NBA Finals: Comparing These Cavs to the ’07 Version
May 20, 2015; Atlanta, GA, USA; Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) shakes hands with head coach David Blatt during the fourth quarter of game one of the Eastern Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs Atlanta Hawks at Philips Arena. Cleveland won 97-89. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
Overall
Overall, the ’15 Cavs are much better than the unit that was with LeBron James in ’07, and were swept by the Spurs. Even LBJ himself is better. One clear difference, besides overall talent level, is the amount of shooting LeBron gets to work with. Irving, Shumpert, Smith, Jones and even Delly are good to great shooters to space the floor. With Hughes, a struggling Pavlovic and the trio off the bench getting limited time, the ’07 Cavs didn’t have that spacing.
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Big Z at center is the one area where the Cavs of 8 years ago had the advantage. The lack of big men bench depth has been limited by the style of play of the modern NBA. Mozgov is no slouch though and plays his role well for the Cavs on both ends of the floor.
We didn’t get into coaching at all but David Blatt and his staff seem to clearly have the edge over Mike Brown and his.
So what say you? Are we just a victim of the moment with our belief that this year’s NBA Finals version of the Cleveland Cavaliers is better in almost every respects than the one that made it there last in ’07? Or could it be that this team, even without the best Stretch 4 and D player in the game, is a much better fitting version of the team 8 years ago?
Where do you agree, where do you disagree?