I KNOW he didn't. I was just needling the "intelligencia" in media and Fandom that keep repeating that mantra.
Also notice how Matthew Delawhatever suddenly went back to his role of scrub yesterday? It is easy to be noticed in the weak east. Yesterday the Warriors showed that guy is nothing but D League talent.
I will definitely give props to Section on this one. I've been following the NBA Thread for almost 2 years now. When LeBron left Miami, a lot of posters and media folks said that Wade was breaking down and Lebron upgraded to a younger, healthier Kyrie. Section said it was nonsense and that Kyrie is injury-prone. Sombich was right.
Some of the Cavs fans in this thread saw AND read a different game than I did. You guys thought Golden State played well? They shot 4 points below their averages across the board. They were 10.1 Points BELOW their Offensive Efficiency Rating, and right at their Defensive Rating. In Contrast... Cleveland was 7.7 Points BELOW Their Off. Eff. Rat., and 5.4 Points BETTER Defensively. So to recap....Golden State was bad offensively, and right at their averages Defensively. Cleveland was Half as bad as Golden State Offensively, But Improved drastically Defensively. In essence, by percentages, Golden State Beat Cleveland at about 90% Efficiency, While Cleveland was at around 98%. ALL THIS and Cavs still lost? You should not be encouraged. Just the opposite.
Game 3, Semi-Finals vs. Pacers, after not being able to jog due to knee pain..Wade had one of his worst games as a Heat. He took a Needle (He is afraid of needles, and has religious objections to Needles BTW) to his knee to have it drained. Dwyane Wade then proceeded to take the Pacers...kindly place them in a bag...and beat the living hell out of the bag with a sledgehammer, the next three games. (Averaged 33 ppg. on 62% shooting.) D-Wade is one TOUGH Mother****er. Kyrie Irving is too young and has too much to look forward too... to have any "real" desperation and intensity. Maybe it will come with time..maybe it never comes. and again..Kyrie has missed more playoffs games this postseason (His 1st) than Wade has missed (Playoff games) his entire career. (152 playoff games played)
The other thing last night proved is how terrible the East was. Atlanta may have been the most fraudulent 60 win team of all time. I have absolutely no doubt that if LeBron had stayed, and Bosh still got blood clots, that we'd be in the Finals right now.
Glad to see the thread back to life, welcome back Heaaa....I mean Warrior.....ehhh MIAMI fans to the thread. Us regulars missed ya.
Just to balance out you Cavs fans..especially You that has been suffering all these years. Oh wait..you aren't a Cavs fan? nevermind.
I don't really see how you can say that. What if Shumpert's shot falls, does it still prove that? The Cavs could have easily won that game and it can be argued they SHOULD have won that game in regulation. I don't know that last night's game proved much of anything other than LeBron is still a freak and the Warriors will be tough to beat. I will say this, though. They got a monster game from LeBron, a great game by Irving (in regulation), and still lost. They also now have a big question mark with Irving's injury. That combined is probably bad news. I'm not writing this series off by any means, because they have the best player on the court every night, but that has to be discouraging for the Cavs, and they'll probably need LeBron to play like that every game along with great play from at least one other player to have a chance in this series. That could still happen, but it will be tough.
This is how I saw it as well. I kept waiting for the Dubs to kick into gear and look like the Dubs...but they were still somehow close on the scoreboard. Not a good sign. Though I was really impressed with Shumpert's job on Curry and I think that can keep up if Shump stays confident. But on the other end the Cavs are in a bind: they want LeBron to score, distribute, do it all...but they don't want to deal with the Warriors' swarming PnR defense that leads to so many turnovers and fastbreaks. The Cavs would rather grind them down than let the game get that open. Last night's solution - to iso LeBron all night - sort of worked but really didn't. LeBron scored a bunch, but it was all hard work: very few easy looks near the restricted area, a lot more jumpers than you'd probably like on a nightly basis, and no one else was served up those open looks.
Yes it still proves that. The only reason the Cavs were in that position is because the Warriors were off in the first half. With or without Kyrie the Cavs will lose next game by minimum of 15 points.
Yes, I say that. Look at the way cleveland's role players played overall. Shumpert, JR and Dellavedova were basically neutralized the entire night. Those guys looked like stars against Chicago and Atlanta. They are not. LeBron made them look good against the East, now they're being exposed against the West. Those guys are the equivalent of Chalmers, Cole, etc. Not anywhere near as good as Battier and Ray Allen.
