Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.
I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In later entries I also add the Offensive and Defensive Ratings for each playoff series. This is just how well the team did, adjusted by the opponent's regular season average (if you play a team with an average Defensive Rating of 102, and you play them with an offensive rating of 106, you get credited with a +4). Pace for teams below 1973 or so is estimated based on regular season numbers, so it could easily be wrong by some.
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.
I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In later entries I also add the Offensive and Defensive Ratings for each playoff series. This is just how well the team did, adjusted by the opponent's regular season average (if you play a team with an average Defensive Rating of 102, and you play them with an offensive rating of 106, you get credited with a +4). Pace for teams below 1973 or so is estimated based on regular season numbers, so it could easily be wrong by some.
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
#16. The 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +11.29, Standard Deviations: +1.96, Won in the NBA Finals (Preseason 1st)
PG: Kyrie Irving, +2.3 / +6.0
SG: J.R. Smith, +0.5 / +1.8
SF: LeBron James, +9.0 / +11.0
PF: Tristan Thompson, +0.2 / -1.1
C: Kevin Love, +3.3 / +2.4
Regular Season Metrics:
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +5.45 (79th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +4.5 (40th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -1.9 (76th)
Shooting Advantage: +2.4%, Possession Advantage: +1.5 shooting possessions per game
LeBron James (SF, 31): 38 MPPG, 32% OLoad, 27 / 8 / 7 / 2 on +4.7%
Kyrie Irving (PG, 23): 34 MPPG, 30% OLoad, 21 / 3 / 5 / 2 on -0.1%
Kevin Love (C, 27): 34 MPPG, 23% OLoad, 17 / 11 / 3 / 1 on +1.2%
J.R. Smith (SG, 30): 33 MPPG, 17% OLoad, 13 / 3 / 2 / 1 on +0.1%
Tristan Thompson (PF, 24): 30 MPPG, 11% OLoad, 8 / 10 / 1 / 1 on +7.0%
Scoring/100: LeBron James (36.5 / +4.7%), Kyrie Irving (32.1 / -0.1%), Kevin Love (26.2 / +1.2%)
Assists/100: LeBron James (9.8), Kyrie Irving (7.7), Kevin Love (3.9)
Heliocentrism: 44.6% (17th of 84 teams) - LeBron
Wingmen: 31.5% (70th) - Love & Irving
Depth: 23.9% (48th)
Playoff Metrics:
Playoff Offensive Rating: +11.43 (4th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -3.82 (68th)
Playoff SRS: +14.55 (8th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +5.84 (5th)
Shooting Advantage: +3.1%, Possession Advantage: +2.7 shooting possessions per game
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.42 (16th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.33 (43rd)
LeBron James (SF, 31): 42 MPPG, 32% OLoad, 28 / 10 / 8 / 4 on +4.4%
Kyrie Irving (PG, 23): 40 MPPG, 30% OLoad, 27 / 3 / 5 / 3 on +3.3%
Kevin Love (C, 27): 33 MPPG, 22% OLoad, 16 / 9 / 2 / 1 on -0.2%
J.R. Smith (SG, 30): 37 MPPG, 13% OLoad, 12 / 3 / 2 / 2 on +7.2%
Tristan Thompson (PF, 24): 32 MPPG, 10% OLoad, 7 / 10 / 1 / 1 on +1.8%
Scoring/100: LeBron James (35.6 / +4.4%), Kyrie Irving (36.3 / +3.3%), Kevin Love (25.3 / -0.2%)
Assists/100: LeBron James (10.3), Kyrie Irving (6.7), Kevin Love (3.6)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 44.3% (15th of 84 teams) - LeBron
Playoff Wingmen: 37.7% (65th) - Irving & Love
Playoff Depth: 18.0% (59th)
Round 1: Detroit Pistons (+0.4), won 4-0, by +8.5 points per game (+8.9 SRS eq)
Round 2: Atlanta Hawks (+5.5), won 4-0, by +12.5 points per game (+18.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Toronto Raptors (+4.0), won 4-2, by +15.5 points per game (+19.5 SRS eq)
Round 4: Golden State Warriors (+11.0), won 4-3, by +0.5 points per game (+11.5 SRS eq)
Offensive / Defensive Ratings from Opposition Regular Season Average:
Detroit Pistons: +14.9 / +4.4
Atlanta Hawks: +21.5 / +4.0
Toronto Raptors: +13.3 / -8.8
Golden State Warriors: +5.3 / -6.0
Shooting Advantage / Possession Advantage per 100 (unadjusted):
Detroit Pistons: +1.0% / +6.9
Atlanta Hawks: +3.5% / +5.8
Toronto Raptors: +8.5% / +0.7
Golden State Warriors: -0.5% / +1.3
