The 2016 NBA Finals
have been surprising. Heading into the series it was a widely held belief that
this could be one of the greatest and most memorable series ever. Both teams
are the number one seed, have rosters loaded with stars, and have plenty of supporting
evidence for their stellar regular season records.
The two teams had
faced off the year before in the 2015 NBA Finals. The 2016 versions of both
teams are super talented and play exciting styles of basketball. The Western
Conference champion Golden State Warriors set the all-time regular season win
record by recording 73 victories. Their star player, Stephen Curry, is a near
unstoppable offensive weapon, who beat his own regular season made three
pointer record. The Eastern Conference champion Cleveland Cavaliers feature
Lebron James, the best basketball player since Michael Jordan. The Cavs
surrounded King James with his best supporting cast in years. Like I said the
teams are loaded.
Coming into the
series neither team lacked motivation. Both had plenty of reasons to put forth
maximum effort and were pushed by motivators greater than just the regular
glory that comes with a championship. Cleveland wants to make up for their loss
to the Golden State Warriors in 2015 and gain respect for their team, which is
often written off for playing in the Eastern conference. On a personal level
Lebron James wants to bring the first professional sports championship to
Cleveland since the dinosaurs ruled the Earth. He also wants to erase some of
the stain that "The Decision" has left on his career. The other team,
the Golden State Warriors, want to validate their historic regular season with
an NBA title. Setting a regular season win record is nice, but it means a whole
lot less if you don’t finish the deal by bringing home the trophy (you can ask
the 2001 Seattle Mariners or 2007 New England Patriots about that dubious
achievement).
Even with the highly
talented and motivated team the Finals have been a series of blow outs followed
by more blow outs, instead of an epic series filled with tightly contested
games that leave fans aching for more basketball. The closest score differential
has been 14. Most of the games have been essentially decided by halftime.
Rather than nail bitters these have been snoozers for anyone without a strong
rooting interest.
I don’t know why the
games have been so lopsided, but it has sure been weird. It seems like both
teams are just giving up once they get down by even a little. They appear to
just shut down and worry about trying to win the next one. Hopefully, game
seven will be a good one, but I am not going to hold my breath for it.
The Warriors will be
playing at home in front of their fans where they went 39-2 during the regular
season. The Cavaliers will , obviously, be playing on the road where they only
went 24-17 during the regular season. According to Vegas Insider, NBA home teams
win 81% of playoff game sevens. On paper it looks to be another blowout.
Cleveland will have to overcome a lot to win this game. I bet we don't get a
single close game in this Finals. Despite the hype and appearance of an
all-time classic NBA Championship series we have ended up with a forgettable
snoozer.
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