You can make great cases for and against both teams, imo.

So have you changed your opinion on Cleveland?

Earlier in the season you told me they had zero chance of taking out the Warriors in the playoffs.

Im not Elmhurst Steve. I don't move the goal posts when I'm wrong. I've already admitted I was wrong about the Warriors clearly this past series even though they still won. Of course there's a chance I'm wrong on the Finals too. LeBron hates the Warriors more than any team since the KG Celtics, so I'm confident he's going to have a great series. He's gonna win a game or two. For the two main reasons I cited in my earlier post, I'm still taking Golden State. They don't have the backcourt to stop Curry and Klay.

Does Cleveland have Russell Westbrook?

Westbrook shot 28-76 (36%) from the floor in the last three games--which should be more like 28 for 90, given how often he went up for shots and turned the ball over. Or just threw it to an empty space on the floor.

2-11 on 3's in last 2 games. 0 for 5 in Game 6, 2-6 in Game 7

Westbrook's +/- in the last 3 games:

-09 Game 5
-11 Game 6
-14 Game 7

Westbrook is replaced by even an even VORP player in those games and OKC's playing in the Finals.

Westbrook had 0 points in the 3rd quarter of game 7, 5 points in the 2nd half, yet he had the ball in his hands 90% of the time when OKC was on offense.

Dude needs a legit point guard on the floor with him:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball- ... 36614.html

Cavs in 3.

Kyrie Irving is the most offensively skilled point guard in the league.

I can not fucking stand any team that's looking to take a 3 pointer on every single possession, but it's obvious that Steph Curry is in the conversation for greatest shooter of all time. Can you explain to me how Kyrie Irving would be considered a better overall PG than Steph from an offensive perspective? Because I'm getting some America type vibes from your posts. I generally don't give a shit about basketball when the Bulls are irrelevant, so I rarely ever frequent/lurk in the NBA forums. Forgive my ignorance - you might be perfectly sane for all I know.

offensive skill set, yeah. However, Kyrie regards playing defense the way BigFan thinks about manual labor--something he gives other people tacos to do for him.


Kyrie's offensive +/- isn't that great; it would probably be a lot better if he weren't playing on a team with James, Love, Smith:

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_ ... position/1

I rarely ever frequent/lurk in the NBA forums

I think the idea of "ducking" covering the best player isn't really relevant. First of all it's the coach who often determines matchups, and second of all this isn't a high school game where the best players try to one up each other to elicit reactions from the crowd - there are repercussions for having to guard the best player on the other team and it's smart strategy to have your best player not guard the other team's best player in games with high stakes unless it can't be avoided. Phil did this with MJ all the time.

Also you're essentially trying to make what should be a self-evident point: Curry can't guard Irving so Thompson will have to. We all know that?

I've said it before...if Irving and Love are on the court a ton, the Cavs defense will struggle. They kept pace in the Finals last year by keeping a great defensive team on the floor (say what you will about Delly but he abused Curry on D at times) plus Shumpert played out of his mind offensively to compliment his D. J.R. Smith also played well...they will now try and match up offensively with the Warriors. It could go sideways quickly.

The series changed once they switched Klay over on Westbrook. He had to work much harder to score and it allowed Curry to guard the offensively challenged Robertson.

Who ya got?

First time I am pulling for Lebron and the Cavs.

But I think the Warriors take it in 6 games.