CLEVELAND: Twenty-eight thoughts for 28 shots by Kyrie Irving in the Cavs’ 108-97 loss to the Golden State Warriors in Game 4 of the NBA Finals…
1. Here is the position the Cavs find themselves in today: No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals. Nor have the Warriors lost three straight all season.
2. In fact, the Warriors didn’t lose three straight at any point last season, either. The last time they lost three in a row was Nov. 20-23, 2013. They have played 284 games since then.
3. “If you don’t think we can win, don’t get on the plane,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “We’ve got to come back anyway, so we might as well come back and play. We’ve got to come back to Cleveland, don’t we?”
4. If they’re coming back to play another game, they’re going to have to play significantly better in the second half than they did Friday. LeBron James spent all season talking about building habits, building the right habits, winning habits. But with the season on the line, James and Kyrie Irving reverted back to isolation basketball and the Warriors swallowed them up.
5. James and Irving combined to take 33 of the Cavs’ 38 shots in the second half. Kevin Love took two. Iman Shumpert, Richard Jefferson and Tristan Thompson each took one. And that was it.
6. “We’ve got to be aggressive,” James said. “Obviously, we don’t want to hear it in that form. We want to get our guys involved and keep our guys in a good rhythm. I just think it was just the way the game played out tonight.”
7. Irving scored 34 points, but he shot just 3 of 10 in the fourth quarter. James fell one assist shy of a triple-double, but committed seven more turnovers to give him 23 for this series. His 67 turnovers in this postseason are nearly double the next-closest on the Cavs (Irving’s 39).
8. Lue has defended the Cavs’ isolation play throughout this series, saying at times it’s necessary because of the way the Warriors switch everything defensively. James has been a little more critical of it. By the fourth quarter, however, there was far too much dribbling and not enough ball movement.
9. After all the angst over what to do with Kevin Love, it ultimately was a non-factor. Love indeed came off the bench for the first time in more than six years, scoring 11 points and grabbing five rebounds in 25 minutes.
10. It had all the makings of being a series-changing move. Harrison Barnes, the player many thought the Cavs would draft four years ago, knocks out Love and provides the Cavs the chance to change their lineup. Love comes off the bench to fill the David Lee role.
11. Only Richard Jefferson was unable to duplicate the spark he provided in Game 3, leaving Lue with a difficult decision to make for Game 4: Return to Love as a starter or stick with Jefferson?
12. “I just tried to provide a spark,” Love said. “I really wanted to get off to a good start.”
13. He made his first shot, a putback off an offensive rebound in the first quarter, but the Warriors eventually kept Love and Tristan Thompson off the glass as the game progressed.
14. I usually don’t make a big deal about the officiating, but they seemed to miss some glaring calls in this one. From James’ strip of Andre Iguodala that clearly went out off Iguodala (the Warriors retained possession and eventually scored) to some of the shots James took throughout the game without getting fouls called.
15. James played 46 minutes and inexplicably took four free throws despite attacking the rim throughout the night.
16. “It’s been like that all year,” James said of his lack of calls. “I’m not quite sure what I can do personally to get to the free-throw line, but I’ve got to continue to be aggressive for our team. I’m getting hit, but the refs are not seeing it that way.”
17. James got into it with Draymond Green late in the game. James tried stepping over Green, but Green got up quickly and the two got tangled up. Replays showed Green punching James in the groin, something Cavs players watched in the locker room afterward. The two also exchanged words on the court after ESPN reported Green called James a b----.
18. “Draymond just said something that I don’t agree with,” James said. “I’m all cool with competition. I’m all fine with that, but some of the words that came out of his mouth was a little bit overboard.”
19. As for the punch, Green has left himself open to a suspension for Game 5. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but the league has to review it. Green is one flagrant foul away from a one-game suspension.
20. Green’s infamous kick to Steven Adams’ groin was upgraded from a flagrant-1 to a flagrant-2 by the league. If Green’s punch is deemed excessive, he may not be around for Game 5. James, however, isn’t anticipating that happening.
21. “I don’t know what should happen. It’s not my call,” James said. “That’s the league office. They’ll take a look at it.” Asked if he thought the league would take action, James said bluntly, “no.”
22. The real problem in all of this, of course, is that the Splash Brothers are awake and engaged. Steph Curry got rolling in the fourth quarter of Game 3 last year and carried it over to Game 4 at the Q. He ignited again in Game 4 on Friday, making seven 3-pointers and scoring 38 points. It was his first game scoring at least 20 points in this series on a night the Warriors set an NBA Finals record with 17 3-pointers. Klay Thompson scored 25 points and added four 3-pointers.
23. “I don’t know that the shots were that much better than they’ve been, I just think they got going,” Kerr said. “Sooner or later it’s going to happen. With guys like that, you can’t keep them down forever. … Law of averages took over.”
24. The numbers support Kerr. Exactly half of the Warriors’ shots in Wednesday’s Game 3 were considered open looks (when the nearest defender is at least 4 feet away). They shot just 15 of 38 in part because Curry and Thompson were a combined 4 of 12 in those instances.
25. In Friday’s Game 4, the Warriors were 20 of 40 under the same parameters. Curry and Thompson combined to go 11 of 19.
26. The odds facing this team now are nearly insurmountable. A Green suspension would help the cause, but ultimately it’s probably delaying the inevitable. All of the changes the Cavs made to the roster, the coaching change, lineup changes… the harsh reality is none of it matters. The Cavaliers still haven’t closed the gap on the Golden State Warriors.
27. “For me as the leader of this team, we’ve just got to get one,” said James, whose streak of 25 consecutive playoff series with a road victory is now in jeopardy. “Let’s get one. We’ve already got to take a flight back home anyways, so we might as well come home with a win and play on our home floor again. Being a confident bunch, we feel like the chips have been stacked up against us all year anyway.”
28. Never like this. Talk to you Monday from Oracle Arena for Game 5 and what could be perhaps the last game of the year.
