Cavs-Warriors, is this a series?
Curry won’t be ‘off’ again
It appears that we have a series. Appearances can be deceiving.
There’s lot of hype for the Cleveland Cavaliers heading into tonight’s Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
The LeBrons (we may as well just call them that from now on) now have home-court advantage, for whatever that’s worth. Oh, and Matt Dellavedova has turned into the second-coming of Gary “the Glove” Payton or Bruce Bowen or whomever you’d consider a lockdown defender.
But this isn’t a series. If you remember a year ago, the the Miami Heat were tied 1-1 in the Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. How’d that turn out? And that team didn’t depend on Dellavedova stopping Steph Curry.
Steph Curry went 5-for-23 from the field and 2-for-15 from beyond the arc in Game 2. And the Warriors lost by two points. Two points …
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For those who’ve been in eighth grade left-handed layup lines, you probably can relate to Marreese Speights there.
But, anyway, some say we have a series, I say Curry was off and won’t be again.
But why was he off?
Maybe it was Dellavedova’s defense. Or maybe Curry was afraid that at any given moment, Dellavedova was going to roll up under the shooter and end his series, maybe career. I feel the latter is the more realistic of the two scenarios, but, come on, he was just off.
Shooters have been off before. Curry’s been off before. In a two-game stretch where Golden State lost to Memphis, Curry was 2-for-11 and 2-for-10 from 3-point range. In the next three wins, he was a combined 18-for-35 from deep.
On the flip side, LeBron James is shooting 42 percent from the field and 20 percent from beyond the arc in the playoffs. He was 11-for-35 from the field last game. He also appears off, but the difference is, he’s not a shooter.
He has to be this series. But while he’ll continue to shoot anywhere from 20-45 percent from the field, Curry’s shots will creep back toward his averages, which his bad news for the Cavs, er LeBrons.
I still say Warriors in five.
