LeBron and Co. have some soul searching to do before Game 3 tonight

I’m so heated watching this year’s NBA Finals. They’ve been garbage. It’s been disgraceful. In honor of the great Muhammad Ali who once said you can’t hit what you can’t see, the Cavs cannot hit the Warriors with any kind of punch. Their days will be numbered and you won’t even need your whole hand to count them. The Warriors are a well oiled machine and the Cavs cannot keep up. Whoever told coach Tyronn Lue that the best strategy was to match Golden State and go small needs to be fired. The Warriors have been running circles around the Cavs defense. I’ve watched back cut after back cut and fast break three after fast break three. The Cavs can’t match them in a track meet and we’ve seen evidence of that so far.

I was pumped for the Finals to start. A rematch of last year but without the excuses the Cavaliers had last year. We were finally going to see the Cavs play the Warriors at full strength. Analysts on ESPN were asking if the Cavs should be favored in the series. At the time I laughed at that notion. I knew the Cavs had an easy road on their way through the Eastern Conference. While Detroit, Atlanta and Toronto are all quality NBA teams they’re not in the same class as the defending world champion Warriors. I still thought the Cavs were better than last year’s Finals team and I thought I was going to watch a special series. Watching this Cavaliers team makes me think back to the 2007 team who were over matched by a Spurs team that had made 3 Finals appearances before. The 2007 Cavs ended up getting swept. We could be looking at a similar result this time around except, Lebron’s team should be championship caliber. Kyrie Irving is an All-Star and so is Kevin Love. Irving should be able to go at Steph pretty easily. This is a guy who can drop 40 points in a heart beat. Why Kyrie can’t get going is a testament to the Warriors team defense and Irving’s own tentativeness. Irving has game no doubt, but he’s bad on defense and doesn’t have the killer instinct that is needed to beat a team like the Warriors four times in a series. Kevin Love left game 2  after being hit in the head, and I’m sure Cleveland fans are hitting themselves in the head asking why they traded Andrew Wiggins away for him. He just doesn’t seem to fit in this offense. It’s sad to see since he was a borderline great player in his years in Minnesota. He’s limited to being a spot up 3 point shooter and occasionally gets touches in the post. What I’ve seen so far is Love being out worked by guys like Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes and Andrew Bogot who are stronger and more athletic than him. On defense it’s just not fair. Love can’t guard a single person in the Warriors rotation. Even with him being questionable for game 3, I don’t think it will make that much of a difference in the game whether he plays or not.

We could talk about strategies and lineup changes for the Cavs until we’re blue in the face. The Warriors are just better than the Cavs, there’s no changing that. What they can change is their effort which midway through the 3rd quarter was non existent. The Cavs have to play with fire and passion. Maybe going home will change things. I certainly believe so. Before the series I said Warriors in 7. With the way things are going so far it might be Warriors in 4. In my opinion the Cavs ship has already sailed. Even if they win game 3 , I can’t see them beating Golden State three more times. It starts with Lebron and Kyrie. The Cavs will go as their superstar leaders go. They HAVE to win tonight if they want to have any life left in this series. If they go down the same way they’ve got beaten up the last two games, Cleveland may not exist on the map anymore. Fans will riot. Changes will be mad. Players and coaches will be fired. Get your popcorn ready.