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Forums - Sports Discussion - NBA Finals Discussion- warriors clean up in five games, win it all 129-120

Dark_Lord_2008 said:
So what the Cavs played one bad game. The Cavs will win the Final series in 6 matches and win the series 4-2. Lebron James is already the greatest basketball player of all time. What more does he need to do?

lol lebron the greatest? this coming from someone who thinks cavs will win in 6. probably a cavs fan. lebrons still behind jordan in mvp and finals mvp. jordan also won a dpoy playing perimeter defense and avg 35 pts in the same season. he dominated at both ends of the court. lebron will need to win at least 2 more championships to be in conversation with jordan. im not saying jordan is the greatest but hes ahead of lebron .



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I'm hoping for a Game 7 classic like last year and not a short one-sided finals like what we saw in game 1.



Dark_Lord_2008 said:
So what the Cavs played one bad game. The Cavs will win the Final series in 6 matches and win the series 4-2. Lebron James is already the greatest basketball player of all time. What more does he need to do?

The case for Lebron as GOAT is a really odd one. On the one hand, my eyes tell me that he's probably the most physically gifted athlete of all time. I mean this guy is like 6'8" 250 pounds pure muscle, can jump out the building, fast, agile....he's just a monster. When he's focused, and determined, he can impose himself on the game like nobody other than maybe Shaq in his prime, there's just nothing you can do to keep him from getting where he wants on the floor. Combine that with his vision, and his willingness to always make the "right" play, finding the open man, getting everyone involved....it's special. He also goes to the finals every year, and as Richard Jeffereson said about a week ago, it's hard to imagine somebody breaking all the statistical records Lebron will have set when it's all said and done.

So, he's unquestionably one of the best to ever do it. Perhaps he's even unquestionably the most skilled to ever do it. The greatest though........?

After this year, he's most likely going to be 3-5 in the NBA Finals. That's.....not good. Worse still, he continuously, throughout his career has shown himself to be mentally susceptible to big moments. When the lights are brightest, when everyone expects the King to be the King, and take care of business, he's often missing in action. He's a pretty great underdog. When everybody is counting him out, he puts on a real show most of the time, but when he has that pressure, and everyone is like "ok Bron, take it home....." he becomes pretty damn fragile more often that not. And this is something he knows at this point in his career as well. He likes to frame himself as the underdog whenever possible, and he likes the media to frame it as such as well, because he needs that liberation of not being expected to win. Not exactly what you'd expect from the best player in the world. Certainly not what you'd expect from the greatest to ever do it.

I think the best way to sum up Lebron, that I've ever heard, is that he's the guy you want for the first 46 minutes of a game. He'll have you competitive, and put you in a position to win. Then in those last two minutes though......you want somebody else. You want a killer, an assassin, a guy who's like "ya it's time, get out of my way and I'll take this home!" That's a Jordan, Kobe, Bird, hell even Lebron's buddy Wade. Lebron, for all his talent, and all his greatness simply isn't THAT guy. He doesn't want that ball in the closing seconds with one shot to win it all. And in the end, if you don't have that, you ultimately can't be the GOAT. You just can't. We want our greatest athletes to be super heroes when it matters the most, and Lebron routinely loses his cape in those moments.



Angelus said:

After this year, he's most likely going to be 3-5 in the NBA Finals. That's.....not good.

*Hysteric laughter* 

Do you know how many exceptional unicorn level players there are who haven't even ever been to the finals once in their careers?

I'm not even Lebron's biggest fan but come on.



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m0ney said:
Angelus said:

After this year, he's most likely going to be 3-5 in the NBA Finals. That's.....not good.

*Hysteric laughter* 

Do you know how many exceptional unicorn level players there are who haven't even ever been to the finals once in their careers?

I'm not even Lebron's biggest fan but come on.

You do understant the subject was greatest ever yes? I'm not diminishing the overall significance of his post season accomplishments, but when you frame the topic around being the GOAT, 3-5 isn't an argument in your favor.



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Angelus said:

You do understant the subject was greatest ever yes? I'm not diminishing the overall significance of his post season accomplishments, but when you frame the topic around being the GOAT, 3-5 isn't an argument in your favor.

