2016 NBA Finals: Parallels Run Deep

By: Steven Ngati

Golden State vs Cleveland Part II was the 2006 Texas VS USC Rose Bowl Reincarnated

                Look, I get that Texas vs USC was a better title game than GSW vs Cleveland was a series and this was a rematch situation, but the parallels between the events 10 years apart are staggering. Both USC and GSW were defending champions looking to go back to back. Both were having historically dominant seasons prior to playing for the championship. GSW set the league record with a 73-9 mark. The Warriors had the first unanimous league MVP, Coach of the Year, 24 game winning streak and 3 players on the All-NBA teams. USC was coming off a 12-0 season, 34 game winning streak, had the last two Heisman Trophy Winners and a whopping 10 players make All-American teams. ESPN had multiple forums claiming USC was the greatest CFB team of all time and compared them vs past champions seeing how they would fare. ESPN did the same thing with the Warriors, comparing them to the Showtime Lakers, The 96’ Bulls and the 01 Lakers. The pre-anointing of both these teams clearly motivated their Championship opponents. The 2006 Rose Bowl started heavily in USC’s favor before momentum turned and the same occurred through the first few games of the 2016 Finals. I remember thinking after LenDale White’s touchdown that an avalanche would begin and the Longhorns would get blown out. The momentum turned in the USC game, because of Reggie Bush’s ill-advised lateral during a breakaway run. (Steph Curry who is basically what Reggie Bush was to USC, tried to do an ill-advised behind the back pass in the waning minutes of Game 7 that turned out to be a crushing turnover.) The momentum turn in the Finals was just as strong after Draymond hit LeBron in the balls and got suspended. Despite that, Draymond was their emotional leader and had an incredible Game 7 (32pts, 15 rebs, 9 asts) as the Cavs struggled to contain him. LenDale White was that guy for USC as Texas couldn’t stop him (White had 20 carries 124 yards and 3TD’s). The most obvious comparison is between Vince Young and LeBron. Vince Young was pissed off and thought he should’ve won the Heisman trophy, instead of Reggie Bush. LeBron publicly questioned Steph’s unanimous MVP award and all but promised to show he was still the best player in the world. Both guys used the lack of respect to fuel historic performances and become champions on the biggest stage. (Young had a Rose Bowl record 467 total yards and 3 td’s) (LeBron was the first player in Finals history to lead all players in Pts, Reb, Asts, Blks, and Steals.) Meanwhile, the reigning MVP Steph Curry had a very underwhelming Finals, he was probably the 4th or 5th best player in the series. Reggie Bush had the aforementioned monster turnover and couldn’t get on the field on the 4th and 2 play to clinch the game for USC. Then again, that’s probably more on Pete Carroll than Bush. Hmmm, most important play of a championship game, short yardage situation and your star running back isn’t involved in the play? That sounds so familiar!

Spurs VS OKC, OKC VS GSW and GSW VS CLE Mirror Each Other in Home Court, Public Perception and Officiating

Home Court Advantage Means Nothing.

                Most people picked GSW to win Game 7 because they couldn’t conceivably see GSW losing in their building after such a dominant season, especially at home. (GSW was 39-2 at home during the regular season). But what we saw was home court was irrelevant throughout the playoffs. The Spurs who were 40- 1 at home during the season, lost their last 2 home games in the Western Semis vs OKC after many people including myself figured they were unbeatable at home. This trend continued to show itself in the Western Conference Finals as OKC won Game 1 in Oakland and went on to take a commanding 3-1 lead in which no one had GSW going to win on OKC’s home floor in Game 6. But the Warriors rallied and stole the series from the Thunder. GSW earned the right to home court in the Finals based on their regular season, but did the unthinkable and lost their last 2 games on their home floor just as the Spurs did 2 rounds prior.

The Majority of Us Prematurely Called the Series Over

                The Spurs drilled OKC by 30 points in Game 1 and everyone on ESPN and TNT criticized the OKC defense, said Billy Donovan couldn’t coach, Russell Westbrook was shooting too much and Durant was halfway out the door. The Thunder beat GSW on the road in Game 1 and everyone pointed out the amount of matchup issues GSW had with OKC, Steph’s health was a problem and maybe GSW exhausted too much energy going for 73 wins. The Warriors ran away from Cleveland in Game 1 of the Finals and yet again the experts started calling the fight. They highlighted Cleveland’s short bench, LeBron’s passiveness, Kyrie and Kevin Love couldn’t play defense and Ty Lue is outmatched against Steve Kerr. All of those Game 1 winners went on to lose the series. Our sports culture is full of hot takes from game to game that we have no patience to see how the end product turns out. Someone has to be the hero and someone has to shoulder the blame. That’s all we’re concerned with in Sports now. I give each of those teams that recovered to win the series an enormous amount of credit to overcome in our world of memes and social media critics. Billy Donovan ultimately outcoached Popovich (it kills me on the inside to type that). Westbrook corrected himself and found balance in his game. The Spurs couldn’t contain him the rest of the series. In the GSW vs OKC series, Curry turned out to be fine and outplayed Westbrook in the last two games of the series. Klay couldn’t miss and GSW figured out how to get around OKC’s length and athleticism. As for Cleveland, Richard Jefferson emerged to give the Cavs juice off the bench, LeBron got super aggressive from Game 5 on, Ty Lue did a brilliant job finding the right pace for his team and figuring out the right lineups to match up with GSW’s death lineup. Funny how it was Love that was isolated on defense against Steph the final minute in Game 7 and forces him to shoot a contested 3 that doesn’t hit the rim by being disciplined and moving his feet against an elite ball handler. Sometimes first impressions aren’t everything.