You two are certainly not who i was reffering too. You are both loyal (insert vs Cavs) fans who haven't deviated from the thread.
Find it funny how a certain person alludes to Heat fans being bandwagoners, yet he is the perfect exhibit of a LeBron and Cavalier bandwagoner. The irony is sweet.
Composite Efficiency. Offensive Efficiency Rating/TS%/EFG%/3pt.Diffvs. Avg./3pt. Diff./Off. Reb. Rate. You get each one, weigh it against league average. Add them all together. Then Divide by 6. You then get that number and compare it to their season sample. For the Cavs, I compared it to their Sample from January 7th on.
It is. Because folks like you didn't say a WORD when I was pro Lebron when he was with the Heat, now that he left it just burns you like a 50 cent hooker...so it is ironic. Your reply to that fact shall be fun to read.
Firstly, I did not mention you, funny you instantly recognized you as the target of the post . Secondly, doesn't you mentioning your support for LeBron as a Heat give even more evidence of how big a LeBron bandwagoner and jock-sniffer you are? Though your devotion for the Cavs LeBron far exceeds your support for Heat LeBron. You've taken your bandwagon to whole nother level. You've pimped your ride! Hope the reply amused you!
I didn't mention you....Atleast you're accountable. You tried to put a twist on it, props for that. And yes. It was/is/you are amusing.
As for the game and future, losing a game you should have won is always deflating...I don't see a game 2 win for the Cavs ecspecially without a healthy Kyrie. It's a shame the Cavs have lost basically 2/3rds of their "big three" to injury, that city really is cursed.
Some of us made lengthy cases for why Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving were an inferior "Big Three" cast..with the main reason being that Both were injury prone. Now people are surprised that they are hurt again? I think IF HEALTHY...the entire team comes back...is healthy all year (especially in the playoffs) ...they win a championship. Now..will they be healthy? When does Lebron begin his precipitous decline? What the Heat did the last 4 years WAS NOT EASY. Some people thought it was, and would be even easier to replicate.
I always get pushback when I say this and I know Wade and Bosh had injuries that forced them to miss playoff games - But it's pretty crazy they got 4 seasons out of 3 guys without a single season-ending injury. In fact - did anyone on the Heat suffer a season-ending injury in that span? Just for the Big 3 if you add up those 4 seasons that's 12 seasons of health. In today's NBA that seems insane. And I'm not trying to say their titles were luck or cheapen them. It's just watching Love, and Rose, and Westbrook, and Durant, and George, and Curry, etc over the last few years - health is such a fragile thing in the NBA. It's why it's so damn hard to see Love, and Varejao, and Kyrie get hurt this year. Cavs have an awesome core that should compete - but so did OKC. Or Chicago with Rose before them. Or Portland with Oden and Roy before them. Or the Magic with Shaq and Penny before them. Just don't know when you're gonna get a chance like this.
Kyrie Irving is out for 3 to 4 months. Fractured Knee Cap. Tendinitis? NO. Bad diagnosis. Nice Job Cavs Docs.
The closest to a season ending injury we had during that span was Haslem in the first season, he didn't come back till Game 2 of the ECF.
Bosh did miss a long stretch of games in year 2. Wade missed One playoff game. When up 3-0 vs. the Bucks in the 1st round two years ago.
This is the main reason i wasnt that hyped about this team going into the season, but they made some pretty solid trades mid year that helped a ton. LeBron with solid role players wont be enough in the finals though.
Shumpert, JR, and Dellavedova weren't stymied by swarming defense, though. They just came back down to earth a little bit (which I said earlier in this thread could easily happen). I agree that the East is as weak as it's been in some time, I'm not debating that. But I don't think last night's game proved that in any way. The Cavs could have easily won that game and would be up 1-0 with home court.
Whelp, so much for Warriors in 6. Without Kyrie (on top of Love), I don't see us having enough offense to really make this any sort of series. Hope I am wrong. Probably going to look a lot like the last time Lebron took the Cavs to the finals. :/
I find it funny the Cavs forgot about scrub Delawhatever and left without him and he had to rely on Uber to get to the hotel.
