Thoughts On Hoops And Cavs…

Some basketball thoughts and how they pertain to the Cleveland Cavaliers as the NBA Finals are in full swing.

**This has been a theme for us all year, but both the Celtics and Mavericks are significantly bigger all around the court than the Cavs. Boston goes with two 6’4″ guards, their forwards are 6’6″ and 6’7″ and with Al Horford at center they are still taller at three spots than the Cavs.

If Kristaps Porzingis is at center, they are taller at four spots with only Evan Mobley having a size advantage.

Dallas goes 6’10” at center, 6’7″ and 6’5″ at the forwards, and 6’7″ and 6’2″ in the backcourt. But they have two bigs they bring off the bench in Maxi Kleber and Dereck Lively, both of whom are 6’10”.

The Cavs simply have to get more size, particularly in the backcourt and small forward and running it back with the same crew simply doesn’t get that done.

Last year’s champs, Denver, goes 6’11”, 6’10”, 6’8″ up front with guards who are 6’4″ and 6’5″. The 2021 title holders, Milwaukee, started a 7 foot center, a 6’11” and 6’7″ pair at forwards and a backcourt of 6’4″ and 6’5″ players.

**Hall of Famer Becky Hammon, coach of the WNBA Las Vegas Aces, a great player and longtime assistant coach for the Spurs took some heat during the NBA season for suggesting it is difficult to win with a smaller player as your best player.

We agree with her. Think about it, how many small players were the best players on championship teams? We can think about only Isiah Thomas, who at 6’1″ led the Pistons to back-to-back titles.

It isn’t impossible. But that’s what the Cavaliers have to think about when building around Donovan Mitchell, should he agree to a contract extension.

And remember those Pistons’ teams had three big men, 6’11” or bigger among the top eight on their team in minutes, and one of the best wing defenders ever coming off the bench and getting starter minutes.

We aren’t saying they should abandon the Mitchell led team, but we are saying they need to put some size around him.

**Don’t forget the Cavs do have the 20th overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft and there should be some size and experience there when they make their selection.

By experience, we mean players who have played a couple of years in college and because of that should be able to contribute right away. A couple of our favorites are 6’9″ Tristan da Silva, a four year college player at Colorado out of Germany and 6’10” Bobi Klintman, who played one year at Wake Forest, but is 21 years old.

We did see one mock draft with Cleveland taking a 6’5″ combo player and if that happens, we will lose any shred of confidence we have with the current front office.

It has been a while since the draft has been a thought in Cleveland. The Cavs did draft Ochai Agbaji in the first round in 2022, but he was quickly dealt to Utah in the Mitchell transaction.

Hopefully, whoever the Cavs select later this month will be around longer than Agbaji.

Bad Old Defensive Habits Haunting The Cavs.

The backs are firmly to the wall for the Cleveland Cavaliers. They can’t lose a game for the rest of the playoffs, and will have to beat Golden State four straight times to win the NBA title.

What happened last night was simple. Too much Kevin Durant. On a night where the second leading scorer for the Warriors was two time Stephen Curry with 11 points, Durant was magnificent.

He made 15 of 23 shots, and not many of them were layups or dunks. He added 13 rebounds and seven assists, as he kept Golden State from getting blown out early, and then once the game was close, he supplied the dagger with a three pointer from about 35 feet out.

To us, the biggest problem last night was the basic tenets on defense that the Cavs have failed to establish all year long.

How many times did a mix up on the pick and roll result in a wide open dunk by a Golden State player? This is the Cavaliers’ 103rd game of the season, and by the looks of it, they still don’t have a set way of defending this most basic of basketball plays.

You can blame it on the roster turnover, but if the team had a defensive model, the new players would have adjusted to it by now.

We have railed against the switching scheme defensively all season long too. Our basic problem is it is lazy and more so, it allows the offense to dictate who is guarding whom.

Our question is this, who does Tyronn Lue want guarding Durant? Our preference would be Jeff Green and/or Larry Nance Jr. when they are in the game. However, the Cavs seem to be happy to use pretty much anyone else.

