The Likelihood Of Individual Things Happening In This Year’s Finals
The Warriors and Cavs get to go at each other’s throats again for at least four games. Maybe more, but definitely enough to get us to fire up the “3–1” lead jokes again for at least a game.
Sometimes you know things are going to happen. Like when you lie to your parents, but you know they’re going to find out and then you’re going to get a whooping. Ninety nine out of a hundred times, they find out, and you get a whooping. The universe is consistent like that. Same with this year’s Final’s match-up. It feels almost like scripture that the Warriors and Cavs are destined to do this dance a third time in a row, like some sort of basketball version of the Dark Knight and the Clown Prince of Crime (I’ll let you internalize who’s who on your own, but depending on where you land, that says a lot about you as a person. Choose carefully).
The Warriors built a death star capable of annihilating planets in a variety of ways. They were the basketball version of the Swiss-Army Sword. Yet, they lost and scrambled to find answers in the offseason. Their answer was taking the already most-sophisticated weapon in basketball and strapping a bazooka to it. It’s like a bayonet that also shoots lasers. Entirely excessive, entirely unnecessary, and it has them staring at a very real possibility of winning the NBA Championship without losing a game.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, on the other hand, re-upped by adding some duct-tape around the old LeBron-O-Mobile and revving it up for another Mad Max-style pillage through the wasteland of the Eastern Conference on a way to their meeting with the new-and-improved Warriors. Between them, Cleveland and Golden State lost a grand total of 1 (!!!) ((ONE!!!!)) (GODDAMN ONE GAME!!!!!!) game on the way to the meeting we all knew would happen. But this was predictable. How likely are some of the outcomes that we will see during the series? Let’s take a look.
A Draymond Green Ejection
75% Likely
Draymond Green is about 40 percent human sub-tweet, with the other 60 percent being the actual human “I will @ you as I say this so we all know I’m talking about you and no one else” tweet. He isn’t as much a habitual line-stepper as he is a habitual line destroyer. He doesn’t care about lines. He could give a shit.
Arguably, Green’s indiscretion and brand of kung-fu basketball cost the Golden State Warriors a second consecutive NBA Championship last year. I’ve reviewed defense arguments arguing for inadvertent body movement and found them lacking. If an octopus is capable of maintaining motor functions of eight limbs simultaneously, I have to believe that Draymond Green has a zen-like command of four. Every action is well-calculated to maximize the possible outcome of irritating the opponent. That’s just what Green does, and by virtue of being on Golden State, he often gets away with it.
On the other hand, LeBron James is a roller coaster of human emotion, fluctuating somewhere between quiet distrust to complete human empathy. Between the Decision, winning with the Heat; coming back to Cleveland, being an actual, genuine human being; pretending to be too cool for school and mentoring Kyrie; he has hit everywhere on your emotional spectrum, currently somewhere between “definitely rooting for him over Golden State” and “he’s actually kind of likable when he doesn’t try too hard.” He also has the eternal protection of the League as his own personal bodyguard detail, so any Green slight against Royalty will be met with utmost deliberation from the League. Unless Draymond learns to pick off smaller targets around LeBron — which let’s be honest, he will not — a suspension is incoming.
Warriors Blowing a 3–1 Lead
10% Likely
Let’s get this one out of the way early. This just isn’t going to happen. I know, historically speaking, we’re currently somewhere in the Nate Silver reality of being able to predict things that should be fairly obvious, so the 10 percent is an estimation made for safety. My heart is telling me it’s actually 0 percent, and my body is right here with it. This is a team that watched their two-peat hopes sail away into the sidelines like an errant behind-the-back Steph Curry pass so half-casual, you have to wonder if he’s actually sleepwalking. They’re not going to let that happen again.
The beauty of having Kevin Durant and Steph Curry is that you don’t really need them to coexist. Their bond isn’t a symbiotic relationship where they have to feed off each other’s energy. One just has to be the safety valve while the other is off the floor. When Curry takes a break, Durant has the full and free license to go supernova. When Durant needs a breather from wide-open long jumpers, Curry is there to do that thing he does with such ease that he makes it look like he’s Muhammad Ali play-fighting a 15-year-old (hint: it’s shoot threes). Then, there is also Klay Thompson.
When Thompson gets like this, he can’t be within five meters of an open flame, or the whole arena might explode.
J.R. Smith Podium Game Followed Immediately by a J.R. Smith Facepalm Game (Possibly in the same game, in which case, adjust “game” for “quarter”)
80% Likely
For the duration of the NBA Finals, if you tweet the “fire,” the “100” and the “facepalm” emojis, they should all be automatically replaced by J.R. Smith’s face depending on the current circumstance and state of the world’s first-walking, talking and hooping heat-check. Earl Joseph Smith is a walking human conundrum, equal-measure infuriating and empathetic human being whose spirit animal is… I don’t know what it is, but it’s for sure shirtless.