He is just one man. He could played all career in a garbage team and never got to finals, that wouldn't disqualify him from GOAT discussions.



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m0ney said:
Angelus said:

You do understant the subject was greatest ever yes? I'm not diminishing the overall significance of his post season accomplishments, but when you frame the topic around being the GOAT, 3-5 isn't an argument in your favor.

He is just one man. He could played all career in a garbage team and never got to finals, that wouldn't disqualify him from GOAT discussions.

But he HASN'T played on garbage teams. With the exception of the first team he ever took the finals, which admitedly had no business even getting there, and which nobody blames him for losing, every team he's been to the finals with since then has been stacked with talent.



PAOerfulone said:

My takeaways from Game 1 are this.

Cavaliers:
- LeBron had his usual stats and performance, 28-15-8. But those 8 turnovers are a big no-no when playing against this team, especially in their house, that has to change come Game 2.

- Kyrie was good, but not quite at the level we know he can be.

- Kevin Love, those 21 rebounds were great, everything else, not so much. I think that has more to do with Draymond Green's defense than Kevin Love suddenly getting cold, because 1) Draymond Green is the Defensive Player of the Year, most likely. 2) He just seems to have gotten in Love's head. Kevin Love, was a total non-factor in last year's Finals, and he wasn't much better here. It's something about the Warriors, Draymond especially that just seems to throw off Kevin Love. So, Kevin Love has got to do something in that regard because Draymond just seems to have his number.

- Everyone else did jack shit. Tristan Thompson - Only 4 rebounds? Really? Come on, dude, you're way better than THAT. JR Smith, just 3 points on 4 shot attempts? Where the hell was the bench outside of Richard Jefferson? 
 
Warriors:
- The Warriors Defense was very impressive. Those 20 turnovers weren't just the Cavs being sloppy. They made every possession tough, they made the Cavs work for every bucket they got, they disrupted a lot of passing lanes, and forced LeBron and Kyrie into some very uncomfortable spots where they turned the ball over. If this keeps up, this series ain't lasting very long.

- Kevin Durant IS NOT Harrison Barnes. He was dominant. That guy just had his way with Cleveland in the 1st half. Dunk, after dunk, after dunk, after dunk. At some point it's like, "Where the hell is the defense?!" the defense was running to the 3 point line trying to stop Steph from going off, speaking of Steph...

- A healthy Stephen Curry = Very Bad News for Cleveland. HE. IS. BACK.  Before the series even started, I was saying to my friends, the most important player in this series, meaning how he plays will determine the outcome of this series, will be Steph. LeBron is going to be LeBron. Durant will be Durant. Draymond will give Love all he can handle. Klay will try his damnest to make it as hard as possible for Kyrie, who will do his thing. Those 6 players will cancel each other out, the one guy to look out for is Curry. He is the most important player in this series. If he plays like garbage, Cavs win. If he plays average, this series goes 7 games with Game 7 going either way, like it did last year. If he plays like the Unanimous MVP, the Cavs don't stand a chance. If he's playing like the Stephen Curry we saw all of last season, it's over. Because, after the 1st half, even with all the turnovers the Cavs committed, all the points in the paint they gave up, and Durant going off the way he did, they were still only down by 8, they still had a chance. But than Steph got in that zone, that Steph Zone where when he's playing like THAT, nobody can touch him, and that was all she wrote. 

So after Game 1, it's looking a little hopeless for Cavs, but that's how it looked LAST year, and then look what happened... All we can do is wait until Sunday for Game 2.

Agreed. I remember people saying last year, Steph is fine he's not hurt anymore. When Tristan Thompson is able to guard Steph Curry with little to no difficulty, you know he's not good. We saw in yesterdays game, Curry burned Tristan a few times. We didn't see that last year at all. 



Not just Thompsan, but Kevin Love too. Last year's Game 7, Steph couldn't shake Love at all and he was forced to shoot a 3 that missed everything. This year, he  tied him up like he was a shoelace on his new sneakers.



Some key people will have injuries in this series, you heard it here first.



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