Most possessions end up with Durant being guarding by players like JR Smith, George Hill, and Kyle Korver. Why?

Look, you aren’t going to stop Durant, he’s a gifted offensive player, who because of his length can get his shot off wherever and whenever he wants. But you can make him more uncomfortable, and putting players five to six inches smaller on him doesn’t exactly do that.

When Cleveland made the deadline trades, the players they received in return were longer and more athletic. Unfortunately, the coaching staff either didn’t develop the newcomers well enough to contribute against a team that needs length and athleticism to defend them.

Rodney Hood is 6’8″, Nance is 6’9″, even Jordan Clarkson, who although he has been terrible offensively, has been decent on defense, is 6’5″. Are these guys just not good players, or were they minimized by the staff?

Someone said last night that the Cavs don’t appear to be obsessed with Golden State. The Rockets are. Maybe it’s because the wine and gold won in 2016.

It still looks like the Cavaliers are surprised by the new wrinkles the Warriors throw at them. Steve Kerr adjusts and uses JaVale McGee, and the Cavs have no answer, or at least it takes them five minutes to adjust.

Offensively, the Cavs still seem to go away from Kevin Love, their second best scorer. Love had a great first half last night, and then took three shots in the second half. That’s a crime.

And it wasn’t like Love was shrinking or playing tentatively. One of his second half hoops was a play where he took the ball right to Durant and got a layup.

Can the Cavs win on Friday and send the series back to the west coast? Perhaps, it’s not like the wine and gold have been blown out each game. It is similar to the 2007 Finals vs. San Antonio, when Cleveland lost by 9, 11, 3, and 1 points.

Unfortunately, the defensive issues won’t be going away.

Will James Ever Satisfy His Critics?

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going back to the NBA Finals for the fourth straight season.

Allow that to sink in for a moment. Four straight chances to play for the NBA title.

And to think LeBron James is responsible for making this happen. In fact, this is the fifth Finals appearance for the franchise, all with James as the centerpiece, the leader, and the best player on the roster.

James is making his ninth appearance in championship round, and the only players in history to have made more are Bill Russell, Sam Jones, and Kareen Abdul-Jabbar. That’s it.

By contrast, Michael Jordan went to only six Finals. Jerry West? Nine times, same as James. Magic Johnson? Only nine times.

Eight of those appearance by James have come in the last eight seasons, four with the Miami Heat, and of course, the last four with the wine and gold.

When Jordan was getting to the Finals on a yearly basis, outside of the two years he left the sport to play baseball, we recall the media adoring His Airness, appreciating what he was accomplishing.

It seems James gets nothing but criticism about his feat. Yesterday, we read how this season, the Cavaliers avoided the four next best players in the Eastern Conference: Giannis Antetokounmpo, Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, and Kyrie Irving, in order to win the conference title.

We also read about the terrible teams James defeated to advance to the title round.

James doesn’t have any control over either of these things. Both the Bucks and Sixers lost to the Celtics in the playoffs, the same Celtics that pushed the Cavs to seven games in the conference finals.

His team got a chance to play Boston, and they won. Would it be better for his legacy to lose this season or any of the other seven seasons? If he did, then the media critics would pound him for that.

Last season, Cleveland defeated the top seeded Celtics to get to the Finals. The year before, the Cavaliers were the top seed, and defeated the second seeded Raptors in six games.

In James’ first return year with the Cavs, the swept the first seed Atlanta Hawks.

And this year, Cleveland knocked off not only the top seeded Raptors, but also the second seeded Celtics.

In LeBron’s four years in Miami, his team was the top seed once, and beat the top seed twice to reach the NBA Championship round.

It is true that James’ record in the Finals is 3-5, but the only time you could claim his team was upset in the Finals was the loss to Dallas in the 2010-11 season. The other four losses came to the sports’ most consistently excellent franchise of the last 25 years, the San Antonio Spurs, and to Golden State.