The main appeal of J.R. Smith is the unchained joy with which he plays basketball. He knows he gets to play a sport for a living, which is something many kids dream of but rarely achieve. He also knows that it’s supposed to be fun, and in the end, it’s not all that serious. It’s not like anyone in the NBA is out here performing surgery, curing cancer or tackling actual relevant issues in the world. In the end, it is a game (cue sports fans linking “you think this is a game?” videos in response to this article) and J.R. treats it as such. He never met a shot he didn’t like, and in these Finals, that will continue. We will come at a crossroads where J.R. will shoot the mesh off the net because of how on fire he is, as well as clank so many shots you’ll wonder why he’s still on the court. Cleveland’s success is dependent very much on which of these eventualities happens first and which happens second.
Golden State Sweeping
15% Likely
It’s in play. Golden State sits on top of the undefeated mount with one opponent left to challenge their dominance. They’re the best team in the league, and I heard they have to be intermittently submerged into a weapons grade cooling agent to avoid going nuclear in the vicinity of their training facility. But, Cleveland is the team with the best chance to actually beat the Warriors (aside from the Kawhi-powered Spurs, but life is cruel, so that’s out the window).
LeBron James is on a historically amazing playoffs run. When he retires, I dare you to put his playoff averages on paper without annotating which year is which and ask someone who has little to no idea about basketball which line is 32-year-old LeBron. I don’t know which defected scientist engineered his body, but I’m going to need to see the schematics at this point.
Including LeBron, Cleveland has two players who can turn a switch to “incinerate,” and both are in prime shape. When LeBron decides he wants to take a game into his hands, it’s like being run over by a truck. He is bigger and often faster than anyone around him, allowing him to mow down his opponents. Similarly, when Kyrie flips the switch, the court turns into a whirlwind of quick steps, ins and outs and shattered ankle matter. Between the two of them, they’re worth at least two wins for Cleveland.
The LeBron James “Bitch You Thought” Screw Face
100% Likely
LeBron James says with his facial expressions what John Wall needs the full extent of human vocabulary to say.
LeBron acting like he doesn’t care about your narrative while caring very much about your narrative
90% Likely
The King’s adult life has been entirely defined by being in the spotlight. Ever since he was good enough to be better than anyone around him, James couldn’t escape the camera lens. After the disastrous PR faux pas that was The Decision, James became the expert of structuring the NBA storylines in such a way to both avoid being the villain, but also be the center of attention. When you’re horrible at dealing with criticism — which let’s agree he is, and save me the 15 slide presentation I have ready just in case — you either resort to petty shots or learn to structure the narrative. LeBron did the latter.
He doesn’t care what he has to say, because his word is bond. He disperses his own reactions like a Stephen A. Smith hot take, from shooting back at Klay Thompson, to saying he doesn’t really care about regular season games (but then playing in said games like he cares very much). If you ask LeBron a question, assume the answer is “he doesn’t care,” but know deep down that he probably does. LeBron cares because when you grow into a man in public spotlight, you become co-dependent.
An Injury to a Major Player
60% Likely
I physically hate myself for writing this. I’m actually not going to eat any dinner tonight in punishment for opening up the universe for this kind of possibility. I’m also going to pray to whoever will listen for this not to happen. But, it’s 2017, and despite our own misguided hopes, Trump is President, more good celebrities keep dying, Charles Barkley has a show on racism, and Lil’ Yacthy is still a thing. The world is clearly indicating to us that its not interested in sending us any kind of respite. Still, I hope we get a Finals that’s a worthy conclusion to the trilogy.
Cleveland winning the series
35% Likely
Let’s get one thing out of the way. Everyone who says the Golden State Warriors are ruining basketball, check yourself with that basketball privilege at the door. They run very intuitive sets and play aesthetically pleasing basketball with the occasional tendency of overstepping their bounds and pretending they’re on an AND1 court (and pay for it with losing a championship, because STOP THROWING THOSE BEHIND-THE-BACK PASSES WHEN IT MATTERS, STEPH!). Sure, amalgamating a lot of talent in one place is bad for parity, but with a soaring salary cap and shifting free agency priorities, I feel like that trend will not stick to only the Bay.
The Warriors are the best team with two of the most eclectic scorers of our generation, and they play basketball so smooth I still can’t believe it’s not butter. They’re an orchestrated ballet to Cleveland’s Mad Max-style heavy metal opera fueled a by a three tonne human Transformer that’s also a truck. GSW learns to lean on all their pieces in alteration. Cleveland has the LeBron switch complemented occasionally by a Kyrie switch, but that may not be enough.
James has mileage on his body, and this is a different Golden State team. Last year, LeBron was able to remain mostly idle on defense by letting Harrison Barnes shoot himself into Dallas and his agent into alcoholism. This year, there’s Kevin Durant. Putting any of Cleveland’s fours on KD is as equivalent to a death sentence as it can get for Cleveland. Forcing LeBron into a situation where he has to exert himself on both ends of the court more than he did an entire series begs the question: if someone needs to block Andre Iguodala’s layup into the XVIIth Century, will LeBron still have the energy after chasing Kevin Durant all day?
