Hello, Cavalier fans! It’s A.C., back in Cleveland and ready for tonight’s HUGE game at The Q. What’s happening?
Right now, this team is on a mission.
How many teams could do what we’re doing now without three of their main people? It’s unbelievable. Golden State has to feel a little bit like it doesn’t know what hit them.
Things can change in a hurry, but right now, we have Golden State playing our style. And they don’t really like up-close-and-personal. They want to run down the floor – you score, I score. But we’re not playing that way.
People are saying that the Warriors found their rhythm because they had a hot fourth quarter. But I’m not so sure just yet, because they had a hot quarter in Game 2 and came back in Game 3 and played exactly how we wanted them to play.
I’m not going to say a quarter like that doesn’t help in a series. It helps, as far as their mentality goes.
But as long as LeBron has the ball in his hands, there’s not going to be a lot of running up and down the floor. We’re going to make you defend the entire 24 seconds. And if we’re not turning the ball over, that doesn’t give them many options to run.
They want to play up and down tempo, but you have to rebound, too. And we’ve been the better rebounding team. That’s where they’re having problems.
Right now, Shump is really expending a lot of energy on defense and he’s battling through so many injuries. And J.R., we’re getting just enough out of him. But we need one of them to come up with a hot game. Tonight would be nice for J.R. to have a breakout game.
So far, Golden State’s been doing a great job crowding both guys, just like we’re crowding Curry and Thompson. They’re not giving them any free looks, they’re making them work for everything.
But both Shump and J.R. know what this game means, they’re going to come ready.
And I’ve loved the minutes we’ve gotten from James Jones. He knows the game so well. And he’s got ice-water in his veins, too. He’s been huge. He’s hit key baskets, does good solid defensive work.
All this: We’re doing it with band-aids, but we have one horse in the middle who just knows how to control the game.
LeBron is on a total mission. And he has just enough to help him get the job done.
When Shump went down, I was getting worried. But I think we have just enough gas in the tank to get past the finish line. If we can win tonight, I think we can make it.
LeBron is out of this world right now. I’ve never seen a guy dominate a game the way he has in this series. His stamina, averaging almost 48 minutes, is amazing in itself. And I know he can see the finish line, himself, because he’s been there so many times and he understands it.
He knows what it takes now to get over the hump.
The Warriors have themselves mentally prepared to deal with LeBron’s points. But they can’t deal with other guys’ points. Each score by someone other than LeBron has deflated them. When Delly started scoring, they didn’t know what to do.
But we’re up in the series because of our frontcourt. It’s why we’re in the position we’re in now.
Our frontcourt is dominating theirs. Even though they’re not prolific scorers, each game either Timo or Tristan is giving you something. And then you stick LeBron in there with his rebound total and point total and assist total, we’re combining to beat them in the frontcourt.
Now, they think they’ve found something with David Lee; they think they’re ready to compete that way. Lee’s really good at coming off the pick-and-roll and hitting that pass, like he did to Barbosa for the three. But he’s not going to score enough to beat you. So I wouldn't do any special double-teaming of him.
Tonight is the biggest game of the season because it puts us right at the door. They know it and we know it.
It’s going to be a battle. I expect this game to be fought tooth-and-nail and come down to the last shot, maybe. Because they know what it means.
If we didn’t let them back in the game on Tuesday, I thought we might’ve broke their spirit. But we gave them a little bit of life. So we’re going to have to try to break their spirit in this first half again. If we can get the job done again tonight, we’ll be the driver’s seat heading back to Oakland.