The criticism gets really insane when the first loss to the Warriors, in which Cleveland was missing all-stars Kyrie Irving (injured in Game 1) and Kevin Love (missed the entire series), and yet the series still went six games.

And after the Cavs’ triumph in 2016, the Warriors fortified their roster by signing the league’s second best player in Kevin Durant.

When Jordan played, his teams were the equivalent to the Warriors, the team regarded as the league’s best. Meanwhile, in the last three seasons, the Cavaliers were considered the underdogs going into The Finals.

Perhaps James will be appreciated more when he retires from the sport, at least nationally. Maybe at that point, when he could be the sport’s all time leading scorer, and rank in the top five in assists, and the top 40 rebounders, we will realize his greatness as a player.

He’s not just a numbers compiler either. His nine conference titles should be proof of that.

Cavs’ Decisions? Keep Emotion Out Of It.

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost the NBA Finals last night, dropping Game 5, 129-120, thus losing the series, four games to one.

Now, comes the silly season for the NBA and their fans. The draft, which the Cavaliers currently will not be part of, is in two weeks, and then the free agency period starts.

The first thing the Cavs’ front office will do, and we say the front office, because GM David Griffin is currently without a contract, is act without emotion, something fans cannot and will not do.

This particularly pertains to Kevin Love, who is consistently the team’s whipping boy for the fans. If the wine and gold do not win, it is obviously Love’s fault.

However, Love averaged 16 points, 11 rebounds, and two steals in The Finals, shooting 39% from behind the three point line. And he had the best defensive rating on the team.

This is not to say Love should not be traded. Our belief is anyone can be traded if the return in right.

For example, right now, no one would want to deal Kyrie Irving, correct? But if New Orleans called and offered Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins, you’d make the trade.

Kevin Love is a top 25 player in the NBA, if you move him, you have to get somebody who’s a better player. And that’s not easy to do.

You would have to replace Love’s size (he’s the only other offensively skilled big man on the team besides LeBron James), his three point shooting, his rebounding (he led the Cavs), and his passing.

Good luck with that.

What the Cavaliers need to do is upgrade their bench to contend with the Warriors, because Kyle Korver, Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, and Deron Williams provided little in The Finals.

Those four contributed just 49 points combined in the five contests. Compare that to the 97 points supplied by Andre Iguodala, Shawn Livingston, and David West. You can make a very good argument that this is where the series was lost.

We believe Cleveland needs to get longer and more athletic on the bench. By longer, we mean players who are in the 6’6″ to 6’9″ range, with quickness and the ability to make an open shot.

Yes, they should be looking for “three and D” players.

Derrick Williams, who was missing against Golden State, would seem to be an ideal player. It is a little curious that Tyronn Lue didn’t find a role for him in The Finals.

When Cleveland had a great record in February, Williams was a key contributor.

This is not to hammer on Lue, who did a solid job considering he wasn’t getting anything from his non-starters.

We would guess some of the roster changes will come naturally. James Jones will probably retire, and he may be joined by Richard Jefferson, who hinted at doing so last season.

Will Deron Williams return, and what about Frye and Korver. The latter two provide shooting, so they would be useful, but they should be in a diminished role.

Also, Tristan Thompson needs to be more of an offensive player. He must develop a reliable shot from ten feet out so defenses have to pay attention to him.

As we said previously, the front office needs to step away for a few days, while the emotion of losing is still raw, and make decisions to get back to The Finals with a chance to win a title.

It could be an interesting summer at Quicken Loans Arena.

Previewing Cavs-Warriors III

Well, it’s finally here.

Tonight, the NBA Finals start and the rematch everyone expected prior to the playoffs starting has arrived, with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors doing battle for the third straight year.

And better yet, each team has won a title, making this the rubber match.

Make no mistake, the Golden State Warriors are a great team. They won 67 games in the regular season and have swept through the Western Conference playoffs. And their statistical resume is outstanding.

They led the NBA in field goal percentage, steals, and blocked shots. They are also number one in defensive field goal percentage and three point defensive field goal percentage.

