Opinion – Warriors Take 2-0 Series Lead, What Now for Cavs?

Throughout this playoffs I've been watching the Cavs, hoping that somehow they would hit their stride at just the right moment to be able to match-up and, hopefully, beat the Warriors to take Cleveland's first title since 1964.

As they stormed out to a 10-0 start, after losing two games in Toronto, taking the next handily, the fan inside of me thought they had the team to push the Warriors to the brink. They were playing smart, tough, physical. They were throwing the ball all over the court. The iso ball wasn't as prevalent. Kyrie was playing the best he ever had with LeBron and so was Love. LeBron finally had a Cavs team that had the ability to score and dominate offensively without him having to carry the the scoring load. Coach Lue was making good adjustments throughout the playoffs minus some poor decisions in the two losses. They were, healthy, they were rested, and they were rolling at the right time. What could go wrong?

Well... to quote Dickens, "It was the best of times and the worst of times." This finals has been the worst of times.

After last night's wrecking ball performance by all the Warriors but Klay and Steph, giving LeBron his seventh straight loss to the Warrios losing 110-77. The Cavs are on the brink of wasting another year of LeBrons dwindling prime.

I mentioned in my preview piece some keys for each team to win the Finals. So far, the Warriors are doing everything right and more, and the Cavs aren't doing anything right. They aren't even playing hard for 48 minutes like I expected them to do.

LeBron has been the Cavs best player by far but the defensive ability of the Warriors, led by Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala. Love had a solid game one but was knocked out with what could be a concussion at the half, Kyrie who I was expecting to go toe-to-toe with Steph this series providing close to the same numbers offensively has been atrocious as he had an incredibly inefficient 26 in game one on 7-22 shooting. Then in game two he only scored 10 on 5-14 shooting. In the two games he is 1-7 from three after shooting over 40% in the first three rounds.

The Cavs had to dominate the paint and keep stroking from three and they have done neither so far losing the points in the paint and made threes and three point percentage through two games. Plus they have too many turnovers with over 15 each game.

The Cavs have been heartbreaking to watch these first two games. The team that was having fun and playing their best basketball of the season has disappeared and instead of turning in a great performance in game two to relieve pressure they turned in their worst performance in game two and simply quit playing. I think we will get one LeBron game to get a win in Cleveland but that'll be it for this very talented but deeply flawed team.

The Cavs were closer last years with LeBron and his band of misfit toys to beating this Warriors team. Without an insane out of this world performance from the entire team the next 5 games, the Cavs have no chance to even push it to a close loss in game seven at Oracle.