OAKLAND, Calif. — Before excuses are made for LeBron James,
before the bulk of the blame for consecutive horror shows at Oracle
Arena is heaped on a supporting cast of Cleveland Cavaliers that has
turned to dust when removed from a comfy Eastern Conference refuge, it
must be reiterated that this was the team the King himself courted.
This
was the crew James left Miami for, the one he reconfigured with
back-room leverage upon returning home and then stood by approvingly
when a coach with an impeccable (albeit limited) N.B.A. record was
dismissed for a replacement with no head-coaching record at all.
That
is not to say that Tyronn Lue, who slid over into David Blatt’s big-boy
seat midseason, is the primary reason — if a reason at all — that the
Cavaliers are down, two games to none, against the Golden State Warriors
in the N.B.A. finals and, thus far, are embarrassing themselves.
Losing
in the finals to a Golden State team that won a record 73
regular-season games, if that is the inevitable result, would be no
disgrace. But if the series continues this way, and so far it has not
been remotely competitive, the epitaph for the Cavaliers’ season should
be: This is the team James wanted, and assembled.
After
waiting outside the interview room for Lue to finish with reporters on
Sunday night, James sat down, removed his sunglasses, picked up the
microphone as if he were hosting a charity event and took responsibility
for Game 2’s 110-77 obliteration of his team on top of the not-that-close 104-89 beating it took in Game 1.
He
called himself out for carelessness with the ball, for committing seven
of his team’s 17 turnovers in Game 2, for not making life easier for
his overwhelmed teammates.
“I’m
not disappointed in our guys or frustrated,” he said. “I’m one of the
guys who kind of always wants to shoulder the blame and take the blame
when we don’t play as well as we should. It’s just who I am, and I’ve
got to be better.”
Sloppy
as he was, James was still the best performing Cavalier, with Richard
Jefferson, a 35-year-old role player, as the runner-up. Against the
Warriors, that was a formula for the disaster Game 2 became in the third
quarter, with the Cavaliers sending most of the East Coast to bed early
with an unconditional, emotionless surrender.
After
Game 1, Lue said it was mandatory that the Cavaliers pick up the pace
on offense. After Game 2, James cited the turnovers and the Cavaliers’
inability to get back and set up their defense.
This
sounded good, but, well, whatever. The Warriors scored only 14
fast-break points to the Cavaliers’ 11, and who cannot see that the
Cavaliers, on defense, have no clue how to deal with the Warriors in
their half-court sets?
The
Warriors had 55 assists in the two games here. The Cavaliers had 32.
This disparity speaks to an athletic Golden State defense of
interchangeable parts but also to Cleveland’s lack of the same and its
poor defensive habits.
When
the ball and bodies start moving, the Cavaliers look like middle-school
children scrambling to find a seat in a game of musical chairs.
Klay
Thompson takes two dribbles toward the lane, kicks it out to a
scorching Draymond Green, and the Cavaliers’ rotation is too slow, or
nonexistent.
“He
drove and kicked, and their defense was collapsing,” said Green, who
torched the Cavaliers for 28 points, with five 3-pointers. Collapsing
was the right characterization, literally and figuratively.
Forget
Stephen Curry. Green and Andre Iguodala, who both play at forward, look
like all-league point guards, shredding Cleveland’s defense with
pinpoint passing for uncontested shots at the rim.
On
the Warriors’ last possession of the third quarter, the ball whipped
around the perimeter, touching the hands of all five players before
Thompson nailed a 3. The Cavaliers should have sued for whiplash.
“These
guys put you in so many mental positions where you have to figure it
out, and they make you pay for it when you don’t,” James said.
He
has always been a willing and able defender, but what can we say about
Kyrie Irving, who habitually loses his man, and J. R. Smith, who loses
his focus and occasionally his mind?
Irving was supposed to carry an offensive load in this series, ease the burden on James. He has taken 36 shots and made 12.
Kevin
Love was forced out of the game with a possible concussion after taking
an inadvertent elbow to the head from Harrison Barnes. There was more
to the story. Love had his back to Barnes, bracing to rebound a 3-point
attempt by Thompson. He was also flat-footed, allowing Barnes to leap
over him, another illustration of how difficult it has been for the
Cavaliers to hide Love’s lack of athleticism.
Love
is just one example — although the most egregious — of what can happen
when a player, even the very best player, enjoys the kind of executive
leverage James has had since rejoining the Cavaliers in the summer of
2014.
The
denials from his camp and the Cleveland front office have naturally
been vehement. They say James did not insist on trading Andrew Wiggins,
the No. 1 pick of that year’s draft, to Minnesota for the overrated
Love, a deal that deprived the Cavaliers of a superior young athlete
James might have mentored.
Nor,
they contend, did James badger the Cavaliers’ general manager, David
Griffin, into trading for the compulsively erratic Smith — who scored a
combined 8 points in the two games here — or point a thumb down on the
status of Blatt after publicly emasculating him during the 2015
playoffs.
But
agents who have had business with the Cavaliers speak of Griffin’s
telling them he would get back to them after checking matters with
James. League people remind you that Michael Jordan never had such power
in Chicago and, based on the personnel decisions he opposed, probably
would not have won six titles if he did have it.
James
has been and remains a superb player spokesman for the league in ways
that Jordan never was. On Saturday, speaking of Muhammad Ali, he said,
among other things gracious and smart, “I would never compare myself to
Muhammad Ali because I never had to go through what those guys had to go
through back in those times.”
He
can and has affected his community in ways that his predecessors could
not, thanks to staggering wealth and corporate support. But the one
thing he — or any player — should never be is in charge of a franchise.
He was not in Miami, where Pat Riley ruled, and James just happened to
win two rings.
Let’s
remember that the Warriors looked ragged and lost in recent consecutive
blowouts in Oklahoma City. But based on what we saw here, the Cavaliers
had better win both games in Cleveland, or summer vacation will begin
by early next week. And that is when we will learn how James really
feels about the team he chose, the players he pushed for.
Will he accept the blame then, or put the cool sunglasses back on and turn an executive thumb down?