They are also third in shooting the long range shot, but one of the teams are rank behind are the Cavaliers, who were second during the regular season.

If they have a weakness, they only rank 7th in the Association in rebounding and they are prone to turn the ball over, 9th in the league in that department.

However, we believe the Cavs have a solid chance to repeat as champions if they control the tempo, and are patient on offense.

We thought this before the San Antonio Spurs executed this in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals before Kawhi Leonard got hurt, and that performance early in that series just confirmed it.

There is no doubt that the Cavs will do what they did in last year’s Finals, that is, running pick-and-rolls with LeBron James and whoever Stephen Curry is guarding to get the matchup of Curry on James.

We understand many people think Curry is a good defender, but the metrics show the opposite, and besides he is five or six inches shorter than James and probably a good 70 to 80 pounds lighter.

Golden State is a solid defensive team, but we feel some of that comes from teams trying to place their style and at their pace. That leads to poor shot choices and poor passing, which accounts for their outstanding defensive field goal percentage and their steals.

We also think most NBA teams are intimidated by the Warriors. We said most, because most assuredly the Cavaliers are not.

We also have to bring up the way the games will be officiated. We have long contended that the Warriors are coached to foul each and every time down the floor, knowing the referees will not call them all.

If Golden State defenders are allowed to hack away at James’ arms when he takes the ball to the basket, that’s a huge advantage for them. The same with Curry and Klay Thompson on Kyrie Irving.

On the other hand, the Cavs want to be physical too. They will try to run Curry into picks, bumping him around hoping it will take its toll at the end of games and if the series goes to six or seven games.

One thing we don’t understand is the coaching edge everyone gives the Warriors if Steve Kerr is on the sidelines. Kerr is a fine coach, but we simply don’t see anything that gives him a decided edge over Tyronn Lue.

Lue has shown an ability to take away an opponents’ strength offensively. This ability will be tested in this series.

We believe the Cavaliers can win this series, and the Warriors shouldn’t be an overwhelming favorite. We understand they are favored, but it shouldn’t be a 90% chance.

As for a hero if the Cavs pull it off, besides one of the big three? We think JR Smith comes up big in a Cleveland repeat.

Getting To Finals Doesn’t Get Old

Let it soak in Cleveland.

It was anticipated since the start of the regular season that the Cavaliers would get back to The NBA Finals and have a chance to defend the title they won last June 19th.

And here we are after the Cavs dominated the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, four games to one.

The only game Boston won, the wine and gold had a 21 point lead midway through the third quarter.

It was that much of a mismatch.

So, the Cavaliers, a downtrodden franchise since the Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, and Larry Nance era, is heading to their third consecutive trip to The Finals, and the fourth overall in franchise history.

All four of those squad contain a certain LeBron James, who became the most prolific scorer in league playoff history tonight.

As for James, he is making his seventh consecutive trip to The Finals and his eighth overall.

Just for comparison, Michael Jordan played for the NBA title six times.

The only players in NBA history who have played in more championship series are as follows:

Bill Russell                      12
Sam Jones                       11
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10
Jerry West                        9
Magic Johnson                9
Tommy Heinsohn          9

That’s it. Three of those players played with those Celtic teams that dominated the late 50’s and 60’s. It’s incredible to ponder James’ greatness and to think he has now been to the ultimate series four times with two different franchises.

Of course, we know just getting to The Finals isn’t enough for James or the rest of the Cavaliers for that matter.

This is the rubber match against the Golden State Warriors, and unlike the great Celtic-Lakers’ rivalry in the 1980’s, we don’t think there is a lot of respect for each other.

Cleveland would love to win this match up, not only to repeat as champions, but also to give them bragging rights in this trilogy.

You have to feel good for two veterans making their first Finals appearance in Deron Williams and Kyle Korver, both of whom joined the Cavs during the season.

Williams has been in the league for 12 seasons, made the All Star team five times, and played on the US Olympic team. The closest he got previously was in his second NBA season when the Jazz lost to San Antonio in the Western Conference Finals.