Postseason Usage/Efficiency Change adjusted for Opposition:
Kyrie Irving: +0.9% / +4.7%
J.R. Smith: -4.8% / +8.4%
LeBron James: -0.7% / +1.0%
Tristan Thompson: -1.1% / -3.9%
Kevin Love: -0.9% / -0.1%
Before we get rolling, I want to talk about a statline/player. The statline per game is 29 / 11 / 8 on +3.9% shooting (adjusted for opposing defenses), with a +10.3 BPM. That shooting is quite good; 29 points per game and +3.9% shooting is pretty comparable to ‘08-’10 Kobe Bryant’s scoring. And the rebounding profile (heavy on defensive boards) looks more like ‘19 Joel Embiid. And 8 assists a game is clearly pretty impressive. The BPM is outstanding; +10.3 BPM is more or less at the level of, say, ‘96 Jordan and ‘84 Bird’s playoff runs. So great players having great postseason runs. This statline is LeBron James in NBA Finals games since 2013.
Pretty impressive, right?
Anyhow. After the 2014 NBA Finals (in which LeBron’s Heat were incinerated by the white-hot Spurs, despite LeBron having an incredible series), he left for greener pastures. His hometown Cavs had acquired Kyrie Irving, an extremely promising score-first point guard, lots of youth and had freed up a lot of cap space. With the prospect of playing with Kyrie and an added Kevin Love as a stretch big, there was every reason for LeBron to think that Cleveland could offer far greener pastures than Miami could. So he left.
In his 2015 year the Cavs had an extremely promising season . . . right up until the point where both Love and Irving went down with injuries. LeBron almost single-handedly carried his team through the Eastern Conference (indicative both of how insanely dominant LeBron was and how weak the conference was), posting the 65th best PSRS on this list. But, of course, his team couldn’t realistically compete with the Golden State Warriors, who had emerged in the West from relative obscurity (8th ranked in the league, a 1 in 29 shot to win the Finals) to become the clear best team in the league. But they still took six games to beat a Cavs team without Kyrie or Love. In 2016 a rematch was promised, one that would pit a healthy Cavs team against a full-strength Warriors team at the height of their powers. It would be, prognosticators surmised, one of the greatest Finals matchups ever.
Side note. Do you know how so often the talking heads predict crap and it never goes anywhere, even if it seemed logical at the time?
This was not that kind of prediction. It wasn’t clear if the Warriors could replicate the magic of their ‘15 season, and it wasn’t clear if Kyrie and Love could stay healthy, and it wasn't clear if the rest of the teams in the league (by which I mean the West) would cooperate. There were a lot of reasons that this matchup couldn’t happen. Well it freaking did. And it led to, perhaps, the greatest Finals in NBA history. But I get ahead of myself.
The ‘16 Cavs . . . if I said that they did the bare minimum to get the one seed in the East (a weak conference) that’s probably selling them short. But let the record show that in the ‘15 playoffs they posted pretty close to a +10 PSRS with LeBron and a notably weak supporting cast (Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Timofey Mozgov and Matthew Dellavedova). All of those players have serious values to teams, but not one of them has any business being the 2nd best player on a +10 SRS team. And yet, somehow, the ‘15 Cavs played at an extremely high level (for their roster, if not for this list). And for the ‘16 regular season they get Kyrie and Love back and they put up a . . . +5.45 RSRS and win 57 games, exactly enough to get the one seed. So let’s just agree that they played well below what they were presumably capable of, but well enough to get the top seed. The East was, again, fairly weak. And at the same time, the 2016 Western Conference was turning into the most overloaded top-heavy conference since the West in 1972. The Warriors and Spurs both posted +10 RSRS seasons or better (winning 73 and 67 games), and while the Thunder were *only* a +7 RSRS team, a healthy Durant + Westbrook at their peaks promised a serious competitor.
