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Very interesting article.

Giannis says the Cavs defense is harder to go against than OKC.

He also said, "Usually when you hold up a trophy, that’s it. You have an off-season, time to rest, time to be with your family, which is weird... You cannot really celebrate because in two days you’re playing the best team in the NBA".

Pretty high compliment, from a player of his caliber.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/giannis-believes-the-cavs-are-a-tougher-defensive-matchup-than-okc-it-s-definetely-harder/ar-AA1wg5cf

At this point I agree with him. Results don't lie. A lot of the season to play out though

doogie_hauser wrote:At this point I agree with him. Results don't lie. A lot of the season to play out though

For sure, there was some back and forth earlier in the season if they were or not.

Just kind of crazy to have a top 5 player in the NBA not mince words and call it how he sees it.

Giannis looks at standings.
Cavs have best record.
Giannis says: Cavs are best. And explains they are better than no 2 (OKC).

Nothing more. Nothing less.

DutchManDanFan wrote:Giannis looks at standings.
Cavs have best record.
Giannis says: Cavs are best. And explains they are better than no 2 (OKC).

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Nah, Giannis plays both teams. The article speaks to how the size of Allen, Mobley, and even Wade is very disruptive.

He said it makes it hard to drive and kick. They cover for each other.

Cavs won 1 playoffs series in the last 34 years without LeBron. It would be nice if they can reach the Conference Finals this season but I don't think they can beat the Heat or Sixers with a healthy Butler or Embiid which is a very likely match-up in the 1st round of playoffs the way this season goes. Let's just hope for a healthy postseason this time around.

One Last Shot wrote:Cavs won 1 playoffs series in the last 34 years without LeBron. It would be nice if they can reach the Conference Finals this season but I don't think they can beat the Heat or Sixers with a healthy Butler or Embiid which is a very likely match-up in the 1st round of playoffs the way this season goes. Let's just hope for a healthy postseason this time around.

Yeah I dont think he was talking Bout the past 34 years. I think he is talking about right now.

I agree that this version of the Cavs is better than OKC without Chet.

ThunderBolt wrote:I agree that this version of the Cavs is better than OKC without Chet.

That's a valid point, because the author of the arricle said the Thunder's lack of size (currently) is how Giannis was able to feast.

One Last Shot wrote:Cavs won 1 playoffs series in the last 34 years without LeBron.

a) that's wrong

b) that's still better than, for instance, golden state (who actually has gone 34 years) without Steph curry. Point being if you have a generational talent, it's going to end up with factoids that really don't mean much

the cavs have the guy I loathe to admit, and be envious of, the player who changes franchises. Mobley is a legit needle mover all the way back to hs

They have been so far

JujitsuFlip wrote:

DutchManDanFan wrote:Giannis looks at standings.
Cavs have best record.
Giannis says: Cavs are best. And explains they are better than no 2 (OKC).

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Nah, Giannis plays both teams. The article speaks to how the size of Allen, Mobley, and even Wade is very disruptive.

He said it makes it hard to drive and kick. They cover for each other.

Wade being hurt the past two postseasons really hamstrung you. He’s a legit two-way guy.

One Last Shot wrote:Cavs won 1 playoffs series in the last 34 years without LeBron. It would be nice if they can reach the Conference Finals this season but I don't think they can beat the Heat or Sixers with a healthy Butler or Embiid which is a very likely match-up in the 1st round of playoffs the way this season goes. Let's just hope for a healthy postseason this time around.

A healthy embiid in the playoffs makes very little difference.

JujitsuFlip wrote:

ThunderBolt wrote:I agree that this version of the Cavs is better than OKC without Chet.

That's a valid point, because the author of the arricle said the Thunder's lack of size (currently) is how Giannis was able to feast.

This is exactly the crux of what Giannis is getting at. The Thunder are an excellent defensive team even without Chet, and have 4 good defensive guard/wings in SGA/Dort/Caruso/JDubb. The issue is that all those dudes are legitimately BAD defenders if they are being asked to guard Giannis, they are all simply just too small/frail/weak to offer any resistance whatsoever. And there's no size guarding the paint behind them so being over aggressive usually means an open lane for a dunk. They have Hartenstein who's nice, but he's still a little too small/not strong enough to handle Giannis himself, and if the Bucks play Lopez alongside him then OKC has no way to matchup in the paint with that size. It's just a situation where OKC matches up extremely well with 95% of the other NBA teams personnel wise because of their 4 perimeter defenders, but Giannis is just a matchup they can't do anything about.

Cleveland on the other hand has Mobley and Allen inside, who definitely contest Giannis substantially better at the rim, and also don't let him just play volleyball on the boards.

I am a Cavs fan but they aren't the best team in the NBA. There are real flaws in the roster construction that good teams will exploit in a 7 game series. I am starting to get to the point where I can consider them a legitimate NBA title contender.

DowJones wrote:I am a Cavs fan but they aren't the best team in the NBA. There are real flaws in the roster construction that good teams will exploit in a 7 game series. I am starting to get to the point where I can consider them a legitimate NBA title contender.

We're too reliant on a healthy Wade. The defensive drop off between him and Niang is massive. That said, we present serious matchup problems for our opponents, especially with Mobley gaining confidence on offense, and fans have been ignoring that side of the equation for years.

jbk1234 wrote:

DowJones wrote:I am a Cavs fan but they aren't the best team in the NBA. There are real flaws in the roster construction that good teams will exploit in a 7 game series. I am starting to get to the point where I can consider them a legitimate NBA title contender.

We're too reliant on a healthy Wade. The defensive drop off between him and Niang is massive. That said, we present serious matchup problems for our opponents, especially with Mobley gaining confidence on offense, and fans have been ignoring that side of the equation for years.

Giannis wasn't going to win that game on his own even if the refs let him do whatever he wanted in the paint, the 3pt disparity was too high. You'd think at least the Bucks defense would have been better with Lillard out, but in this day and age you've got to be able to bury team's with 3pters.

Time will tell if the Thunder can continue to hold other team's 3pt shooting below their 18th ranked shooting.

The Cavs goal (hope) is to keep their shooters healthy and rested so they show up firing in the playoffs.

Also one thing I'll point out is a lot of fans are so sold on the benefits of wing length, they seem to forget there are benefits to being smaller and quicker and it usually comes down to whether the shots those smaller players can easily create are going down and the ability of those smaller players to move their feet and stay in front of bigger players.

Giannis also said Jaylen Brown is the best player in the NBA a couple months ago.

His thought process seems to be: Finals MVP is the best player and team with best record that just beat Bucks is best team.

Did you win the championship? Then you are the best team.
Did you win Finals MVP? Then you are the best player.
Is it regular season and you have the best record? Then you are the best team currently.
Giannis thought process is straight, simple and doesn't really leaves room for misunderstanding of his words.