Cavs vs. Warriors -- 2017 NBA Finals

[dark2332]

I'm glad people are confident, and yes, we are playing great basketball right now. Based on that, we have a chance.

However, make no mistake. If we win this it would be one of the greatest Finals upsets of all time.

There's a difference between being confident and being arrogant.

 

[BigJ]

I'm glad people are confident, and yes, we are playing great basketball right now. Based on that, we have a chance.

However, make no mistake. If we win this it would be one of the greatest Finals upsets of all time.

There's a difference between being confident and being arrogant.

Record wise actually.. nope.. Exactly the same 16 Win disparity as last year.. And i would say the difference between a 73 Win Team and a 57 Win Team is greater than between a 51 Win Team and a 67 Win Team. 67 Wins happens relatively often compared to 73..

I dont think anybody is really arrogant. We know how good we are and yet everybody knows how hard this will be. Its more the confidence that we have came back against them last year from 1-3 .. we know how they likley will react under pressure.. and we have a clear advantage there..

I also would disagree.. a healthy Talented, Deep team with Lebron at his Peak cant ever be an upset.. Yes in the RS we where far inferior.. but Looking at Playoffs only we Win out Games by 15.8 compared to their 17.1 .. thats basically identical.. also in both cases utter dominance.. And looking at how injured their Opponents are i would not even say their Dominance is more Impressive than ours.. i would say its equal.

In the Playoffs we are at their Level. Thats not Arrogance.. thats looking at the Stats.. Both Teams are on the Same Statistical Level. We have a big edge in Offense.. they have a big edge in defense(skewed by our bad first Round.. Since Second Round our defense is just as good as theirs).. Pretty even overall.

 

[CHIMOCHIS]

I want to see stats of how our defense is as good as golden states

 

[CleveRocks]

If the definition of underdog is the sports betting not favorite, then tge cavs winning the finals would be an upset.. but your point is taken. I personally would not bet my house against lebron winning even if love and Kyrue were hurt..As it is, with the rest of the team playing excellent defense and Love in particular playing way better, i think we have a shot..

 

[Cratylus]

Maybe I'm a prisoner of the moment and falling victim to recency bias, but I feel completely confident in saying that whichever team loses in The Finals will be the best team to not win a championship in that season.

It is just like Cleveland to have one of the best teams ever in a season where there is another GOAT level team.

The Lakers team that lost the 1984 Finals to the Celtics... it had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Bob McAdoo, Jamaal Wilkes, and James Worthy. Five HOFers coached by another one: Pat Riley.

 

[BigJ]

I want to see stats of how our defense is as good as golden states

Here you go: http://stats.nba.com/teams/advanced/#!?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1&Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Playoffs&LastNGames=7

As i said our defense really picked Up 7.5 Games ago so i took the last 7 Games.. you can take last 8 Games and our defense gets a little worse..

Last 7 Games:

GSW 99.6 DefRTG
Cle: 99.1 Defrtg

Usually i would use basketball Reference but i dont know if you can filter for Games there..

 

[dark2332]

If the definition of underdog is the sports betting not favorite, then tge cavs winning the finals would be an upset.. but your point is taken. I personally would not bet my house against lebron winning even if love and Kyrue were hurt..As it is, with the rest of the team playing excellent defense and Love in particular playing way better, i think we have a shot..

I definitely think we have a shot. I'm excited by what I see. Of course, as a Cavs fan, I'm ready for them. It will just take us playing near-perfect basketball.

For instance, game one against the Celtics, we played very hard but we were rusty from the 3-point line due to the long lay-off.

That, along with our hustling defense (which was maximized by Boston missing open looks), was enough to completely overwhelm Boston. We physically imposed our will inside. It wasn't close, we destroyed them.

If we play that same Game 1 against Golden State, we likely lose a hard-fought game. That's my point. We have to be clicking on all cylinders to beat them in a series because they have so many weapons now with Durant. Frankly, they are hard to neutralize unlike last year.

We can play a good defensive game and still only hold them to 110 points. They are that good. Therefore, we must be equipped to score against their very stout defense.

Of course, if we play every game like we did in Game 2, we win. We are perfectly capable, we just have little margin for error. That's my point.

 

[godfather]

I wasn't serious about us sweeping GS. But, I don't think it would be that big of an upset. Come on, guys, we have LeBron James. Like he said himself, he's never truly the underdog, or this Cinderella story when he wins.

Cleveland, us, winning last year was a Cinderella story.

I guarantee when both series' conclude, GS will be the favorites, but it won't be by a landslide.

We still have 3 all-stars, lead by the GOAT in this generation. No one can deny that. And maybe the greatest ever, and he's playing at his best.