Korver was swept out of the playoffs the last two seasons by the Cavaliers, giving new meaning to the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” saying.

He got to the conference finals twice, losing as a member of the Chicago Bulls in 2010-11 and with the Hawks in 2014-15. Both times, he lost to a team featuring LeBron James.

Be ready for a national media blitz extoling the virtues of the Golden State Warriors and how they cannot be beaten. They aren’t unbeatable.

That doesn’t mean we are expecting a Cavalier victory, but we are saying if the wine and gold execute their game plan, they can beat the Warriors again.

Remember, the Western Conference Finals were played with San Antonio missing one of the top five players in the NBA in Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs would have trouble beating Toronto or Boston in a seven game series without Leonard.

These are the halcyon days for the Cleveland Cavaliers. As James himself said after last night’s win, don’t take this for granted. After all, before James came back to the team, it had only happened once.

Thoughts On Cavs’ Game 4 Loss And Officiating.

There are so many thoughts that go through your head after the loss of a key game, and we aren’t involved as players and/or coaches.

However, it is more than 24 hours after the Cavaliers’ 108-97 loss in Game 4 of The NBA Finals, and we still can’t get the horrible officiating out of our heads.

Yes, there are other reasons for the loss. Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson got their long distance shooting going, making 50% (11 of 22) of their three point shots.

From the Cavs’ standpoint, there was an over reliance on LeBron James and Kyrie Irving, who took 49 of the team’s 81 shots, and the percentage was almost 95% in the last 18 minutes of the game.

A week or so ago, we talked about the Warriors playing like the mid 1990’s New York Knicks, coached by Pat Riley.

Those teams were uber aggressive defensively, appearing to foul on each and every possession, daring the referees to call every infraction.

Of course, they didn’t, or else the games would last close to four hours and would never develop any sort of rhythm.

Golden State shot more free throws than Cleveland (31-26) but many of those came late in the contest, when the wine and gold were trying to get the ball back, so for most of the game, the Cavs had an edge.

This would mean the officiating was in favor of Cleveland, and our theory is blown, correct?

First of all, the Warriors took 44% of their shots from behind the three point line, making it unlikely that Cleveland is going to foul someone on those shots.

The Cavaliers took 31% of their shots from behind the arc.

LeBron James, the best player in the league, took 21 shots, including five three pointers. That means he took 16 shots inside the three point line.

Without the play-by-play sheet, let’s say half of those 16 shots came from 10 feet and out. We say this knowing that this is probably not true, it’s more likely around six of those shots were long twos.

So, James went to the basket eight times, and was fouled only twice? It’s more likely you will see a unicorn than that is the case if you watched the game.

And we aren’t even counting Irving’s frays to the basket, and the number of times Tristan Thompson and Kevin Love got hit inside.

One of the reasons the Warriors can use their “small” lineup is they are allowed to bump and grind inside without a call.

We know this sounds like sour grapes, but we’ve seen this all season from Golden State, not just in The Finals.

We haven’t mentioned the questionable screens they set offensively, most notable by pulling guards Draymond Green and Andrew Bogut.

Why are they allowed to play this way? That’s a question no one asks the league office.

This style of play is frustrating to opponents, because players know when they get hit, and what does or does not constitute a foul.

When they don’t get the call they received all season and all through the playoffs, you can imagine the frustration level grows higher and higher.

By the way, it is difficult to be James as a player.

When he is a distributor, then people want to know why he’s not assertive, why he doesn’t try to take control of the game.

When he takes a lot of shots or dominates the ball, then he needs to play more of a team game. He can’t win.

It is likely the Cavs’ season will end Monday night in Oakland watching the Warriors celebrate once again. Our guess is that the wine and gold’s players will be seething.

Because the Warriors are getting over on the NBA.

Frustration, Secondary Options Killing The Cavs

The good news is the Cleveland Cavaliers have done an outstanding job defending Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, holding them to a total of 55 points combined in the first two games of the NBA Finals.

The bad news is everyone else wearing a Golden State uniform seems to be scoring at will.

