Tyronn Lue Says Cavaliers Were Doubted All Year After Advancing to NBA Finals

Fresh off advancing to his second straight NBA Finals since taking over as Cleveland Cavaliers head coach, Tyronn Lue took a moment to address the team's doubters from the regular season.

"We were doubted throughout the regular season, all year," Lue told reporters after the Cavaliers' 135-102 win over the Boston Celtics in Game 5.

OK, there's an obvious acknowledgement here that this is coachspeak. Nearly every coach has or will say something similar, whether it's in the locker room or publicly. Making players think that people doubt them is part of the job description. 

As a fact-checker, Lue's claims have some (but not a lot) of merit. There were people who understandably wondered if the Cavaliers could flip a switch in the postseason. Cleveland spent most of the 82-game regular season sleepwalking on defense, playing wildly inconsistent basketball on a highly basis and falling on its face out of the East's top seed.

The Cavs finished 22nd in defensive efficiency, per NBA.com. That's not a championship defense; it's not even a playoff defense.  

It was fair to wonder if the Cavs were slightly vulnerable heading into the postseason.

All that said, come on. The Cavs are the defending champions. They have LeBron James. Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love would be the best player on nearly every Eastern Conference team. James has been destroying the Eastern Conference since Grover Cleveland's presidency.

There was no one who watched basketball this season who doubted the Cavaliers were the best team in the East and a significant favorite to make their third straight Finals. Half of basketball Twitter discussion during the regular season was about how everything was geared toward a Cavs-Warriors Finals. 

That turned out to be exactly the case. The Cavs and Warriors rampaged their way through the playoffs, losing one game combined. Cleveland outscored opponents by 16.1 points per 100 possessions as it moved through the East, a mark only bested by Golden State. No other teams finished with a positive point margin of more than one point per 100 possessions.

These have been the NBA's two best teams all season, and all doubt stripped way once they flipped the switch in the playoffs.