In the regular season their strength was, unsurprisingly, their offense. They took a lot of threes (3rd most in the league) and made them at a high rate. And in turn, on the rare two pointers that they did take they converted very efficiently (4th in the league). It was the pace and space team design that we all now associate with LeBron, where you spread the floor with shooters (no more than one non-shooter on the floor at a time) and then force the defense to choose between defending the paint from skilled rim-attackers (like LeBron and Kyrie) and defending the arc from skilled shooters (J.R. Smith and Kevin Love, etc). And their shooting selection was notably resilient. Both LeBron and Kyrie were assisted on less than 60% of their 3s, showing the ability to create that shot with moderate success (their percentages with the shot, 30.9% and 32.1% respectively, suggested that it wasn’t a particularly efficient shot however). And all of LeBron, Kyrie and J.R. Smith could create twos pretty efficiently without assists. Another interesting facet of the offense was strong offensive rebounding. Tristan Thompson, for all his flaws was an ideal low-usage member of the lineup, a strong rebounder (especially offensively, where he would finish 2nd in the league) who could convert his limited looks efficiently. Purely with Thompson’s efforts (and some Kevin Love) the offense not only shot very well but also grabbed a lot of their misses. Their defense was less inspiring, and mostly leveraged the fact that Thompson, Love and LeBron combined to form an extremely effective defensive rebounding trio. But yeah, there’s absolutely nothing about their regular season that suggests ATG team. At all.
That said, the heroics of LeBron James in the playoffs had been becoming kind of a thing. Since 2011, when he had proved all the haters right, he had been pretty much crushing the playoffs as few had ever done before. And he seemed even better in the NBA Finals. So even though the regular season ‘16 Cavs weren’t that good (from an ATG perspective) there was every reason to think that they soar over the East like Vince Carter over Frederic Weis.
And they sure freaking did.
The Cavs’ first series was pretty weak, against the +0.4 Detroit Pistons. Granted, the Cavs swept them easily by 8.5 points a game. Kyrie averaged an efficient 28/2/5 on +4.4% while LeBron seemed to struggle with a 23/9/7 on -0.3% shooting. It was a good win. But against a weak team like Detroit, I would have expected more.
Against the Atlanta Hawks (+5.5) in the second round, they did more. The Cavs again swept their opposition, this time by 12.5 points a game. And 12.5 may not seem like a lot better than 8.5, but you have to remember, the Hawks were actually quite good. Not “compete for the title” good, but “legitimately good team” good. The Cavs crushed them on the glass (Thompson and Love combined for almost 10 offensive boards a game) and shot extremely well (+4.9% as a team). Irving averaged a 21/2/6 on +7.9% and LeBron averaged a 24/9/8 on +3.2% (3 steals a game). It was an extremely dominant win over a good team (I, personally, vastly prefer these kinds of wins to 20 ppg wins over mediocre teams).
And in the Conference Finals they faced the +4.0 Toronto Raptors. The Cavs somehow took six games to close the series out, despite winning by an astounding 15.5 points per game. The Raptors’ wins: +15 and +6 points. The Cavs’ wins: +31, +19, +38 and +26. And that +38 game was actually up +40 going into the 4th. The Cavs shot extremely well (+6.4%) and LeBron averaged an excellent 26/9/7 on +12.4% (2 steals a game). At the same time, they held the Raptors to -2.1% shooting.
Through these first three series the Cavs’ offense had been historically excellent, at the level of some of the best playoff offenses ever. But their defense, which had somewhat mailed it in against the Pistons and Hawks, proved against the Raptors that they were capable of dialing it in if need be. And so the Cavs advanced to the NBA Finals, having vaporized all of their opposition. But standing in their way was a horse of a completely different color, the +11.0 Golden State Warriors, clearly one of the best teams ever. They boasted an extremely smart, athletic defense led by Draymond Green and an extremely mobile, smart offense led by Steph Curry, who was coming off perhaps the best regular season scoring season . . . ever. The rematch had happened.