Shaun Livingston has made all but three of the 14 shots he has taken. Leandro Barbosa? He has hit 10 of 12 shots from the floor.

Draymond Green, a career 34% shooter from three point range, although he did hit 39% this season, has made exactly half of his 14 attempts from beyond the arc in this series.

Despite the “Splash Brothers” hitting just 21 of their 51 field goal attempts (41.2%), the Warriors have knocked down 52% of their shots from the field.

That means everyone else is incredibly hot.

It probably won’t continue, but then again, neither will the struggles of the Western Conference champions top two scorers.

To compound Cleveland’s issues containing Golden State’s offense, the red hot shooting the Cavs showed throughout the playoffs has disappeared, with the wine and gold hitting just 37% from the floor.

That’s a good recipe for being down 0-2 in a seven game series.

On the other hand, it’s a seven game series, not three, so it’s not over yet, and if Tyronn Lue’s bunch can somehow defend their home court, it would be a best of three affair.

The lack of fouls called on the Warriors seems to have frustrated Cleveland, which sounds ridiculous because the Cavs have out shot their opponents in this series at the line, getting 44 attempts vs. 20 for Steve Kerr’s crew.

There are two issues with this.

First, Cleveland isn’t playing close enough defense on anyone to draw a foul.

Second, we believe that the Warriors are taking a page out of history, drawing on the mid-90’s New York Knicks, coached by Pat Riley, for their defensive philosophy.

Our observation is that if you bring the ball into the paint against Golden State, you will get fouled. The philosophy is the officials will not call every foul, or the games will last four hours, so if you hit someone every time, it simply won’t be called.

We have been watching basketball for a long time, and there is no way that every time the ball comes free inside that it is a clean play.

There was a picture that appeared on social media from Sports Illustrated’s web site showing Kevin Love being defended by Green, whose hand is clearly on Love’s wrist.

We don’t care how “tough” you are, it is virtually impossible to make an offensive move with the ball in your hand and your wrist in someone else’s.

Why the NBA is overlooking this? We have no answer. But that is why we don’t believe the Cavs “quit” on Sunday, it was simply frustration.

Think about playing a game where you are constantly fouled. You get mad and it’s tough to play.

This isn’t to say the Warriors aren’t a good defensive team. Their quickness at pretty much every position allows them to protect the paint and recover to cover shooters.

They are given some liberties in terms of reaching, grabbing, and slapping, particularly inside and near the basket.

There is no question the Cavs need to play better and shoot better. And they have to overcome the frustration with the lack of calls they are getting when they attack the basket.

A loss tomorrow night virtually ends the season. Lue and James will make sure everyone else knows that.

Lue’s Plan Worked, But Others Got Hot

It is always funny to read social media postings during a sporting event in Cleveland, most notably because the default in this area for many is that when the team loses, the coach or manager did a bad job.

Going into last night’s Game 1 of the NBA Finals, Cavs’ coach Tyronn Lue obviously wanted to limit the open looks of the Golden State Warriors’ two best offensive players: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

Sounds like a good plan, right? To be sure, Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr probably wants to make it difficult for LeBron James and Kyrie Irving too.

Well, Lue’s blueprint worked out. Curry and Thompson were held to just 20 points, on a combined 8 for 27 shooting night. For the most part, there weren’t a lot of open looks for these two.

However, we are sure that the Cavs’ coaching staff did not figure on the trio of Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, and Leandro Barbosa going a combined 18 for 24 from the field, scoring a combined total of 43 points.

Those three averaged 19.7 points per game together in the regular season, and in the playoffs they were averaging 22 points per night.

So, they basically doubled what they did in the post-season last night.

While, Lue’s plan was sound, but the results don’t show it because those three players off the Golden State bench had extraordinary nights.

And while Curry can come to the post-game press conference and talk about the difference their bench makes, the numbers show they don’t usually make that kind of impact on a game.

On the other hand, Iguodala seems to see a Cleveland uniform and turns into a combination of J.J. Redick and Kyle Korver. He is a career 33% shooter from three point range, but in the seven playoff games vs. the Cavs, he has made 16 out of 39%, more than 40%.

