Health Reports for Warriors and Cavaliers Entering 2015 NBA Finals Game 1
The NBA playoffs are a test of both basketball skill and endurance.
No team manages to make it through the grueling postseason schedule without suffering at least a few minor injuries, and the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers are no exceptions as they head into their 2015 NBA Finals clash.
Calf injuries, sickness, problematic ankles, dislocated shoulders, concussions and more have hit these squads during their victorious outings in recent weeks, and whichever team has recovered with more speed may end up having a slight leg up on the sport's biggest stage.
Fortunately, only two players are guaranteed to sit out for the duration of the upcoming series. Beyond them, just a literal handful of contributors have dealt with maladies in recent days, and all of them should be playing at some point during the head-to-head battle.
But will they be ready for Game 1? If so, will they be at 100 percent? Will time off or enduring pain force them into diminished roles?
Barring any setbacks between now and the 9 p.m. ET tipoff on Thursday night, we've got all the answers.
Out for the Series
1 of 6
Kevin Love, PF, Cleveland Cavaliers
Unfortunately, Kevin Love's initial foray into the playoffs ended during the fourth and final game of the Cavs' first-round series with the Boston Celtics. The third member of Cleveland's Big Three is still out for the year after suffering a dislocated left shoulder on a loose-ball play against Kelly Olynyk.
"I truly haven't even thought about it," Love explained about his impending free-agency option, per Marc Berman of the New York Post, in his first public comments since going under the knife in late April. "I expect to be suiting up for Game 1. Next year."
There's no chance he plays in the 2015 NBA Finals.
Anderson Varejao, C, Cleveland Cavaliers
The floppy-haired center has been out for significantly longer than his frontcourt counterpart, but he's still not going to be playing against the Golden State Warriors. After tearing his left Achilles just 26 games into the 2015-16 campaign, the oft-injured Anderson Varejao has been out of the lineup ever since, and that's not going to change anytime soon.
"Cavaliers center Anderson Varejao will not play in the 2015 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors, a team official told Northeast Ohio Media Group on Friday.
Varejao is still recovering from a left Achilles tear he suffered in December. At this juncture, he hasn't even been cleared to run.
"
Putting a center who can't even run out on the floor against the Warriors probably isn't a recipe for success.
Festus Ezeli
2 of 6
Position: C
Age: 25
2014-15 Per-Game Stats: 4.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, 0.2 assists, 0.2 steals, 0.9 blocks, 16.2 PER
2015 Postseason Per-Game Stats: 3.2 points, 3.0 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.1 steals, 0.5 blocks, 15.6 PER
Per MercuryNews.com's Diamond Leung, Festus Ezeli missed Saturday's practice with an illness. Given the time off between the Western Conference Finals and the last round of the playoffs, that shouldn't end up being problematic, but it's worth noting if the Golden State Warriors big man ends up looking a bit sluggish during Thursday's Game 1.
Ezeli is by no means a star. However, that doesn't mean he lacks importance.
The 25-year-old center has looked quite good in limited action this postseason, particularly during the last three games of the penultimate round. In those final contests against the Houston Rockets, he averaged 8.7 points and 6.7 rebounds, knocking down two-thirds of his shots from the field and making a nice defensive impact against Dwight Howard and the other Houston bigs.
And this was a series after Draymond Green went out of his way to praise Ezeli in a postgame presser, as relayed by SI Wire:
"A question that I haven't gotten the chance to answer, I want to answer, and I'm gonna ask myself. We're not sitting here without Festus Ezeli. He goes in, everything's going wrong, they made their run, we're up two points, and nobody notices—he set a killer screen on Mike Conley to get Steph open.
"
Against the Cavaliers, Ezeli will be an important piece, even if his efforts go unrecognized by the general public. Cleveland might not have a wealth of offensive firepower at the biggest positions in the lineup, but opponents can often get into some foul trouble when LeBron James is attacking the basket.
Andrew Bogut alone wouldn't be enough.
Marreese Speights
3 of 6
Position: PF/C
Age: 27
2014-15 Per-Game Stats: 10.4 points, 4.3 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.3 steals, 0.4 blocks, 19.5 PER
2015 Postseason Per-Game Stats: 4.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.4 blocks, 14.4 PER
The last time Marreese Speights stepped onto the court during live action for the Golden State Warriors, he played slightly more than five minutes during Game 3 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Memphis Grizzlies. In that limited action, he managed to take seven shots and score nine points, but he hasn't been seen since.
That's about to change, since his calf injury will no longer keep him out of the lineup.
"Mo's good. He's good to go," Steve Kerr explained to the press on Tuesday, per CSN Bay Area's Monte Poole. "He's had two good practices. He will more than likely play in this series. Just a question of how the rotations unfold, the matchups, that kind of stuff."
Obviously, this is great news for the Dubs. The 27-year-old Speights was a key reserve for the 67-win squad throughout the regular season, taking and making shots from all over the court while providing some solid contributions on the glass.
In fact, Speights even received one first-place vote for Sixth Man of the Year and finished seventh in the award standings, trailing only Lou Williams, Isaiah Thomas, Jamal Crawford, Andre Iguodala, Tristan Thompson and Nikola Mirotic. Though he may not even be the most valuable second-unit player on his own team, he's quite impactful when he's healthy.
