All You Need Is Love
“There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done.”
John Lennon and Paul McCartney
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By now, everyone knows that the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers to win their first NBA championship in about forty years. After trailing the series 2 to 1, the Warriors cranked up their game to another level and pretty decisively took out the Cavs in three straight games to win themselves a trophy.
With a key adjustment made after the third game (that put the Warriors down 2 to 1), the Warriors figured something out about the stifling Cleveland defense, and after that, they just had to contend with the one man team of LeBron James and his less than NBA championship caliber supporting cast.
Cleveland had been doing everything in their power to stop the Warriors’ MVP Steph Curry, the phenomenal shooting point guard, from torching them with outside jump shots. They had been pretty successful pressuring Curry for those first three games to where the Warriors were not only turning the ball over, they were also failing to get off good shots. Then, they made the move to have Curry almost invite the double team well above the key, after which they had another ball handler get into positition to get the ball off the double team. From that, they had a four on three advantage nearer the basket that they exploited over and over again with huge contributions from Andre Iguodala and Draymond Green, who surprisingly (he was after all a second round draft choice) was one of the key players on this team).
The chaos the Warriors threw into the Cavalier defense ended up giving ALL of the Warriors more space to work with, and it even gave Curry enough space to launch some of his majestic three pointers that broke the backs of Cleveland. It became pretty clear that the Warriors offense had become BETTER than the Cleveland defense.
The Cleveland offense could not overpower the Warrior defense. They were without their second and third best offensive players and were pretty much forced into being an offense consisting of LeBron all by himself with whatever other offense could be generated off of him, a forward, instead of off of what would have been a first rate point guard had Irving not fractured his kneecap in the first game. In the final game, LeBron James put together some awesome statistics (32 points, 18 rebounds and 9 assists), but those were the stats of someone desperately trying to do EVERYTHING (it took 33 attempts to get those points and he played 47 out of 48 minutes in the game), instead of being part of a more effective team concept.
It of course was NOT James’ fault that he kept getting handed the ball and in effect told by his teammates that HE was the only guy that they trusted that could handle the ball, score the points and win the game. After a while, what had appeared earlier in the series to be a very tight, evenly matched competition, became a final three games where Cleveland would play hard and fight valiantly, but were clearly overmatched and destined to be defeated.
The Warriors as champions wore the crown well. They celebrated, drank champagne and partied into the night, but they did NOT attempt to belittle and show up their defeated opponent. They respected the fight they were given. They respected the greatness of James. They respected the fact that Cleveland was playing with two hands tied behind their back. They won with class, not dissimilar from the class that is always displayed at the end of the Stanley Cup playoffs, where the teams line up, shake hands, and congratulate their opponents on a hard fought series (one of the BEST traditions in all of sports).
There is a certain love of your teammates that seems to be found in all championship teams. It certainly was present after the series clinching game of the NBA Finals as the Golden State Warriors celebrated like players that really cared for their teammates. Somehow, the champions of almost all of the major sports have that trait in common. The players in the locker room want to absolutely bust their asses to do well to not let down their teammates in the locker room who are also busting their asses to not let anyone else down. It becomes the strongest element of a great TEAM.
Sometimes BOTH teams have that same amount of dedication and that powerful feeling of responsibility to their teammates. Then, the teams that win or lose do so on the basis of talent, health and sometimes because of either a lucky shot or an extraordinary one. This year, the Warriors had all of those traits. It never had to come down to luck or an amazing shot. They are the champions of basketball for the first time in 40 years.
Due to unfortunate circumstances, the Cavaliers were slightly lacking in the talent part of it due to the health part of it. To Cleveland, I would say, you probably will be back next year. All you need is Love. And Kyrie Irving.