The League Still Has a Major Officiating Problem

                 Many of my friends thought I was being a homer fan when I complained often about the officiating in the Spurs and OKC series. I mean to their point, who doesn’t complain about the refs when their team is in the middle of being upset. The issue was it so obvious that the league couldn’t hide from it. The national story from Game 2 of Spurs and OKC was the insane amount egregious errors committed by the officiating crew during the last 13.5 seconds. I was at the game in person and it was a fantastic basketball game, unfortunately nobody will remember that because the zebras chose to interfere. I do believe OKC deserved to win the series, but the margin of error was so thin against evenly matched competition that we can’t afford to have such mistakes by the officials. We were probably 3 or 4 plays away from having the Spurs win the series in 5 games if some of the calls had gone differently. Woulda, coulda should’ve though, I get it. My bigger point at the time was I didn’t want this to hurt the playoffs moving forward whether the Spurs advanced or not. The officiating continued to be a huge problem in the OKC and GSW series, with the league letting Draymond off the hook for meat shots on Steven Adams. Westbrook’s travel in Game 1 and tick tack fouls that started to follow Steph Curry around are just a few additional examples. The Finals was the league’s greatest embarrassment as the officiating was so inconsistent that various members of the media and a certain player’s spouse wondered aloud if the league was rigged to force a lucrative Game 7. I understand that officiating will always be imperfect and to some degree it’s also subjective but we can’t have the discrepancy and hypocrisy in calls that we all witnessed in the Finals. The league has to check these officials hard and make sure certain guys don’t have agendas against players. Nobody can afford to deal with another Tim Donaghy scandal. The NBA is too good right now for this to be a continued issue.

Other Random End of Series Thoughts

• ·The Cavs won 2 straight road games with sleeves on their jerseys. I thought LeBron hated sleeves?
• ·Pepsi should partner up with someone and give Kyrie Irving his own TV series after the Finals he had. At least sign me up for some more Uncle Drew webisodes.
• ·In all seriousness, Kyrie Irving is the closest thing we’ve seen to Isiah Thomas since maybe Tony Parker circa 2007-2010. This is just the beginning for this incredible talent.
• ·Tristan Thompson can’t get enough credit for how well he played. Perfect championship role player. That’s why LeBron fought so hard to get him paid.
• ·LeBron’s block on Iggy in the 4th, was the greatest block of all time. I thought he jumped off a trampoline.

• ·Harrison Barnes lost money with his meltdown, but probably not as much as you think. Teams in this league are desperate and in a league where wings are becoming more and more valuable due to small ball, someone will pay him handsomely.
• ·I feel bad for David Blatt, but the Cavs made the right call with Ty Lue. Blatt’s personality and coaching style lends itself better to a younger up and coming team and I hope he gets another opportunity in the league. Ty Lue as a former player on a title team full of egos knew what his guys needed and pressed the right buttons with managing LeBron.
• Can we stop with the Hero Ball Hot Take? It’s a lazy analysis and I think we need to look deeper when breaking down these games sometimes. Guys have different skill sets and some are very good iso players. That’s how they got to the league. Kyrie’s game winning 3 in Game 7 was technically a hero ball shot, but he made it. Steph took the same shot on the other end and missed his. Bottom line. After a whole series of playing against the same team, they know all of your plays, actions and counters. That’s where you need guys who can create their own shot off the dribble because that may be all you can get against good defensive teams.
• ·Everyone in the media is lighting up Steph Curry right now and he does deserve blame as many raised him up as the best player in the world, but I think Klay Thompson has to shoulder much of that blame as well. Klay had a bad series and didn’t bring it in Game 7. Klay is often let off the hook because people are talking Curry and Draymond getting suspended, but Klay missing shots and not contributing much elsewhere hurt GSW as much as anything.
• Despite this loss, I still expect GSW to be heavy favorites for the 2017 title. They still have an incredible roster and front office. We’ll see what happens with certain players and teams in free agency, but GSW will still be the team to beat next season.
• Lastly, I’m very happy for Kevin Love and I’m glad he stepped up in Game 7. He was there when his team needed him most and he did a great job crashing the boards and playing a little defense. It’s hard to get going as a player when your shot is off and your own fans are making Oscar the Grouch jokes, but Love didn’t let that deter him from asserting himself in Game 7. I still think Cleveland will probably look to move him for some more role players this offseason, but seeing a good dude like Love overcome and get a ring is pretty cool.