I think it's pretty even. GS is more talented, but LB tilts the scales so much. We got better depth than last year. We are a more talented team. I don't give a shit what our record was. We are more talented, that just never played at its peak in the regular season. We are finally playing at our peak, and we are a very dangerous team that definitely is capable of beating GS.

Either team can win this series. Can be it GS? Of course they can. You'd be foolish to think they can't, I get that.

But I think people are buying too much into the GS myth/hype, and underselling what's taken place if they think it's going to be against all odds for us to pull it out.

With LeBron James? Nah.... Won't be easy. Winning a title never is, but it should be a close series.

I don't see us as this overwhelming under dog going against the big bad Warriors. I see it as two power houses colliding that should be an epic finals.

 

[BigJ]

I wasn't serious about us sweeping GS. But, I don't think it would be that big of an upset. Come on, guys, we have LeBron James. Like he said himself, he's never truly the underdog, or this Cinderella story when he wins.

Cleveland, us, winning last year was a Cinderella story.

I guarantee when both series' conclude, GS will be the favorites, but it won't be by a landslide.

We still have 3 all-stars, lead by the GOAT in this generation. No one can deny that. And maybe the greatest ever, and he's playing at his best.

I think it's pretty even. GS is more talented, but LB tilts the scales so much. We got better depth than last year. We are a more talented team. I don't give a shit what our record was. We are more talented, that just never played at its peak in the regular season. We are finally playing at our peak, and we are a very dangerous team that definitely is capable of beating GS.

Either team can win this series. Can be it GS? Of course they can. You'd be foolish to think they can't, I get that.

But I think people are buying too much into the GS myth/hype, and underselling what's taken place if they think it's going to be against all odds for us to pull it out.

With LeBron James? Nah.... Won't be easy. Winning a title never is, but it should be a close series.

I don't see us as this overwhelming under dog going against the big bad Warriors. I see it as two power houses colliding that should be an epic finals.

Yeah pretty much where i stand. Many people havent fully recovered from the Regular Season yet seemingly.. For the Playoffs only we are just as dominant as GSW.. Its really two unbelievably good Teams on a colission course.

We demolish our Oppnents by 15.8 Points them by 17.1 thats hardly a quantifiable difference.. Its just both incredibly ridicolous.. And close enough to see that no Team is better than the other..

Slowly even the Media starts to turn.. i heard alot of guys altering their Predictions.. many now say "Its not 80/20 anymore like i thought before the Playoffs its now more like 50/50" ..
If you just forget the RS... we are easilly on par with them and as i said in another Post since Game 3 Of the First Round we even have the better Defense..


At the end of the day they are more Talented at the Top(We have the deeper bench though!) but he have Lebron and a pretty Big Advantage in terms of Intangibles and Chemistry. So as a Cavs Fan of Course i think we will win..

 

[Cavatt]

Warriors have looked very beatable in this series.

I don't think there is a major talent disparity. We have players that ratchet it up in the playoffs and they have some underwhelmed.

 

[shoes22]

Warriors have looked very beatable in this series.

I don't think there is a major talent disparity. We have players that ratchet it up in the playoffs and they have some underwhelmed.

Yeah, the Warriors just look...different, this year. It's not the same offense as last year and they're not as fine tuned on defense.

Obviously they have more talent than last year, but the Warriors adding Durant makes them incorporate a lot more ISO and one-on-one ball instead of the constant motion and passing we're used to seeing out of them, and it changed their style of play in a way that is easier for teams to beat.

 

[FrontPageNews]

I'm still worried about our defense against GS. We gave up a lot of open looks to Boston and Toronto that they missed. GS isn't missing those. They don't have any Marcus smarts or derozens out there that can't shoot 3s. But offensive I have no doubt we can hang with them. Just get curry into a pnr and take him out. Let this series come down to lebron vs KD. I like our chances there.

 

[shoes22]

I'm still worried about our defense against GS. We gave up a lot of open looks to Boston and Toronto that they missed.

I'd be willing to bet anything that we're not going to use the same defensive scheme that we used against Toronto and Boston against Golden State. Leaving those guys you mentioned open was 100% by design.

 

[bigfoot5415]

I'm still worried about our defense against GS. We gave up a lot of open looks to Boston and Toronto that they missed. GS isn't missing those. They don't have any Marcus smarts or derozens out there that can't shoot 3s. But offensive I have no doubt we can hang with them. Just get curry into a pnr and take him out. Let this series come down to lebron vs KD. I like our chances there.

We gave them those shots because we know they cant knock them down. Plus its not like they aren't contested. Odds are we wont sag off nearly as much, and deny on their 3 main shooters. Expect a lot plays were we go under screens off ball, but hard hedge on ball.

 

[Jscc]

We gave up a lot of open looks to Boston and Toronto that they missed.

Lue said those open looks are by design, especially against Boston. As you can see, they missed them so there's no need to adjust the game-plan. Golden State's best shooters won't get those looks.