It didn’t help that Cleveland shot poorly either, making just 38% of their field goal attempts, with a lot of misses right at the rim. Is that great defense? In some cases, yes, but the wine and gold shooters missed some clean looks around the basket as well.

The Warriors seemed to play a lot of attention to JR Smith and Channing Frye, two of the hottest Cavs from behind the three point line. The two combined to take just four shots and score five points.

Lue and his staff have to figure out a way to get them some open looks, although both players appeared to be a little passive as well.

Cleveland also got away from the ball movement they have displayed throughout the playoffs, totaling just 17 assists last night, nine by James.

Lue attributed the isolation style of play to the Warriors’ switching defense, but there can be a happy medium with good ball movement with some one-on-one play mixed in.

Let’s not forget that the Cavaliers had a one point lead late in the third quarter, before Livingston started the fourth quarter with a flurry. So, it wasn’t exactly domination by Golden State since the tipoff.

There is no doubt Curry and Thompson will shoot better going forward, but it is also likely the Warriors will not get this kind of production from their subs.

The Cavs will also shoot better.

We have always felt that until the seventh game, the even numbered contests are most important, and this is no different.

The Warriors can take a commanding lead with a win on Sunday, while the Cavs can get right back in it, and steal home court from Kerr’s team.

Cleveland didn’t lose the series last night. There is a long way to go. But it will the route will get shorter with another loss on Sunday.

Blatt Needs to Learn to Protect His Star

All year, Cleveland Cavaliers’ coach David Blatt has railed against being called a rookie coach.

While it is true that he has a tremendous amount of experience as a head coach on the international scene, certainly more than his counterpart on the Golden State bench, he is a novice in knowing the way of the NBA.

This has nothing to do with his ability to coach players, devise scheme, and put his squad in the best position to win. While we can all debate how much LeBron James has to do with the Cavs’ success, and it is plenty, Blatt changed the style of play for the wine and gold enough that they can be competitive in this series despite the loss of all-stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love.

Where Blatt needs to learn about the NBA ways is in protecting his superstar player.

He needs to speak out about how the officials are referring the best player in the game, LeBron James.

In last night’s 104-91 loss in Game 5, James shot just nine free throws, and one of those came as the result of a defensive three-second call in first half.

That means he shot one less free throw than Draymond Green, who took nine shots for the game, of which six were inside the three-point line.

By contrast, James took 26 field goal attempts inside the arc, and apparently was only fouled on four of those attempts judging by the number of free throws.

We think even the most even-handed professional basketball fan would think that is ridiculous.

The next time Blatt speaks to the media, he needs to mention that he has the sport’s best player, and that player is attacking the rim pretty much on a consistent basis, and he is simply not getting the calls.

Phil Jackson did this as an art form, both when he coached Michael Jordan and also when he had Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant. He cleverly pointed out that his guys got the short end of the officiating stick, especially when they lost a game.

Steve Kerr even did the same prior to Game 4, when he mentioned certain things being “legal”, and that he wasn’t aware of those things. Kerr, of course, played for Jackson with the Bulls.

For the entire series, the Cavaliers, a team that has slowed the pace and tried to jam the ball to the basket, have shot just 12 more tosses from the charity stripe than the Warriors, who everyone would agree are a perimeter based team.

Based on the styles of play, it wouldn’t be surprising if Cleveland shot 5-10 more freebies than Golden State on a per night basis.

The insulting thing is how James hasn’t been able to get to the line. Even some veterans NBA writers and observers, including ABC/ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy, have commented on how James isn’t getting the whistles usually associated with great players.

He won’t mention it, because it would be out of character for James. But his coach needs to have his back, and he needs to make the comment prior to tomorrow night’s game because the Cavs either win or go home.

You might say it is gamesmanship, and it might be. It also may be the truth. We all see the replays and there is no doubt LeBron James is getting hit on a number of his shot attempts.

He shouldn’t be penalized for his size and skill set.