Besides Lebron has anyone dominated the Warriors in the playoffs or Finals the way Kyrie Irving did

[Arteezy]

Harden’s rockets won just as many total games against the Warriors as Kyrie did on the Cavs.

2016 Cavs - 4-3
2017 Cavs - 1-4
Total - 5-7

2018 Rockets - 3-4
2019 Rockets - 2-4
Total - 5-8

I guess 5-7 is a better winning percentage, but it’s still essentially the same.

Can we say Houston has threepeated in fake championships¿?

[Baski]

The overrating continues. Oh well at least the myth of "Playoff Kyrie the closer" has died. It will look even dumber in 5 years

IF he joins the King he will get that nickname back

Touché .

[Warriorfan]

Did Lebron really dominate if he was on the losing end most of the time.

[Vibranium]

It's only been 3 years and people already forgot how the 2016 finals went down.

[Amare_1_Knicks]

To be fair, Harden did go for 36/7/5/2 on 59%TS against them this year — albeit in a loss, but then again, it’s not exactly the same Warriors team Kyrie/Lebron faces anyway.

Kawhi dominated that game 1 before he went down.

Even without KD, I’d favor GS vs Milwaukee. I think Toronto would be a closer matchup.

[The4thHorseman]

It's so funny to see some people quickly point out Steph's alleged injury and then turn around and praise Kyrie for his god like performance. It makes you wonder if they really forgot who Kyrie's primary defender was in that series?? Yep, you guessed it, it was Steph Curry.

So in other words, why has Kyrie gotten so much praise over the years from that series, if his primary defender was allegedly playing injured the whole time??? The so-called biggest shot in Finals history was over a guy who could barely jump due to an alleged injury???

Which is it?? Great job by Kyrie or "Curry was injured the whole series!!!!!" It can't be both.

[rockmanslim]

It's so funny to see some people quickly point out Steph's alleged injury and then turn around and praise Kyrie for his god like performance. It makes you wonder if they really forgot who Kyrie's primary defender was in that series?? Yep, you guessed it, it was Steph Curry.

So in other words, why has Kyrie gotten so much praise over the years from that series, if his primary defender was allegedly playing injured the whole time??? The so-called biggest shot in Finals history was over a guy who could barely jump due to an alleged injury???

Which is it?? Great job by Kyrie or "Curry was injured the whole series!!!!!" It can't be both.

His primary defender was Klay. Do you really think Kerr would waste Klay's defense on guarding J.R. Smith? You think that little of Kerr?

[Triples333]

OP is super triggered

Not at all. I’m watching how teams are struggling against the Warriors defense. People need to be reminded on what Kyrie Irving did to this team

He scored 27 on a decent 56% TS as a secondary option who was certainly not the focus of the defense. Definitely his best series to date. Steph had a bad series and put up 23 on a 58% TS as the 1st option who was being absolutely HOUNDED any time he crossed half court. The two were in very, very different situations. And bear in mind this was after Curry had just got done coming out of a grueling 7 game comeback win series against the other best team in the NBA that year (the Thunder), where he absolutely lit them up.

Back to the present; Kyrie just had his first go at being a first option in these 2019 playoffs (he has never led a team to the playoffs and IMO still has not, as this was a team that made the ECF's without him last year). How did that go for him? 38.5% from the field and 31% from 3 on 21 PPG. Imagine Curry every having a playoffs that terrible? Even in this terrible stretch for him until KD got hurt, he was averaging 23/5/6 on 45/38/94. His previous worst playoffs (pre KD) being his first playoffs in 2013 where he averaged 23.5/4/8 on 43.5/40/92 (upsetting the 2 seed in 6, then falling to the top ranked Spurs in 6). Long story short. Shhhh.

[Iplaytolose]

Yeah, all LeBron did per game compared to Kyrie was score 3 more points on better efficiency, grab 7 more rebounds, dish out 5 more assists, get one more steal, block 2 more shots, hold the player he was guarding to 20% below their season averages, and score over half the team’s points in the 4th quarter Games 6 and 7. KYRIE WUZ ROBBED!

Keep Lebron’s same play in Games 5-7 and subtract Kyrie’s performances in 5-7 and maybe someone will understand why he should’ve won it. GS had no answer for Kyrie. He impacted the series the same way Iggy did in 2015.

If Kyrie had played with no LeBron in the Finals, they would have got swept. Hell if LeBron missed the whole playoffs they might not have made it out of the first round. The Pistons outscored the Cavs by 16 points that series in the 27 minutes LeBron was on the bench. Here’s their on/offs for the entire playoffs:

Cavs with LeBron on floor: +13.9
Cavs with LeBron on bench: -7.2
On/off: +21.1

Cavs with Kyrie on floor: +9.7
Cavs with Kyrie on bench: +10.5
On/off: -0.8

Yup, it's almost as if LeBron doesn't get enough credit for being LeBron. People naturally expect this from him now, so a great performance from Kyrie is going to always stand out more than a standard LeBron game because being great is LeBron's baseline at this point.

Basically, LeBron is just on a whole other tier of player than Kyrie so the expectations are different...

[durden_tyler]

Dominate? What's the record of LeBron vs. the Warriors in the Finals?