LeBron James and the Cavaliers sustained a severe beating on their home floor courtesy of the Warriors Monday night, at one point falling behind by 43 points. After the game James said that it is not time for the Cavs or their fans to panic. His calm is admirable, but he’s wrong.
"I'm not going to put too much into it," James said. "It's easy to say something when it's bad. I like to get on us when we're doing well, to try and keep us focused. I'm not a kick-a-man-when-you're-down type of guy. That's not my motto."
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Losing badly to the Warriors isn’t anything to be ashamed of, and that’s not why the panic needs to set it. The problem is that the road to an NBA title in Cleveland will likely go through Golden State, and it looks like the Cavaliers are locked into a roster that isn’t built to beat them.
The Warriors have perfected “small ball,” which describes teams playing with non-traditional big men at the power forward and/or center spot, and creating more spacing on the floor, while shooting more 3-pointers. What sets the Warriors apart, however, is that their non-traditional bigs – Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Andre Iguodala – can also D up players much bigger than they are.
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Three of Cleveland’s five most expensive players are traditional bigs. Kevin Love is the second-highest paid Cavalier, Tristan Thompson is the fourth, and Anderson Varejao rounds out the top 5. Of those three, only Love is an above-average shooter from distance, and none of them can defend wings.
In last season’s Finals, Love and Kyrie Irving were out, and Cleveland competed with the Warriors by virtue of their improved defense. At the end of the day, they could not score with Golden State though. Now, with Love and Irving back, Cleveland’s offense has improved, but defense goes out the window, as evidenced by the Warriors scoring 132 points in regulation.
The Warriors can play with a traditional center, Andrew Bogut, to combat Cleveland’s big men, or they can go ultra-small with Green as their center, and render the likes of Thompson or Timofey Mozgov obsolete. And to make matters worse, Green has become such a good defender that even James sometimes struggles to score on him in one-on-one situations.
So yes, it’s time to panic Cleveland. Love, Irving and Thompson are all locked up through the 2019-20 season, and Kyrie Irving still doesn’t play defense. This team can certainly win the West, but it’s looking like they are out of luck when it comes to the Warriors.
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