 and come back to win.
Yep
I can’t wait.
To me is simple, the Warriors were already great last year at 73-9 and then they added arguably the 2nd best player in the league and of course we was going to get this result.
But like a said to a friend today if the Cavs were the one’s who added Durant in the off-season the Warriors would be the one’s getting swept right now. It’s as simple as that.
Agreed. The Cavs can beat them, but have zero margin for error.
During the regular season we coasted. Won on talent. Bad habits were formed. Plus, we thought since we won last year we could flip the switch. Versus the east we can. Against GSW the margin for error is razor thin. We can’t afford stupid/lazy plays. It is 3 or a dunk every time.
Exactly!
Man what a way to go down…
Cavs absolutely needed that one. I just don’t see them coming back after giving it their all in last night’s game, kind of like the Wiz after game 6 with the Celts.
Well, start making calls and trying to land a good trade.
Call me crazy but if the Cavs want to have a chance they need to try to trade anyone not named Kyrie or LeBron for PG13.
Then they can match up better:
PG13-KD
LeBron – Green
Kyrie – Curry
Klay-JR
TT or Love -Zaza
The Cavs need more speed and length to compete against the Warriors. If they keep the same roster we will get the same result.
And if they could land PG13, at the same time you can have 2 really good players (PG13 and Kyrie) to build for the future when Lebron retires.
My honest opinion.
Crazy. Also plagiarised from the ringer.
If your want to maximize Lebron’s peak window, you need to go for someone like Milsap, CP3 etc.. Without Lebron, Kyrie and Love can’t be center pieces as their record before Lebron shows. Add only 2 way players to fill the roster.
Didn’t look like the end was very well coached. I don’t understand why LeBron didn’t take it directly to the hoop. Nobody can stop him when he drives. Also, shouldn’t they have gone directly at Draymond in the 4th since he had 5 fouls?
Yep
Also, why can we never figure out how to execute on the 2 for 1 at the end of quarters. This is basic stuff. These guys played their hearts out last night, and yet dumb mistakes totally undermined their effort, which is so f***ing frustrating.
Kyrie, in particular, never seems to grasp this concept…
Kyrie is the best one on one player in the league full stop. It’s kinda ridiculous what he is capable of doing. But he’s never been lauded for being a heady player. Even at the end of Game 7 Last year, JVG did a nice job pointing out how Kyrie was sprinting down the court trying to score 1 on 3 with the Cavs up 3. He very nearly threw the ball away instead of just holding it. His decision to burn all that clock before attempting a step back 3 showed a complete ignorance of the situation. I’m becoming… Read more »
Love was really good last night. Just the entire team except Leb and JR could not hit a three.
Oops- messed that up. Tired of the Durant is the better player talk. Imagine if LBJ and Durant switched teams this series. And if you are talking about the best in the game, you should always include the one man who can slow down LBJ – Kawhi. He took his team to over 60 wins and that roster is really weak. Is LeBron getting tired at the end of games – of course he is, given the load he has to carry. The stats are clear on that. But imagine if he were able to rest and had better defenders… Read more »
bballfansince69
I’m not sure you guys understand this concept. And I’m not trying to be trolly or snarky.
There’s evidence that on a game to game basis three point shooting varies so widely that you can’t really judge a team’s defense by how well the other team shoots from beyond the arc. In line with this thinking, the real way to judge a team’s defense is by how well they do discouraging the attempting of those threes. On this night, the Cavaliers attempted 44 threes, making just 12 of them. 27%. The Warriors attempted 33 of them, making 16. 49%.
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/imgLib/20120606_LARGE_shut_up_614_x_480.jpg
I do not understand the blowback against an easily understood concept. I didn’t make this up.
It wasn’t the threes. it was the thrown away offensive and defensive possessions and all the uncontested dunks. Derp.
You plagiarized.
This isn’t an academic conference. It’s a little more casual. Half of any boring dinner party conversation is plagiarism from the day’s edition of the nyt.
Cols be sure to h/t David Zavac at Fear The Sword next time you quote him
Damn, Cols is a plagiarizer.
Oh, I meant to put the link in. I would never pass it off as my own research. I suck.
all good, Cols :)
After last night’s game, I’m definitely OK with running this team back again next year. Tinker around the margins and hope that we are slightly better and they are slightly worse. Assuming LeBron can continue to be LeBron.
If “tinker around the margins” = find some guys who can play defense without giving up too much offensively, then sure…
Yeah, that’s fine. Hard to do but fine. I’m not sure what else they can do. If there was a top 5 player who also happened to be 7 feet tall and there was a weird cap spike that happened at the same time the top 5 player blew a 3-1 lead to the Cavs and wanted to join up, that would also work.
Anthony Davis?
Like add Paul George and Kawhi Leonard. Yea, down for some tinkering.
Cavs could add Paul George to this team…not give up anything, just add him to the roster, and the Warriors would still be heavy favorites…hard to imagine anything realistic they could do to really shift the scales. It would most likely take GS injuries…
I’ve heard a lot of complaining about the last two minutes of offense. I don’t see it. Two possessions in a row we got the highest quality looks this team can produce:. an open LBJ layup and an open Korver 3 pointer. Both missed. Really sucks, but those possessions were very well executed.
