Well that was a kick in the nuts, huh? After taking the “greatest basketball team in the history of the NBA” to overtime, the Cavs succumbed to fatigue, an injury bug, and poor overtime shooting while falling to the Warriors 108-100.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it… that loss compounded with Kyrie’s knee injury hurts, but that shouldn’t discourage you. The Cavs should have won that game in regulation. A couple free throws that don’t get missed; a JR Smith shot falls; Mozgov doesn’t get called for that ridiculous travel; our defense doesn’t allow Andre Iguodala to get two quarter ending dunks; LeBron doesn’t settle for a fallaway three pointer with time expiring… all opportunites squandered. This Warriors team is very very beatable but we can’t screw the pooch every time we’re able to take advantage of an opportunity.
I can only speak on experience but this is the same exact feeling we had after game 1 of the Chicago series. We all started to second guess our team without Kevin Love and we’re doing the same thing now with the uncertainty of Kyrie’s injury. If I’ve learned one thing from watching this team all season it’s to never count them out. ALL season they’ve went through adversity and look where we are right now.
Anytime you have the best player in the world on your team, you’re always in a series. It’s clear the Warriors will live with LeBron getting his points so that makes it that much more crucial that the JR Smiths and Iman Shumperts step up on the big stage.
In the 2 titles LeBron has won, he’s lost game 1 of the Finals each time. Obviously it’s not the same situation but that stat alone eases my pain just a little bit. In my stupid brain I’ve convinced myself that losing game 1 was a good thing because now the feeling after winning game 2 will be that much sweeter.
I don’t think my heart is strong enough for more games like this but damn that was fun.
Let’s look at the Game Tape:
Guy Fieri took some time off of eating barbecue and filmed Steph Curry warming up
Get healthy Kyrie
Get used to it, guys. These types of shots will fall this series
We’re gonna need a lot of this if Kyrie is out. Damn you Rihanna.
Terrible terrible way to end the 3rd quarter.
A no shoe 3 pointer really hurts your psyche
LOVE how Mozgov played in this game. He had a couple strong dunks and those 2 free throws with 30 seconds left were as clutch as you can get
Kyrie with a helluva block on the MVP
But then this is the shot that we settled for
Shump almost put it in though
If I don’t post any Vines from overtime that means it never happened.
See you on Sunday.
Cavs in 5.
Bottlegate 