LeBron James has a good history with Game 2’s and after that embarrasing loss in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, it was only right for the Cleveland Cavaliers to make tweaks and bounce back at Oracle Arena against the Golden State Warriors, right? Until it didn’t happen.
Game 2 of the series was like much of the previous, with King James putting the Cavs on his back and trying to carry the team while the Warriors put on a clinic at home.
The only difference? It wasn’t Leandro Barbosa, Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala that finished Cleveland on this night. It was Draymond Green, who complete spazzed out on the visitors. But that’s the theme of the Warriors run towards another championship. Even when Klay Thompson and Steph Curry aren’t going off, someone else on the squad will step up and surprise the opposition.
Green led all Warriors scorers with 28 points, seven rebounds and five assists.
Cleveland figured that stopping the Splash Brothers would be their main focus, but that strategy seems to be backfiring as more of the supporting cast has been taking turns burning them with shot after shot. On Sunday night, Green hit 5-8 from three-point land, even taking Thompson-like step back triples from downtown, off the dribble and on catch-and-shoot situations.
Steph was having a party on the bench watching it all unfold.
Curry found himself in foul trouble before halftime and the Cavs managed to go on a bit of run to end the first half, but none of it seemed to matter in the long run.
The Warriors bench still went off thanks to a spark from Barbosa and by the 4th quarter, the rest of the bench was in the game draining shots from deep in garbage time.
So where was the Big 3 of the Cavs? Kevin Love entered in concussion protocol when he got hit in the head and suffered dizziness in the third quarter. Kyrie Irving was not as impactful either, missing 14 shots on the night and only scoring 10 points.
As quiet as the Splash Brothers seemed, they still had 18 points and 17 points respectively.
Either way, it seems like the Cavs have no answers for the overwhelming attacking power of the Warriors and LeBron cannot continue to carry the team on his back with no help. Maybe the next two home games prove different, but it’ll be interesting to see if Love will be missing in action and/or if anyone from Cleveland comes to the rescue of LBJ and ease his workload.
Game 3 will be played on Wednesday, June 8 at 9pm EST in Cleveland.
FINAL: GS 110 | CLE 77