Game two of the NBA Finals featured two recurring themes: Kevin Durant was again the best player on the court and the Golden State Warriors again routed the Cleveland Cavaliers, this time by the score of 132-113. The Cavaliers played with more energy, effort and physicality in game two than they did in game one--particularly in the first half, resulting in a competitive 67-64 score after the first 24 minutes--but they wilted in all three categories in a lackluster second half. The Warriors have now won 14 straight playoff games, adding to the list of NBA records that they have broken in the past three years.
Durant led both teams in scoring (33 points), rebounds (13), blocked shots (five) and steals (three, tied with LeBron James and Iman Shumpert). He shot 13-22 from the field, including 4-8 from three point range, and he did a lot of his damage one on one versus LeBron James, who has been proclaimed by many (including James himself) to be the best player on the planet. James was the third best player on the court during game two, as Stephen Curry notched his first career playoff triple double (32 points, 11 assists, 10 rebounds). Klay Thompson continued to play great defense and he emerged from his shooting slump with 22 points on 8-12 field goal shooting.
James' numbers look great, as they almost always do: 29 points, 14 assists, 11 rebounds. James cut his turnovers from eight in game one to four in game two (Curry took over the role of Edward Scissorhands with the ball, committing eight turnovers in game two). He tied Magic Johnson's career Finals record with his eighth triple double. No other player in NBA history has more than two Finals triple doubles. James is not performing badly--but he is not performing well enough, either. This is not about numbers but about impact: the Cavaliers need James to be the best player on the court and they need him to win his individual matchup with Durant but neither of those things is happening.
The rush to prematurely crown James as Michael Jordan's successor reminds me of the similar rush to crown Roger Federer as the greatest tennis player of all-time. The analogy is not perfect, of course, as there is a big difference between an individual sport and a team sport; the point is that we can only compare James to Jordan via numbers or a subjective eye test of how we imagine they might fare against each other despite playing under different conditions in different eras--the same limitations inherent in comparing Federer to Borg and other greats from the past--but we can get our popcorn ready and watch James versus Durant right now, much like we have been able to watch Federer versus Nadal for over a decade. After watching Nadal beat Federer head to head so many times, it is very difficult to buy the notion that Federer is the greatest player of all-time. Similarly, before James leapfrogs Jordan (not to mention Kobe Bryant) he needs to solidify his dominance among his peers; James does not necessarily have one player who is Nadal to his Federer but James does have a history of being outshined by lesser players on the biggest stage and that pattern seems to be repeating itself in this series. No one is comparing Kevin Durant to Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan (nor should such comparisons be made) but Durant is clearly getting the best of James right now--and this is coming on the heels of a regular season during which James coasted so that he could be well-rested for just this moment, in marked contrast with the approach that Jordan and Bryant took: they did not rest during the regular season and yet they were at their best when it mattered most.
James had just 18 field goal attempts and five free throw attempts in game two. That is not enough. James started out the game with the right mindset by aggressively attacking the hoop, which is a major reason--along with a similar mindset displayed by Kevin Love--that the Cavaliers kept the game close for the first half. However, in the second half James settled for jump shots or just deferred completely to other players; sometimes it looks like once James has reached certain statistical plateaus in a game he figures "I got mine and they can't blame me if we lose, so I am going to keep my field goal percentage intact." Russell Westbrook would have shot the ball 18 times in the fourth quarter alone if he had been in James' place yesterday and both Jordan and Bryant would have gone down firing as well (or, perhaps, emerged victorious by firing...). Justifying James' passivity by calling him a pass-first player is ridiculous; if he stays healthy and keeps playing then he will retire as the all-time leading scorer in the regular season, the playoffs and the All-Star Game. James is a great scorer who also possesses excellent passing skills but in order to win championships he--like every other Pantheon player except Bill Russell--must accept the burden of being a big-time scorer. When James has done that, he has won championships. It is odd that it seems like James has to relearn this lesson almost every time he advances to the Finals.
Love played very well (27 points on 12-23 field goal shooting, along with seven rebounds) and the Cavaliers should feed him the ball in the post even more often than they did. The winning formula for the Cavaliers is (1) physical team defense, (2) James staying in relentless attack mode for the whole game and (3) pounding the ball into the paint with James driving (or posting up), Love posting up and Tristan Thompson diving to the hoop for layups or offensive rebounds.
Try this little trick when you watch game three; instead of looking at the score, spend a few possessions just watching James and Love: if you see them consistently in the paint with the ball, then the score is probably close and Cleveland may even be winning--but if you see James and/or Love spending most of the time on the perimeter, then the Warriors are probably winning by 10 or more points.
I cringe every time James spends a possession camped out behind the three point line. This reminds me of a picture that Sports Illustrated published decades ago during the playoffs: several players actively pursued a rebound in the paint, while Darryl Dawkins--the most athletic and physically imposing big man of his day--stood rooted to the ground and the caption acknowledged the aggressive efforts of most of the players to get the ball while drily noting that Dawkins "awaits future developments." James cannot stand in the corner awaiting future developments; he must get in the paint and make things happen--not just for a quarter or for a half but for the entire game.
James' supporters will retort that Golden State is more talented than Cleveland and that Golden State has two MVP caliber players while Cleveland only has James. They will argue that even if James plays his best the Warriors still might win. Those things may all be true but that is not the point, at least in terms of putting James in the same conversation with Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, because if James is the greatest player of all-time then it is incumbent upon him to play in the way that maximizes his potential and maximizes his team's opportunity to win. When Michael Jordan faced Clyde Drexler in the 1992 Finals, Jordan took this as a personal challenge to prove that he was the best player at his position and the best player in the league, period. Drexler admitted, years later, that he should have accepted that challenge as well, instead of thinking (and publicly saying) that the series was about Chicago versus Portland, not Jordan versus Drexler.
This series will be remembered as James versus Durant--and Cleveland has no chance to win unless James accepts that challenge and wins that matchup. Kyrie Irving showed during last year's Finals that he can match Curry shot for shot, Love can post up anyone in Golden State's frontcourt and Cleveland's bench players have been productive all season when given the right opportunities but this series has hinged and will hinge on the James-Durant showdown.
Durant and Curry are Magnificent as Warriors Roll to 132-113 Win