Game 1 was the Cavs’ worst nightmare. The Warriors played excellent defense and the Cavs’ juggernaut offense stalled out. James was held to a 23/12/9 on -3.6% shooting, and Kyrie to 26/3/4 on -6.4% shooting. The Cavs’ offense overall shot at -6.1%, an incredibly low level for such a dominant team. And the Warriors’ offense shot well (+2.8%) despite Steph Curry having an impossibly bad game (11/5/6 on -17.4% with 5 turnovers); Draymond chipped in a very Draymond 16/11/7 on +8.6% with 4 steals. The Warriors prevailed by 15. And if the Cavs thought Game 1 was bad, Game 2 was even worse. The Warriors absolutely dominated them in all the things the Cavs were good at. They kept the Cavs off the boards (the Cavs’ entire roster had only 9 offensive boards) and held the Cavs to a revolting -11.1% shooting (LeBron’s 19/8/9 on -3.5% shooting was one of the only stat lines that wasn’t pure garbage; Kyrie shot -17.8% for the game. And the Warriors shot +10.3% and . . . yeah, it was bad. The Warriors were up by 20 going into the 4th and the Cavs simply sat their starters, rightly calling the game a lost cause. So. Two games in, and Warriors had absolutely humiliated the Cavs in both. Compounding matters, Kevin Love was going to miss Game 3 because of a concussion. At least the series was about to move to Cleveland.
In Game 3 the Cavs bounced back hard. Tristan Thompson grabbed seven offensive boards himself, and the Cavs held the Warriors to only -2.6% shooting. The entire Cavs’ starting 5 posted strong games: LeBron posted a 32/11/6 on +1.7% (5 turnovers), J.R. Smith had a 20/4/1 on +17.9% (3 steals) and Kyrie had a 30/4/8 on +2.9%. The Cavs ended up running the Warriors off the court, taking Game 3 by 30 points. Perhaps the tables were about to turn?
Nope.
Steph Curry went on a rampage in Game 4, posting a 38/5/6 on +10.5% (with 2 steals) while the Cavs shot 24% from three and shot -1.6% for the game. LeBron’s 25/13/9 on +0.8% (2 steals, 3 blocks and 7 turnovers) didn’t move the needle enough, nor Kyrie’s 34/4/4 on +2.2% (3 steals). The game was close, but the Warriors pulled it out by 11. The Cavs were now down 3-1, one game away from elimination.
Quick aside. Do you remember that “29 / 11 / 8 on +3.9% shooting (adjusted for opposing defenses), with a +10.3 BPM” statline I referred to earlier from LeBron’s Finals games since 2013? I wasn’t being entirely honest; those were his average stats in *non-Elimination games*.
LeBron in NBA Finals Elimination Games since 2013: 34 / 12 / 9 on +7.8% (adjusted for opponent) and a BPM of +14.4.
Do you realize how nuts that is? It’s basically the equivalent of the scoring of peak regular season Jordan (‘88 or ‘90), the rebounding of ‘01 Kevin Garnett and 9 assists a game. *This* is "Elimination Game James".
Totally unrelated, in Game 5, LeBron had a 41/16/7 on +7.1% (3 steals, 3 blocks, 2 turnovers, game-level BPM of +21.5). Incidental point, LeBron has 22 playoff games at +20 BPM or higher; Jordan has 14 (and 10 is the next highest). In the NBA Finals he has 5, Jordan has 3. Anyhow. Also, Kyrie had an amazing game (which in almost any other circumstance would have been the best performance of the game) with a 41/3/6 on +28.3%. With their powers combined the Cavs won by 15. It wasn’t quite as simple as this; Draymond Green didn’t play on account of a suspension incurred for a groin hit to LeBron in Game 4. So the best defender on the excellent Warriors’ defense was missing. That probably played a role.
In Game 6 LeBron posted a 41/8/11 on +13.1% (4 steals, 3 blocks and 1 turnover). The Cavs as a team shot +9% even as they held the Warriors to -0.8% shooting. The Cavs won by 14. And we went to Game 7. It was tight beginning to end, befitting the end to such an epic series between two such epic teams. The Warriors led by 7 at the half, but the Cavs fought back, getting to within 1 going into the fourth. At 4:39 left in the fourth quarter, the game was tied at 89.
No team scored in the next three minutes. At the intersection of tight defense and tired offenses, nobody could score.
