Keidel: 2-0 Deficit Feels Insurmountable For Cavaliers
By Jason Keidel
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Sunday night was more than a loss, more than a partition of points. There is a chilling separation in the NBA Finals, as if one team were happy to be there and the other were there to win.
By every metric -- athletic, strategic or emotional -- the Golden State Warriors worked the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday night, which technically leaves them halfway to the world title, though it feels like they are a 3-pointer from two titles in two years.
And while there's ample evidence to suggest the NBA Finals are not over, it's nearly impossible to feel the Cavs can win a game, much less the series.
Indeed, try convincing any NBA devotee that the Warriors won't sweep this series, or, at worst, win in five.
There was a sense of foreboding, of finality. It's hard to think of a time when a 2-0 series lead felt so wide, as if the Cavs were climbing an oil-slicked side of a mountain to make this thing competitive.
It feels like the Cavs don't belong in the same gym. They don't feel like they should share the same hardwood. It's like one team gliding across parquet and the other laboring along a beach.
If the series weren't surreal enough, the Warriors' best performers have been Shaun Livingston and Draymond Green, who led the club to wins in Game 1 and Game 2, respectively.
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the renowned Splash Brothers who have shot their way into the archives and carried the Warriors to consecutive title rounds, weren't even the best players on the court, or on their own team, yet the Warriors have won the first two games by nearly 50 total points. Indeed, the Warriors outscored the Cavaliers by 10 points last night with Curry on the bench, doubling their lead from 10 to 20 points in the third quarter.
It spawns the chicken-or-egg debate. Is Cleveland that bad, or is Golden State that good? Have the Cavs mailed it in, or are the Warriors on a singular mission?
When a team gets whipped, they often look worse than they really are. But when you consider the tightrope the Warriors just walked against Oklahoma City, you expected a more competitive series in this round.
The Cavs were supposed to be the aggrieved team, the hungry team, the team on a mission of abject payback. There was a sense that the Warriors beat Cleveland in last year's NBA Finals with one arm tied around LeBron's back. Cleveland still won two games sans Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.
Yet the team is at full strength this year and is getting bombed out the building. This was supposed to be among the greatest rematches in sports history, the hardwood iteration of Ali-Frazier or Borg-McEnroe. But this feels like an NBA champion playing the one-on-one dysfunction of an AAU team.
Love banged his head last night, which invites endless metaphors. The Cavs have a collective headache that requires more than aspirin.
And let's talk James. Fair or not, this series is a referendum on his singular greatness, if not his legacy. He enters the NBA Finals with a 2-4 record. If he limps out to 2-5, the comparisons to Jordan end for now and for good.
Maybe he can't bag this series against a far superior team. But he should be good enough to make this competitive and watchable, if not winnable. You can't call yourself the King if you surrender the NBA crown in four games.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
