Woke up and had to double check that these scrubs + lebron did beat historically elite team gsw on the road

Seems like the GS regular season alone doesn't make them historically elite if they lose this series. Historically elite teams prove themselves by winning the Finals, if I remember correctly. Blitz the Cavs in 3 straight here and I'll buy it.

It's so weird for me. I've not thought LeBron has played well for him at all. Missing so many easy chances, shooting sub 40pct, etc, but maybe being a fan of his has made me think efficiency is worth more than it is. Maybe pushing a defense to it's breaking point for 45 minutes has it's own benefits

Goes both ways bro. Cavs didn't have a great shooting night either

I generally agree with the sentiment but can't all be blamed on "poor shooting"

Well Cavs played great defense, and LeBron contributed to that, but it's not like he's a one-man defense the way he's been their pretty bad one-man offense. Last night the team had an Offensive Rating of 94.9. It was good enough to get the win. The Warriors offense got completely shut down. That O-Rtg would also be good for dead last in the league behind Philly's 30th ranked 95.5.

It was hardly some all-time great offensive performance by LeBron. If the offense performs like this, or even a little bit better going forward, they're going to get ran off the court most of the time. Delly shutting down Steph, while hilarious and enjoyable, will not actually be a thing going forward.

Bron is also playing some fairly sick defense, at least from what my hazy memory is telling me right now. It feels like that's something we forget sometimes - 'oh yeah, when LeBron gets dialed in he's probably still the best defender in the NBA'.

Efficiency is basically out the window for him right now, given that the second option is a Mozgov post up and third option is JR wildly jacking 3's. Just let LeBron do everything.

Incidentally, I think GSW have made a pretty huge blunder with their defensive strategy. They've publicly commented about how it's ok if LeBron gets his 40 as long as the rest of the team doesn't hurt them. WRONG ANSWER. That might be a valid strategy against a healthy Cavs team. Against this Cavs team, if you double LeBron constantly which teammate is actually going to make you pay? This team is garbage. Make the garbage players beat you.

No it's not. It's just as important as it is in every other game. If their offense can not become much more efficient, they're going to badly lose the series unless you think their defense is sustainable (which I don't).

If LeBron's offensive efficiency sees a big jump, I suspect Cleveland gets blown out. His efficiency is being artificially lowered because Cleveland is, correctly, content to run the clock down and limit possessions. That is the only way they can win.

In the regular season, LeBron's shooting looked like this:

24-22 secs left: 75.6 eFG%
22-18: 65.2 eFG%
18-15: 56.4 eFG%
15-7: 53.5 eFG%
7-4: 40.4 eFG%
4-0: 47 eFG%

It shouldn't really be a surprise that his efficiency has been poor. That's especially true when you consider how much he's doing on the floor and how many minutes he's played. His efficiency took a hit when he hit a wall late in the first 2 games.

But he absolutely is putting on an all-time great performance. He's shouldering a ridiculous load, scoring enough to win, and rebounding, passing, defending at a high level. That, of course, allows his teammates to stay fresh and play defense with the type of intensity that gives them a chance to win the series.

I mean, I obviously expect the Warriors to shoot better, but the Cavs shot 33%. They ran below expectation as well.

LeBron was fouled on basically 90% of his possessions the last 5 mins and OT, he should get more of those calls in CLE. Several of them were egregious, such as the Iggy rake directly in front of a referee.

Edit- nice post mjw.

Sometimes the garbage player that made it to the NBA can make a layup or an open 3. And those shots are even better than lebron's isos.

Agree with giving credit to Blatt for their defense, the way the cavs executed defense last night was so good almost nearing perfection at times, it almost feels like it's unsustainable

It's pretty incredible to see the discussion when Labron wins as opposed to him losing. There's actually solid discussion going on and I can dig it

I don't think it needs to take a big jump, but improving a little would be nice before people start calling it the best game of all-time. It's also not being artificially lowered, it's lowered because he's missing a lot of shots. I'm not saying they have any other choice, but this whole "it's the only way they can win" thing is pretty bleak then because they have basically no chance winning 3 more games that way.

He either needs to make more of these shots or hope guys like Smiff and Shump can start knocking some 3's down.

Be more obtuse.

They could easily be up 2-0 playing that way. And they defended the Warriors similarly in the regular season game they won (when LeBron played).

I was thinking about this earlier; I've mostly just been enjoying the games rather than thinking about them too hard strategically from GSW's point of view. It feels like Cleveland should be super exploitable, they just haven't found a plan to do so yet really beyond 'do stuff when the big man switches'.

Unsurprisingly, quite a bit of their off-ball action looked good against Shump and (in particular) Smiff, although it seemed like LeBron was doing a really good job calling out off-ball switches and staying pretty generally aware of the whole situation. What I wouldn't mind seeing from GSW's perspective is to try and force a quick switch of a big onto Curry/Klay and then try and force TT/Moz to navigate a bunch of off-ball screens and see what happens. Easier said than done of course, but just putting a big even further out of their comfort zone probably has at least some value.

It also made me think about how this defensive strategy by Cleveland would look way different with Kevin Love playing. To the point where they'd be taking a pretty big risk (well, an even bigger risk) employing it.

If the corpses of Mike Miller and James Jones are gonna hit a bunch of reasonably well contested shots to beat my team, so be it. I don't think they can do it. If I'm GSW I know i have a fast, versatile defensive team. I'm sending constant help/pressure at Bron and then scramble-recovering and contesting any shots created as well as possible.

This is silly. There's a track record of LeBron teams being much more successful when guys like Mike Miller are hitting a bunch of 3's. There's never been a time when LeBron isos for 50 possessions per game have ever been too successful in the playoffs. GS's defensive gameplan has been fantastic and isn't getting enough credit.

I'm shocked GSW is +1 in Game 3 and would like to bet on it if anyone wants the other side.

I'll fedex him a bottle of 10's if he promises to take them [redacted].



*sigh*

friends said "2 for 18" to me that entire summer, still my favorite player ever. but yeah wow, what an awful game.

Also would love some GSW +1 for a small amount. Just like $50.

Steve Javie is on ESPN right now basically saying the refs blew some calls that didn't go Bron's way down the stretch, but admitted it's hard to see a lot of what went down (the Draymond Green hold on the jump ball specifically). I wonder how many FTs Bron is going to get at the Q now that it's been put out there that refs cost Lebron game 1 and almost game 2.

lol at a cavs team ever getting calls

It was more his delivery imo, like the pauses and the smirk.

""I'm looking forward to seeing our fans and I can't wait to see our fans. (pause) I've heard our fans pretty loud before. A couple instances in my first postseason appearance was really loud, and me coming home against the Knicks at the start of the season was pretty good.(long pause, smirk) But I know we can be much, (pause) much louder than any fanbase in this league. I know they're getting ready, and I can't wait to see them.""

i mean, the q is gonna be insane

So people will just overlook the fact bron had 3 isos at the end to seal the deal and avoid overtime but came up short all 3 times?

Yeah bro and you exclude the fact that another two possessions he created for a wide open shump and James jones and they blatantly missed.

Are you the oracle?