The Optimist Heading Into Game 3
Cavs.com's Sunshine Analyst Checks in from The Land
by The Optimist
6/7/17 | Cavs.com
As-salamu alaykum, die-hard Cavalieros. I’m the one they call “Optimist” – back on the North Coast, refreshed, reloaded and ready to rumble.
While the national punditry poops its collective pampers, you and I – seasoned Championship-winning veterans that we are – take solace in the fact that we’ve been here before.
Oh-2 ain’t no thing to the Wine and Gold. We spotted Golden State two wins after four games last June – and that all seemed to turn out pretty well.
Am I saying there isn’t a sense of urgency as the high-powered Dubs – winners of 29 of their last 30 games – roll into Cleveland for the first time since Kyrie Irving egested a steaming lump of coal into their eggnog back on Christmas Day?
I am not.
I’m saying that we know from experience that it is an obstacle that can be overcome.
Hell, we ain’t barely broke a sweat!
But the Cavaliers are gonna need a whole lotta mo’ from everyone to overcome this new-and-improved version of the Warriors. Kevin Durant has been the difference in the series. And Cleveland will need production from everyone who sees action to offset his presence.
So, if you tuned in today to see me flailing about, barking out rally-platitudes and instructions on where to hide the womenfolk and children, you done picked the wrong column.
In fact, I’m gonna do what I always do when I need to calm down and focus (so I don’t hurt myself or others): I’m gonna take a deep breath, channel my inner-T. Lue and make myself a nice List.
Check it:
I’m not here to set strategy. I’m just here to provide a firm – but in no way intimate – crack on your rear end that says: “Let’s defend the Land, yo!!
Photo by The Optimist
1. The Fragility of a Win Streak
Most people (especially in Cleveland) know from the exterior packaging of the famous window leg-lamp that the word “FRAGILE” is, in fact, Italian, meaning: “something you don’t-a wanna break”
A win streak can be fragile. One small thing can send it crashing to the ground.
Last year, the Cavaliers hit Golden State with what Steve Kerr described as “great force” at home in Game 3. Tristian Thompson set the tone early – turning the energy level to 11 and hitting the Warriors – who’d won Game 2 by 33 points – with something they didn’t see coming.
The Warriors won a close one in Game 4, but the Cavaliers were off the ropes and swinging again.
Fans of the fight game remember a run back in the mid-80s in that weird Post-Ali / Pre-Tyson Era when the last Russian heavyweight to hold the belt – Ivan Drago – had an utterly dominant run: knocking out and killing former champ Apollo Creed and brow-beating reigning champ Rocky Balboa in successive fights.
But after a while, all the winning, all the training, the hair care, the weight of a nation and the completely ridiculous amounts of HGH he was spiking caught up with Drago. And when Balboa – whose training included running up mountains and dead-lifting mule-carts – drew blood in Round 3 of their rematch, it was all over but the shoutin’.
The Warriors haven’t seen any semblance of adversity this offseason.
How will they react if they do?
2. Kyrie Irving and the Law of Averages
Do you – as I do – get the feeling that Uncle Drew is about to go on an offensive rampage?
Me too.
The four-time All-Star was rock-solid in Game 1, with numbers comparable to Curry’s. And the Cavaliers Big Three was on point – like the power trio of Athos, Aramis and Porthos. But for much of Game 2, the Cavaliers were reduced to a dynamic duo – like Tango and Cash or Chest Rockwell and Brock Landers.
More than Love – even more than TheBron – Kyrie is like a jazz artist on the floor. He hasn’t expressed himself in the series yet. He hasn’t riffed a lick. And he’s ready to jam.
On Wednesday night, the Deuce gets loose.
3. The Law of Role Players Playing Better at Home
Even the dummkopf international NBA reporters that've taken over Johnny’s Little Bar this week know this basketball truism. It’s essentially an NBA by-law – like Danny Ferry taking the ball out of bounds after a made basket or a team winning the next game after firing their coach.
The Cavaliers haven’t gotten much from their reserves through the first two games of the series.
But the Cavaliers haven’t played at The Q in a fortnight – their last home contest was May 23, Game 4 against Boston – and tonight is the best opportunity they’ll get to recharge their batteries moving forward.
Despite the final scores, Cleveland has been right in both ballgames. Kyle Korver, Deron Williams, Channing Frye and J.R. Smith can all heat up in a hurry.
It’s time for the Wine and Gold’s reserves to lead a third-quarter scoring spree.
Your support – by all NBA analytics – will help greatly.
4. History
The Cavaliers have come back from 0-2 deficits twice to win a seven-game series.
Once was last year’s Championship run against the Warriors. The other was the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals against the Pistons.
We all remember what happened in each of those series.
We've been here before Cavs fans, against the same foe, and not too long ago ...
Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/NBAE via Getty Images
Has there ever been a Cleveland athlete in your lifetime that you trust more than TheBron to get this done?
Numeral 23 didn’t come this far just to come this far.
5. Jeff Schaefer’s Stringent Educational Demands
Believe you me, I wish we didn’t have to go to history class either. But that little PR beanpole we call “Schaef” will rat us out quicker than you can say “Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire” – who would’ve been 260 on This Day in History, June 7.
Not a heck of a lot happened on this Date – not much good anyhow.
The best thing that ever happened on this day was Priscilla Presley opening Graceland to the public back in 1982.
The worst thing that ever happened on this date was when anti-alcohol crusader Carrie Nation kicked off her reign of Temperance terror back in 1899 – traveling around the panhandle, singing church hymns and smashing up saloons with her trademark hatchet while a bunch of old-timey drunks yelled “WHOA! WHOA! WHOA!”
Schaef is really lucky that today’s Birthdays – smack-dab in the middle of the NBA Finals, when we have more important things to worry about – are off-the-charts mint.
Today’s Birthday boys and girls include super-heavyweights like broadcasting legend Jim McKay, Hall of Famer Allen Iverson, late-great musical icon Prince, current tennis pariah Anna Kournikova, Rafa Hernandez-Brito’s baseball idol and the pride of Canton – Thurman Munson, literary genius Henry Miller, Steubenville’s own Dean Martin, the Vice President of the United States Mike Pence, Nets legend Drazen Petrovic and actor Liam Neeson – who has a particular set of skills, but none of those skills include being able to make foxy women throw their underpants at him on stage.
That expertise belongs to legendary Welsh recording superstar and timeless sex machine, Tom Jones, who turns 77 years young today.
Plenty of so-called bigshots Died on This Day and if I had to guess, I’d say nearly all of them still are. But talking about dead folk when we’ve got Game 3 on tap is a bigger buzzkill than Carrie Nation and her coven of church-ladies, smashing up perfectly good kegs of booze with their axes, singing “Bringing In the Sheaves.”
Nah.
On Wednesday night we have the first of FOUR Championship games that our beloved Cavaliers need to win in order to repeat as Flat World Champs. And we need all the positive juice we can get.
They’re going to give it all to you tonight. They’ll need every bit of it back.
At times … maybe a little more.
I’m not talking about just the 20,562 frothing lunatics packed into Quicken Loans Arena in a few hours. I’m talking about every Cavalier fan around the area, around the country and around the globe – all focusing their girded loins squarely on the mothership later tonight.
Your team needs you.
You know what you have to do.
Keep the faith, Cleveland
Your pal,
The Optimist