The Cleveland Cavaliers forced a Game 6 of the NBA Finals with a 112-97 victory over the Golden State Warriors, in a game that proved the Cavs need to be historic if they want to bring a championship to Cleveland.
To be the best, you got to beat the best.
(Editor’s note: Or as Ric Flair would say, at the 41 second mark, “To be the man, you got to beat the man.”
End Editor’s Note)
Or, in this case, you need to perform historically good to beat a historically great team.
This was the story in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, where the Cavs did what many thought they couldn’t, and wouldn’t, and that’s force preparations for the GOP to be put on hold, for at least one more game.
Emotions were running high heading into Game 5, with Draymond Green’s suspension and all the subsequent nonsense comments from both parties that came with it, the main storyline. Many thought that even without the services of Green, the Warriors had enough firepower to extinguish a Cavaliers team that would head into the off-season with numerous questions and not a lot of answers.
Consider the script, changed.
Golden State’s history making 73-win season was overshadowed, for one night at least, by the historic efforts of Kyrie Irving and LeBron James, who ensured the ultimate Warriors coronation wouldn’t take place in Game 5.
The duos stat lines are incredible. Irving, who played like it was his 20th finals game, not his sixth, scored 41 points, while shooting 17-of-24 from the field and 5-of-7 from the three-point line. Not to be bettered, James put up a box score that was previously never done before in finals history, scoring 41 points, pulling down 16 rebounds, with seven assists, three steals and three blocks, shooting 16-of-30 from the floor and 4-of-8 from the three-point line.
James and Irving became the first pair of teammates to score at least 40 points in a finals game, and their combined 82 points was the third most in finals history (Rick Barry and Jim King, 1983 (83), Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, 1962 (87)).
“We just want them to be aggressive,” Tyronn Lue said of James and Irving’s efforts, via cavs.com. “Continue to attack, like we’ve been talking about all series and they had two great games, two breakout games. We need those two guys to give us confidence early and they both did that.”
The attacking sentiment Lue has implored Irving to undertake has been criticized this series. Often, Irving will be in attack mode, but it leads to the Cavs playing an unhealthy amount of isolation basketball, which clogs down the offense and leads to the type of ineffectiveness we saw from it at the end of Game 4.
Judging solely from the numbers, you would think isolation basketball was the Cavs first point of call again. After all, the Cavaliers had 29 unassisted baskets in Game 5, the most in a finals game since 1967, when, ironically, the San Francisco Warriors had 30 against the Philadelphia 76ers. Plus, the Cavs only had 15 assists total, which is by no means a good number.
The numbers don’t tell the full story though. In Game 4’s offensive debacle, the Cavs were taking and missing bad shots. In Game 5 however, it was a matter of Cleveland making decisive decisions with the ball, and taking advantage of Green’s (and eventually Andrew Bogut’s due to injury) absence, attacking the basket with no worries of rim protection from Golden State. Overall, James and Irving went 12-of-17 for 31 points on drives to the basket in Game 5, an indictment of how aggressive the duo were.
Irving wasn’t dribbling the shot clock down to its final seconds before jacking up a wild shot. He went straight to the rim off pick and rolls, and hit an assortment of tough fadeaways and pull-up jumpers. James wasn’t settling for outside jumpers (even though he finally rediscovered his jumpshot, as he went 8-of-19 from outside the paint), as he drove to the rim with a vengeance, the type of vigor that made you wonder where that James has been in the first four games.
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“Our coaching staff gave us a great game plan,” James said, via cavs.com. “As one of the leaders on the team, and we just went out and executed it. You got a guy like this who is very special. It was probably one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen live. To put on the show that he did, you just go out and follow the keys and play winning basketball. We did that tonight.”
Teammate Richard Jefferson echoed James’ comments.
“Have you ever seen Kyrie play?” Jefferson said, when asked if he ever imagined Irving playing like he did in Game 5, via cavs.com. “Yes, I’ve imagined that. He’s just that special kid who doesn’t know how good he can be. And sometimes people are tough on him. Sometimes people are like, “Ky, Ky, Ky,” and sometimes you just got to let him be him. What he can do – again, he scored 30 points multiple times. Obviously, a best performance from your best was needed, and he took the challenge. And now we have two more to go.”
Other aspects contributed to the Cavs win, such as some stiff second half defense and huge advantages in paints in the paint (46-30) and fast break points (28-9).
What Game 5 showed us though, is that to beat these Warriors, you’re going to need to be almost perfect and the Cavs showed they can do that.
Now, they just need to do it two more times.