They missed their last eight shots dude… some were just missed open looks like the Korver three, but some were ill-advised jacks like the Kyrie shot…
Sure. But a lot of great offense by the Cavs and they missed. Meanwhile Durant went complete ISO on the other end. It sucks.
Also, 3 point variance was a killer.
That’s the last time you get to say “3 point variance” on this thread…
EG. Serious question. Why is this not allowed to be said? It’s a true thing. I didn’t make it up. The smart stats guys always talk about how 3 point variance can swing games and last night was an obvious example. I don’t understand why we can’t bring it up?
Because you’ve brought it up about 500 times this season… get some new material
It’s the biggest reason we lost last night so….
The biggest reason the Cavs lost is that the Warriors are better.
Cols…
The guys GS was playing are better 3 point shooters than the guys the Cavs were playing, and they also defend those shots better than the Cavs do. Open looks from 3 are easier to make than defended looks from 3. This has nothing to do with variance. It’s just an excuse from you.
I’d disagree. Cavs were #1 offense in playoffs before this series. They are missing looks they weren’t before. GS is hitting some ridiculous shots. Variance matters, but it’s not everything.
The Warriors were the 2nd rated defense all year for a reason. Love missed some open looks, for sure, and you can call that variance….it’s also variance when he makes 7-9. I didn’t see a lot of wide open shots from 3 for the Cavs, though, as they had against the Celtics and Raptors. Frye, their best, or co-best, three point shooter is also unplayable in this series. The Warrior’s best three point shooters are all too playable.
Take a look in the mirror. Your over policing is often warranted but sometimes is more annoying than Cols’ repitition. He’s not being repetitive here either.
VERY GOOD POINT ABOUT LEBRON——DEAN ON !!!!——–MOTIVATION FOR GAME 4 —–DO NOT LET THE DUBS MAKE HISTORY ( OR WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP ) ON YOUR HOME CT . !!!
I agree the Cavs’ lack of discipline on defense in the regular season is catching up with them. But who knows? Maybe if they played all-out all season they’d be exhausted or injured now. Even so, whatever happens this year, I hope they take a different approach next year in the regular season. For one, odds are they’d be better in the playoffs. Second, the Cavs are HARD to root for in the regular season when they’re clearly mailing it in every other game. Anyway, it’s not over yet! If the Cavs clear up some defensive breakdowns and shoot average… Read more »
Nah. Durant went ISO and won the game. Cavs destroyed everyone in their path but a team with 4 All-NBA guys in their primes.
I try to be polite, but your defeatism is so irritating. Everyone knows the Cavs have a huge mountain to climb, but I hope to goodness nobody in the Cavs organization has the poisonous attitude that you have. You sound like you think they may as well forfeit.
HOW MUCH DID DRAYMOND SIGN FOR AND HOW MUCH DID T.T. SIGN FOR —ALL I AM GOING TO SAY
I take solace in the amount of 3-1 torture the Warriors and their fan base endured for 11 months. No matter how bad they beat the Cavs, they can never erase the history that was made last year.
I feel for LeBron and believe this will unfairly tarnish his legacy. But he’s a good man and has done far more to uplift people outside of the court. That’s the only legacy that matters.
Good pod, but you’re delusional if you think Curry wasn’t injured last season. He couldn’t even shake TT or K-Love off the dribble and now he’s doing it at will, that’s why he didn’t go to the Olympics, Iggy was hurt too.
The Cavs would’ve won in 2015 if healthy and we would’ve lost last season if the Dubs were healthy….either way 1-1.
Was he injured or was he exhausted? I thought he showed enough flashes in the 2016 Finals to prove he was no longer injured; it looked to me like he was wiped out. It’s weird because “injured” is taken as an acceptable reason for poor play (for Curry anyways), but “exhausted” is a loser crybaby excuse. Implication: if we win because their guy is “injured” it kinda only half counts, but if we win because we ran their guy into the ground it’s a credit to us. I like “exhausted” better.
Fine. Then Kyrie is hurt this year.
Kyrie and Kevin were 1-14 from downtown. It seems like every game the Warriors find something to take away, or Cavs give up by not hitting their averages.
I’m officially on the “Durant has ruined everything” bandwagon. Pestak’s early year prediction was dead on, they just didn’t go undefeated in the regular season…
Great pod guys…although it didn’t put me to sleep like normal. Probably an emotional hangover from that game…whew!
There is nothing I’d like more than a game 7 after the Cavs have won 3 straight…can’t see the warriors winning a game 7. Hopefully we get at least game 5. Kyrie is going to have a monster game 4…just depends if we have the legs to finish.
Haven’t listened so the podcast yet, but paul pierce calling Durant the new best NBA player after the game…holy crap paul…have you seen his teammates?? He barely has to do anything on defense and he has an entire legion of insanely good shooters on the court at all times. He hasn’t been double teamed all year. Give me a friggin break