I can’t overstate the level of tension that these three minutes had. You know how soccer fans are like “No, but you don’t understand, the low scores are exciting! Every time somebody gets near the goal your heart jumps into your throat!”? It was like that. But more. Do you know what it reminded me of most watching it live? It reminded me of the end of the final fight in the Death of Superman comic. Doomsday and Superman have been going at it forever. They’re pretty much both invincible, and in each other find something they never thought they could find; pain. Injury. Doomsday’s bones are so sharp that they can *cut* Superman, and Superman is so strong that he can actually *hurt* Doomsday. So early in the fight they’re throwing down hard with each other, each seeming to expect that *this* punch is the one that will reduce the opponent to another fallen rival. And, instead, each time the opponent recovers and slugs them back, and the cycle keeps going. And there comes a point in the fight where both of them are basically dead on their feet. You see Superman, the unblemished and pristine Man of Steel stumbling, bleeding from a dozen wounds, his sky blue suit marred by the blood that he had never needed to shed before. And Doomsday, the pure engine of destruction, is sputtering out of gas. Both of them realize that this might be it. That this may be where it ends for them. That they can lose. That their identity, that of unstoppable forces of victory, might be lost and with it their life. And they’re both scared. But they can’t stop. It is not in their nature to stop; neither even knows what it means to run. Doomsday doesn’t know anything besides fighting and killing. Superman doesn’t know anything but laying it all on the line to protect others. And so they stand there, finesse gone, pounding at each other with brute strength, the force of the blows so intense that it shatters the glass of the buildings around them, each putting everything they have into every blow, only to find out that it isn’t enough and they need to swing even harder the next time.
That’s what those three minutes of Game 7 of the NBA Finals felt like to me.
In the comic, Superman and Doomsday eventually strike each other with maximum force simultaneously, holding nothing back, and each combatant succeeds at taking the life of the other at their own expense. Hence the name of the comic, the Death of Superman. In basketball, that isn’t an option. There *has* to be a winner. And as the timer ticked down we all watched, eyes wide, knowing that there was a good chance that the winner would be determined by a play so great that we’d remember it for the rest of our lives.
We were blessed by three such plays.
At 2:00 left in the quarter Kyrie slashes past his defender and puts up a tough floater. He misses and Iguodala pulls down the board. It creates an instant 3 on 1 break, as Iggy, Steph and Klay run down the court with only J.R. Smith to defend the basket. This was a big deal. *Nobody* could score in the half court. A fast break opportunity represented an incredible chance for the Warriors to take a lead that might never fall. Iguodala passes to Curry and once Smith swivels his hips to Curry the ball goes back to Iggy for what appeared to be an open layup that Smith couldn’t possibly contest. Iguodala puts it up and out of effing nowhere LeBron explodes into sight and blocks the shot against the backboard.
Here’s the thing. If you watch the replay, James is with them from the halfcourt. And, frankly, he’s actually SLOWING DOWN as he approaches the rim (how insane is that at 31 LeBron was still so fast that he could run down a fast break *and* was going so quickly that he had to slow down not to overshoot the play). Watching the replay it’s like “Well, of course he made that block” (except then you watch and see that LeBron went up with *both* hands just in case Iggy tried a reverse and you become even more impressed). But that's in the replay. In realtime I’m telling you that all I could see were Curry, Smith and Iguodala. I didn’t see LeBron *at all* until he took off. It was the most . . . I literally pulled a Norman Reedus from Boondock Saints in my living room, surprising my wife as I shouted suddenly (I Can’t Believe That Just ******* Happened!). Absolutely effing insane. However insane I’m conveying that this block was (and more importantly, the moment it represented in the context of these last four minutes of this game of this Finals of this season) . . . it was bigger. Much bigger.
And that was only the first of the three insane players.
The second was at about a minute left. Kyrie is isolated on Curry. Clear isolation. And Irving jabs and takes a stepback three. Now. Irving is *not* a particularly good stepback three shooter. He’s certainly better than most, but the stepback is a really hard shot. Remember, Kyrie shot 32.1% from three in the regular season, and most of his makes were assisted. And Kyrie disproportionately loves hero ball, even if he’s unusually good at it. Normally, it would be an inefficient look. But in the playoffs, against tight defenses, sometimes you can’t generate offense reliably *except* through ISO ball. And this was sure as heck one of those times. So Kyrie took the shot and I remember thinking, “Well, 30% chance, so probably miss and still tie game”.
Swish.
Suddenly the Cavs had the lead. It’s the kind of shot that ball-dominant gunners dream of taking and making. And, to Kyrie’s credit, he freaking nailed it. And the Cavs went from being a 50% winner to an 80% winner. Huge.
But the Warriors still had 50 seconds to go and, more to the point, they had the best three-point shot creator (and maker) in NBA history. And the Warriors go down and they run picks to get Kevin Love matched up on Curry. Now Love was known to be a strong rebounder and an extremely valuable floor-spacing big. But defense had, I say charitably, never been considered a strength of his. He was often derided, even by Cavs fans, for his porous defense.
