OAKLAND — Tyronn Lue took the podium with his tie askew Thursday night, sloppily loosened like every coach you’ve ever seen who just got done getting his ass kicked. Which is exactly what happened to him and his Cavs in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Then the questions started flying. Why did Cleveland play so poorly? Why did the Cavs turn the ball over 20 times? Why did they shoot just 34.9 percent from the field? Why was Lue’s team smoked for a third straight NBA Finals in the first tilt?
At the end of it, all Lue could muster was effusive, albeit facetious, praise for the Warriors.
“They’re the best I ever seen,” he said.
If you needed a reminder that the Warriors can do more than just shoot threes and pass the ball, the best team in the league wasn’t particularly subtle about it in their 113-91 rout of the Cavaliers at Oracle Arena.
Lue probably had his tongue planted in his cheek with that line, but what else could he really say after the Warriors blew the doors off the Cavs in the third quarter and he watched helplessly as Golden State tied an NBA Finals record by only turning the ball over four times? And, oh yeah, the Warriors’ two-headed monster of Kevin Durant and Steph Curry combined to score 66 points.
“The best thing about tonight, obviously, was just our defensive presence and effort for 48 minutes,” Curry said.
It made for an emphatic evening in Durant’s NBA Finals debut with the Warriors as Golden State pushed its perfect postseason record to 13-0.
“I mean, no other team has done this, right?” Lue said. “So 13-0 and they constantly break records every year, last year being 73-9, this year starting the playoffs 13-0. So they’re playing good basketball. But we can play better.”
Of course the Cavaliers can. While LeBron James’s line was 28, 15, and 8, he also had 8 turnovers. Kyrie Irving had 22 points. Kevin Love had 21 boards and 15 points. But X factor Tristan Thompson was an afterthought, failing to score and only grabbing 4 boards. The Cavs bench did nothing. They were brutal defensively against the Warriors' transition and allowed a ton of points in the paint.
Lue cautioned that getting a game under their belt against the unique Warriors attack was crucial.
“You can’t really simulate that in practices,” he said. “You got to really get out here and get a chance to do it firsthand. When we experience that, we’re able to adjust, we’re a lot better.”
Can they really be any worse? The Cavs are too talented and too experienced to not bounce back. Or at least make Game 2 Sunday competitive past the midway point of the third quarter. Chances are the Warriors won’t enjoy the luxury of an extra 16 possession like they ridiculously did Thursday. Chances are the Cavs, a superb offensive team, won’t shoot so poorly again. Chances are they won’t allow 56 points in the paint or 27 points in transition again. Chances are we’re in for a long series and not a Warriors coronation after just one game. Adjustments are coming. Familiarity with the Warriors' dynamic attack should settle in. And the Cavs expect things to be very different come Sunday.
“It’s great to get the first game up underneath us,” James said. “We made a lot of mistakes, they capitalized. And we get an opportunity to get a couple of days to see what they did and see what we did wrong and how we can be better in Game 2.”
