LeBron James, Kyrie Irving Display Necessary Greatness to Save Cavaliers' Season
It was going to take a spectacular, season-preserving effort from the Cleveland Cavaliers to survive a road closeout Game 5 against a Golden State Warriors team fired up to collect its second straight title and avenge Draymond Green's suspension.
Kyrie Irving and LeBron James didn't have a problem with that.
They became the first teammates in NBA Finals history to score at least 40 points in the same game. Thanks to that incredible (and totally necessary) tandem effort, the Cavs extended the series with a 112-97 win.
James poured in a season-high (playoffs or otherwise) 41 points, adding 16 rebounds (also a season high), seven assists, three steals and three blocks on 16-of-30 shooting. By the end of the third period, his dialed-in approach and sudden trust in his perimeter shot had him in territory he'd never reached at any previous point in his career, per Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com:
James hadn't hit five shots outside the paint in any game of these playoffs, either. He had that many by halftime, per John Schuhmann of NBA.com.
With jumpers raining down and blow-by layups aplenty, James drew effusive praise. We're talking serious, superlative usage from the likes of CBSSports.com's Bill Reiter and ESPN's Zach Lowe:
Incredibly, this will still be remembered as the Kyrie Irving Game, and James redirected the plaudits toward his teammate afterward, per J.A. Adande of ESPN:
Cleveland's point guard matched James' 41 points, but he did it in conspicuously unstoppable fashion.
Irving hit 17 of his 24 shots from the field, including 10-of-15 when he brought the ball up the floor and didn't pass at all, per ESPN Stats & Info. Dominating straight isolation sets and victimizing the Warriors' beleaguered defense in simple pick-and-roll attacks, Irving torched Stephen Curry and anyone else with the misfortune of guarding him.
Irving took good shots, bad shots and awful shots. He made pretty much all of them, spicing up the performance with slick dribbling and balletic body control in the paint. It was peak Kyrie: an individual scoring dynamo slicing opponents to ribbons with exactly the kind of one-on-one play that so often earns him criticism.
Credit Irving for staying true to the game he prefers on the biggest stage he's ever seen. No one will ever be able to question his self-assuredness.
There will, however, be queries about sustainability—as to both Irving's play and Cleveland's as a whole.
Without detracting from Irving and James' historic nights, Green's absence was a factor and the search for his replacement came up predictably empty.
Irving operated more freely in space because the Warriors were no longer equipped to switch liberally on defense. Golden State quickly realized Andrew Bogut's poor mobility and Festus Ezeli's incessant brain freezes wouldn't be good enough to contain Irving. So James Michael McAdoo saw minutes, and observers watched a player who looked somehow programmed to make the worst defensive decisions possible at all times.
Anderson Varejao, a Steve Kerr favorite whose principal skill seems to be falling down, logged a ridiculous nine minutes. In 2016. In an NBA Finals game.
With Bogut suffering a scary left knee sprain (MRI upcoming late Monday night), Green's return looms even larger. Expect Golden State to start its vaunted Death Lineup with him at center, and expect him to clock virtually every minute of court time in Game 6.
His ability to switch will be critical to stopping Irving, and his elite help instincts will likely be all that stands between James and a whole mess of layups.
Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue wasn't shy about praising Green's value after Game 5, per Bay Area Sports Guy:
In addition to his nuts-and-bolts worth, Green's passion will be critical. According to Kerr, Golden State was supposed to take the floor with a purpose Monday—partly because of the closeout-game urgency and partly to stand up for its suspended leader.
"If there was any edge missing," Kerr told reporters Monday afternoon, "it's definitely there now."
It sure was...for about five minutes.
But after an inspired, high-energy start, the Warriors lost whatever sharpness they brought out of the tunnel. Curry threw careless passes, Klay Thompson (who was mostly brilliant, scoring 37 points on 11-of-20 shooting) eventually began forcing difficult shots. Harrison Barnes was an abject disaster, hitting two of his 14 field-goal attempts and clanking a bevy of wide-open threes that could have made things interesting in the fourth quarter.
It's hard to be sure, but Green's presence might have prevented the startling dip in intensity. That's the trade-off Golden State has embraced all season: Live with the cost of Green's frenzied rage (like, for example, his Game 5 suspension) because the overall benefits are so much greater.
In fact, Green returning too motivated must be among Golden State's biggest worries for Game 6.
The Warriors will happily take that chance after getting a taste of life without him in Game 5. And they'll have to hope his return means James and Irving's fantastic performances were just memorable blips—and not history-altering, series-swinging pivot points.
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