And now their season hung on his ability to defend the greatest ISO three point shooter ever. If there was a silver lining, it was that this, apparently, was a play the Warriors ran with some frequency at opposing centers and the Cavs had drilled it relentlessly in practice. So when Love gets switched onto Curry he doesn’t panic, he dials in. When the switch happens Love jumps way the heck out there, picking up Curry almost ten feet from the three point line. And while Love wasn’t as quick as Curry, he was the longer of the two. And so for 12 seconds there was the most tense game of cat and mouse ever as Curry kept trying to maneuver Love out of position and Love, somehow, through desperate lunges and quick recoveries, managed to stay with him. And several times Curry seemed to have something of a shot but each time he pulled it back, seemingly trusting that he could maneuver for a better one. But at four seconds Curry couldn’t find anything better and he put up the shot. Miss.
And that was pretty much game.
Were LeBron’s last three games “the best three-game stretch ever played” as some have claimed? Not clear. His 5 and 6 were insane, but in the first two games of the ‘91 Finals Jordan put up comparable stat lines (both 20+ BPM games). And his Game 3 was comparable to LeBron’s game 7. You could argue that LeBron’s games were later in the series and so had more significance. And you could argue that the Warriors were a better defense than the ‘91 Lakers (they were). But I still stop short of making such a claim. Let’s just agree that they were insanely good and move on.
Let the record show that the best player in that Game 7 wasn’t any of LeBron, Kyrie or Love, but was instead Draymond Green, who put up a scintillating 32/15/9 on +41.4% (2 steals and only 2 turnovers). Kyrie, aside from his big shot, was unremarkable with a 26/6/1 on -1.6%. And LeBron had a strong (but not overwhelming) 27/11/11 on -6.6% shooting (2 steals, 3 blocks, 5 turnovers). It was an insane Finals. The Cavs won. The Warriors could have easily done so. It wasn’t dominant. But it was a win over an ATG team. And it brought a title to Cleveland.
12 | Spurs
11 | Cavs, Thunder
10 | Warriors
9 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
3 | Heat, Hawks, Pacers, Clippers, Blazers
2 |
1 | Raptors, Jazz
0 | Celtics
-0 | Pistons, Wizards
-1 | Hornets, Bulls, Magic
-2 | Rockets, Knicks, Kings, Nuggets
-3 | Mavericks, Bucks, Pelicans, TWolves
-4 | Grizzlies
-5 |
-6 | Suns
-7 | Nets
-8 | Lakers
-9 | 76ers
-10|
I’ve written three times already about how 2016 was a non-competitive year because it was so insanely top-heavy. So I’m skipping past that part.
What to make of the ‘16 Cavs? Well, by the standards of this list, their regular season sucked.
Sorry, keeping it real.
It did. But their playoffs? Wowee. You’re talking three blowout victories followed by a victory over the team that set the regular season wins record. Skeptics would argue that the Cavs’ opponents in the first three rounds weren’t that good . . . but is that really true? Granted, the Pistons were bad, but the Raptors and Hawks were both legitimately good teams (not title contenders, but good). If you think that the Cavs needed to face a legitimate contender somewhere before the Finals . . . That’s fair but a lot of great teams simply don’t. I mean, throw out every single 80s Lakers team because (until ‘89) they really had almost no challenger in the Conference. It’s just not a reasonable expectation. All you can really do is look at how they played the teams they had. And they played two good teams and absolutely ripped them apart. And then they played the ‘16 Warriors toe to toe and eventually won. I’ll be honest, I think it’s a really impressive playoff run. Really impressive. I’d rather one of the blowouts had been against a better team (say, +7 or so) but there’s only so much you can ask for. If you’re making a list of the best playoff teams ever . . . You’d need to at least discuss them. They posted the 4th best playoff offensive rating on the list *and* a quality defense. And their opponents weren’t as bad as you think. If you take their opponent’s RSRS average over the playoffs they actually show the 23rd toughest playoff schedule on this list (in fact, only two teams above them on the list averaged tougher opponents). How is that possible? Well, part of it is the SRS-inflation that comes from a non-competitive year. That’s some of it. But the rest is the fact that the ‘16 Cavs played a fairly respectable (but hardly remarkable) set of series before the Finals, and in the Finals faced an ATG team.
