DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum NBA Finals Discussion

Yep.... That's it. You gotta feel it. Hot damn.

What the hell is going on? Can't seem to buy a bucket, I don't understand....

It's only one game.

And Kyrie is hurt....

Kyrie is made of glass. I've said multiple things about it the past years and people shrug me off.

Time for LeBron vs The Warriors for the next three games. We're toast.

I knew we'd lose this in OT...the problem is GS plays great team ball and we have ISO. Plus our bench blows. We had to win this one to have a chance in the series. I just don't see it going much better. I can't count how many times our stupid rotations left a big on curry/thompson...that's just dumb basketball

ICED, it's officially over, changed the channel.

That's true!

After game 1?

It is but it isn't. A lot of people think this first game will set the tone for the rest of the games, we're gonna see who's best right now.

This hurts, but I expected it.

No, I just meant that this game is over. We had a really good chance to win this in regulation but just didn't get it done.

Never thought I'd see garbage time points in basketball.

If Kyrie is badly hurt, yes. This series is done. JR Smith is gonna play like a dumbass.

That overtime period was a straight up embarrassment.

Kyrie is 10% at best right now, Love is gone, and our bench likes to disappear like they did during pre-decision LeBron.

Let's not discredit the Warriors, either. They play a fast perimeter game. We have no answer for it.

Shumpert got schooled on defense.

Smith playing like an idiot.

Barely any bench points.
Kyrie hurt.

TT got caught in too many pick and rolls guarding Curry.

Now I want Bob Evans!

Another typical Cleveland choke job. 2 points in OT, really?

Wait till next year!!!!!!! Typical Cleveland. Big big trouble. GS is just better...way better

Time to get back to playing winning basketball.

We were about 1 inch from winning this game on a last split second rebound/shot by Shumpert.

I thought that we should have gone small when GS did. I think that is on the coaching staff. However, I like the way we played a lot of this game. GS is a really difficult defend, and yet the Cavaliers played decent defense, especially in crunch time.

I hope that Kyrie can go in game 2, and can be effective.

Kyrie is getting an MRI tomorrow. Doesn't sound good.

It's obviously not officially over, but let's face it: It's over. Just tryin' to be honest with my feelings here.

Regardless, at least they are a damn good basketball team. Just not good enough to win it all. We need everyone healthy to make a run at a team like this.

Losing Kyrie is going to suck. He really needs to figure out what he has to do to his body in the off season to prevent injuries. He's a complete glass house and no good to the Cavs or Lebron always being hurt. He owes it to the team and city to invest in the science of physical fitness.

Having said that, I think it's far from over and the Cavs can still win it. The Cavs just have to punch them in the mouth, figuratively. I think if doubt starts creeping into GS's psyche they will be ripe for the taking. They have never been tested on this stage before. They were acting like they won the series tonight. Green couldn't stop congratulating himself on a strip in overtime when the game was already in hand. They were acting like idiots.

I think this is far from over.

Great game. I hope all of them are like that.

The Warriors let LeBron get whatever he wanted and he almost beat them by himself. I'd expect a different strategy in game two.

Mozgov and Thompson were both beasts.

The contrast in depth is alarming. The Warriors are bringing Igoudala, Speughts, Ezeli, and Livingston off the bench. The Cavs are bringing in Dellevedova, Jones, and Smith. David Lee would probably be the Cavs best bench player and he doesn't even play for the Warriors.

Leandro Barbosa was god awful.

Andrew Bogut is a dirty, dirty player. He was giving out forearm shivers like it was going out of style.

The Warriors offense is a thing of beauty. The movement off the ball and the passing is awesome.

Draymond Green didn't play a good game at all. He seemed extra pumped and I think it threw him off a bit.

It was nice to see the Cavs run so many PNRs. They are at their best when they do that instead of the stupid ISO ball.

I think the Warriors will come out like gangbusters in game two and put it out of reach pretty quickly.

I really hope Irving can play, but if he is as injured as it seems he should probably sit. On offense he can still hit the open jumper, but they can't hide him on defense.

Even if Irving can't play the series will still be fun to watch. Watching LeBron try to carry these guys is amazing.

I expect this series to come back home 0-2, hold the home court. Then earn it, because in northeast Ohio nothing is given

We blew a great chance to take a game in Golden State ... if only Lebron had gone TO the basket instead of shooting that stupid fade away. He puts so much pressure on the defense when he attacks the rim, but then sometimes he won't do it ... makes no sense.

We can't continue to switch along the perimeter with our bigs ... Steph made TT (and even Lebron) look SILLY at times

I thought Golden State played just OK ... missed an awful lot of shots early on, which doesn't bode well

Kyrie hurt again? I'm so sick of hearing/reading/seeing that he's injured

JR Smith had his worse game in the playoffs

So much for Delly's increased role and effectiveness

Our bench is a joke compared to the Warriors'

We will lose game 2, win 1 of 2 at home, and then get closed out in 5

While I did not get to watch the game, we had it on the radio at work..

In general.. Game 1, in Oakland, and we had a chance to win it in the end..

That leads me to be more confident, not less..

I do not think losing game two would be a "series over" scenario..

The Warriors crowd was impressive.. But just wait till Game 3..

Where are all the experts now who said we only had a 28 percent chance of winning?

You are supposed to win your home opener. So they did.
We had GS pooping themselves all night long. RESPECT!

That was more than four words.