As Kerr made clear, Speights' role is still up in the air. But at least he's available, adding yet another weapon to the already potent bench arsenal.
Klay Thompson
4 of 6
Position: SG
Age: 25
2014-15 Per-Game Stats: 21.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.8 blocks, 20.8 PER
2015 Postseason Per-Game Stats: 19.7 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.9 assists, 0.9 steals, 0.9 blocks, 15.9 PER
Having Festus Ezeli and Marreese Speights healthy is nice. Having Klay Thompson healthy is an absolute necessity.
According to my FATS model (based on historical comparisons and explained in full here), the All-Star shooting guard had the third-biggest on/off differential on the roster, trailing only a certain MVP and Draymond Green. When he played, the Golden State Warriors looked the part of a 58.4-win squad. When he sat, they declined and became a 44.5-win outfit.
A team just barely better than .500 isn't going to take down LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, especially given the confidence they've earned while rolling through the Eastern Conference playoffs. And fortunately for the Bay Area, it won't have to watch such a squad, because Thompson appears to be fully recovered from his Game 5 adventure in the Western Conference Finals.
After taking an accidental knee to the side of the head from Trevor Ariza, Thompson retreated to the locker room, came back out and retreated again after blood dripped from his ear. He was subsequently diagnosed with a concussion, but ESPN.com's Marc Stein reports that he's been cleared to play for Game 1.
Whether he'll be at full strength will be a better question.
He may be physically healthy, but there's no telling if he's mentally confident enough to draw contact, and that's saying nothing of potential rust from sitting out of basketball activities for a few days.
Kyrie Irving
5 of 6
Position: PG
Age: 23
2014-15 Per-Game Stats: 21.7 points, 3.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.3 blocks, 21.5 PER
2015 Postseason Per-Game Stats: 18.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.8 blocks, 20.3 PER
It's clearly been a few weeks since Kyrie Irving was at 100 percent.
He played only 12 minutes in the series-clinching victory over the Chicago Bulls, then sat out Games 2 and 3 against the Atlanta Hawks. Even when on the floor for the Cleveland Cavaliers, he lacked explosion, couldn't burst off either foot and was forced into an off-ball role that carried far less importance. Left knee tendinitis held him back, and it didn't help that his sore right foot hadn't appeared to heal completely.
He still may not be 100 percent.
Cleveland head coach David Blatt admitted as much on the last day of May, per Cleveland.com's Chris Haynes. And as CSN Bay Area's Matt Maiocco relayed on Wednesday afternoon, Irving has been hearing a lot of questions about his health:
"I'm just asked all the time whether it be the regular person walking around in Cleveland or someone here in San Francisco, I'm walking down the street and they ask me how's my knee doing. I'm like, 'I'm fine. Thank you. My knee is OK.' It's like, 'Are you playing? Are you playing Game 1?' I'm like, 'Yeah, I'll be playing.'
It's an adjustment, but it's what it is at this point. But I'm just going to go out there and will myself to play.
"
If LeBron James is to be believed, that's still good enough.
"Whatever he can give us is going to be great for our team," the four-time MVP explained, also via Maiocco. "Kyrie at 50 [percent], Kyrie at 60, Kyrie at 70 is better than Kyrie at zero. His presence on the court when that 'No. 2 Irving' steps on the court, he's a presence and the defense has to be aware of him and account for him because of his ability to make plays."
Nonetheless, Cleveland needs him to get better quickly.
A hobbled floor general guarding Stephen Curry makes for an awfully tough matchup, forcing plenty of switches and cross-matches, and the Cavs need every little advantage they can get against what should be the most difficult NBA Finals opponent of James' career.
LeBron James
6 of 6
Position: SF
Age: 30
2014-15 Per-Game Stats: 25.3 points, 6.0 rebounds, 7.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.7 blocks, 25.9 PER
2015 Postseason Per-Game Stats: 27.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 8.3 assists, 1.8 steals, 1.3 blocks, 24.8 PER
"With all due respect to postseason Harrison Barnes, a completely different animal compared to regular-season Harrison Barnes, LeBron James is LeBron James," Bleacher Report's Dan Favale posited while giving the Cleveland Cavaliers the advantage at small forward in his position-by-position breakdown of the NBA Finals.
And LeBron James will be LeBron James during the last stretch of the 2014-15 campaign. He doesn't seem to have any lingering issues, even after his ankle was giving him some trouble due to spills against both the Chicago Bulls and Atlanta Hawks.
"I think if you put it all together, yeah," James recently told ESPN.com's Dave McMenamin. "If you put everything together as far as my mind, my body, my game. If you put everything in one bottle, this is probably the best I've been."
Yes, the body is included.
James is healthy and raring to go as he tries to earn the third ring of his already illustrious career. And while the Cavs might boast the services of a hobbled point guard and go into the Finals attempting to overcome the absences of two rotation stalwarts, that's enough to trump all news that isn't positive.
After all, the Warriors have a lot of advantages in this series. They win the matchup at nearly every position, can call upon a deeper bench and have a more successful coach—in the NBA, which is rather different than earning accolades in international leagues—pacing the sidelines.
But they don't have a healthy James.
Cleveland does.
Note: All stats, unless otherwise indicated, come from Basketball-Reference.com.
Adam Fromal covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @fromal09.
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