I don't remember the last time a team with LeBron on it had a game put out of reach early so I don't think that will happen. The Cavs will likely be in it until the end. It's just a matter of if they have the horses to finish it off. Losing Kyrie will be tough to overcome.

Game 1s typically don't mean a whole lot. Had Kyrie not gotten hurt and the Cavs still lost I would feel even more confident about winning the series than I had before.

Well, it's done and over with. Hard to see it go down like it did and the injury and what Kyrie said about if after the game, yeah, huge cause for concern.

No ball movement either. Just a lot of things to hang your head on.

J/C

Someone convince me this team isn't like the teams we had with LeBron before he left Miami.

I said all season our lack of building an NBA caliber bench would come back and bite us. It is what it is now. Kyrie being out pretty much seals the deal..we will not win without him, just not enough scoring. A healthy Cavs with Love/Kyrie I think we'd handle them easily. Can only do so much with role players, and thats all we have left now.

It isn't, but this time its more lebron's doing...he played selfish last night. Long stretches of ISO

This is a bizarre take to me.

It's unfortunate that the second and third best players on the team got hurt.

Well, I meant with our two best players outside of LeBron hurt.

I find it ironic how "Optimist" is part of your user name. Sheesh man. You complained the entire game.

About the game:

--It was an entertaining game that was very competitive and fun to watch. Neutral fans probably loved the game.

--Both teams had strong runs and both teams went through stretches where they missed shots they normally would make.

--I was hoping LBJ would have drove the ball into the paint on the final possession of the 4th quarter.

--I am not saying we are going to win, but I don't buy into all the doom and gloom. The series is not over. We had them on the ropes and we had guys missing shots that they would normally make. I expect JR Smith to shoot the ball better. If two or three of those 3's fall, it's a different game.

--I can't agree about blaming the FO for our bench. I think they did a remarkable job improving this team in one year.

--Additionally, losing Love and having Kyrie hurting is HUGE! Their injuries certainly affects our bench. How can people not see that?

--It bothers me that we have a HC who has one of the best offensive systems around and we can't utilize it very often because of all the ISO's that LeBron wants to run. I get why he is doing it and it isn't going to change, but I wish that he would be more flexible in that area.

--GS is fast and agile. They put a ton of pressure on the defense, especially transition defense. We need to penetrate, kick it out to guys who can make threes, and then pound them on the glass when they start running out to shooters. This can be done and was done to some extent, especially in the first half when we established a nice lead. Therefore, I have hope that we still have a chance in this series.

I'm out on a roadtrip, so haven't had a chance to post much, but a couple things:

1) It's ONE game in a seven game series with the first game on the road. Let's not fling ourselves off bridges just yet. We came within an inch of taking that game. IF we come back and win Game 2, then suddenly everyone will be thinking we're the favorites again. Even if we lose both, we're still on the road. We just need to hold home court and hope we can get one on the road at some point. Golden State is a very hard place to win.

2) The thing that worries me more than the actual loss is the loss of Kyrie. Delly can't cover the elite athletic guards very well so we can't plug him in like we did against Atlanta. I'm thinking we should play Shump at point and JR at the #2 and just hope for the best. Shump is covering Curry anyway so let's just roll with it. Lebron is going to drive the offense anyway.

3) I thought Mozgov had a good game. To the point where I'm wondering if we should be using him more. It seemed like every time we ran that middle pick and roll it was a dunk or a foul. He put up a 21/29 line against them last April, so I'm wondering if we can use him more. I don't think they have the size we do.

4) What happened to TT late in the game? I thought he was having a great first few quarters but he seemed to vanish in the fourth when we needed some key rebounds. I think he got called for a lose ball foul some time in the 3rd and he sort of disappeared after that? Not sure what happened.

5) JR and Shump had abysmal games. All of our three point shooting seemed pretty bad. We were missing some wide-open shots, especially in the 4th and overtime. And despite JR being ice-cold, we still almost pulled that game out. So if people are looking for some sort of silver lining ... it's that we can still hope for one of these guys to find their groove again.

6) LeISO can really make you want to pull your hair out sometimes. But when he's really getting into a groove like he was yesterday, you can live with it. That shot at the end of the game was terrible though. A step-back 3-pointer from the wing? He's got to get a better shot than that. Stop trying to be Jordan/Kobe and BE LEBRON.

Like I said, still just one game. We almost had it. Things are just more difficult, but like Blatt said, it's Cleveland, it's always difficult.

Yeah, this point drives me nuts too. Let's just ignore that 65% of our team salary is injured right now and can't contribute ... and also pretend that we can get some sort of major contributors for no more than veteran minimums.

I didn't mention this in my first post because it seemed like so many people were being negative and I wanted to stay positive, but yeah......you are right. The backcourts of GS and ATL are completely different. It was going to be an issue defending them even w/Kyrie, but if he can't go.......it's a really tough thing to overcome.

The major problem I have with playing ISO ball is that it takes our main strength out of the area where they can dominate and that's mainly our bigs rebounding.

Is there a way to get those guys closer to the rim when Lebron's holding on to the ball? The number of times that TT or Mozgov were standing out by the 3 point line when James or Irving started to penetrate was crazy. I understand that you have to clear out the paint but our only chance in this series is to own the glass. Even if we're shooting jummpers and missing as long as we get the rebound it's one less 3 GS can toss up...

I just don't understand why we're clearing out the area where most rebounds happen...