I really can’t emphasize this enough; the ‘16 Warriors are one of the toughest teams any of these guys played in the Finals. They next best team beaten the Finals by a team ahead of this is the ‘17 Cavs, who slot in at #43. So if you’re saying “the only really good team they played was the ‘16 Warriors”, that’s fair, but please understand that almost *nobody* beat a team better than that in the Finals. Look at the ‘86 Celtics; a gold standard ATG team but nobody is confusing the ‘86 Rockets for an ATG team. The ‘96 Bulls were insane and the ‘96 Sonics made this list comfortably, but the Sonics are not in the same league as the‘16 Warriors.
And you could counter with “But they only barely won”. Totally true. It still counts though.
Where you put the ‘16 Cavs in the ATG list depends a lot on how important you feel like the regular season is. If you care about the regular season a lot, the ‘16 Cavs are going to be way down there. Possibly not even in the Top 50. And if you really, really favor the playoffs (and dramatic moments) I can see the case for ranking them in the Top 10. I think that’s too high. Where they are here may be higher than they deserve.
But hot damn. What a run.
PG: Kyrie Irving, +2.3 / +6.0
SG: J.R. Smith, +0.5 / +1.8
SF: LeBron James, +9.0 / +11.0
PF: Tristan Thompson, +0.2 / -1.1
C: Kevin Love, +3.3 / +2.4
Regular Season Metrics:
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +5.45 (79th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +4.5 (40th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -1.9 (76th)
Shooting Advantage: +2.4%, Possession Advantage: +1.5 shooting possessions per game
LeBron James (SF, 31): 38 MPPG, 32% OLoad, 27 / 8 / 7 / 2 on +4.7%
Kyrie Irving (PG, 23): 34 MPPG, 30% OLoad, 21 / 3 / 5 / 2 on -0.1%
Kevin Love (C, 27): 34 MPPG, 23% OLoad, 17 / 11 / 3 / 1 on +1.2%
J.R. Smith (SG, 30): 33 MPPG, 17% OLoad, 13 / 3 / 2 / 1 on +0.1%
Tristan Thompson (PF, 24): 30 MPPG, 11% OLoad, 8 / 10 / 1 / 1 on +7.0%
Scoring/100: LeBron James (36.5 / +4.7%), Kyrie Irving (32.1 / -0.1%), Kevin Love (26.2 / +1.2%)
Assists/100: LeBron James (9.8), Kyrie Irving (7.7), Kevin Love (3.9)
Heliocentrism: 44.6% (17th of 84 teams) - LeBron
Wingmen: 31.5% (70th) - Love & Irving
Depth: 23.9% (48th)
Playoff Metrics:
Playoff Offensive Rating: +11.43 (4th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -3.82 (68th)
Playoff SRS: +14.55 (8th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +5.84 (5th)
Shooting Advantage: +3.1%, Possession Advantage: +2.7 shooting possessions per game
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.42 (16th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.33 (43rd)
LeBron James (SF, 31): 42 MPPG, 32% OLoad, 28 / 10 / 8 / 4 on +4.4%
Kyrie Irving (PG, 23): 40 MPPG, 30% OLoad, 27 / 3 / 5 / 3 on +3.3%
Kevin Love (C, 27): 33 MPPG, 22% OLoad, 16 / 9 / 2 / 1 on -0.2%
J.R. Smith (SG, 30): 37 MPPG, 13% OLoad, 12 / 3 / 2 / 2 on +7.2%
Tristan Thompson (PF, 24): 32 MPPG, 10% OLoad, 7 / 10 / 1 / 1 on +1.8%
Scoring/100: LeBron James (35.6 / +4.4%), Kyrie Irving (36.3 / +3.3%), Kevin Love (25.3 / -0.2%)
Assists/100: LeBron James (10.3), Kyrie Irving (6.7), Kevin Love (3.6)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 44.3% (15th of 84 teams) - LeBron
Playoff Wingmen: 37.7% (65th) - Irving & Love
Playoff Depth: 18.0% (59th)
Round 1: Detroit Pistons (+0.4), won 4-0, by +8.5 points per game (+8.9 SRS eq)
Round 2: Atlanta Hawks (+5.5), won 4-0, by +12.5 points per game (+18.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Toronto Raptors (+4.0), won 4-2, by +15.5 points per game (+19.5 SRS eq)
Round 4: Golden State Warriors (+11.0), won 4-3, by +0.5 points per game (+11.5 SRS eq)
Offensive / Defensive Ratings from Opposition Regular Season Average:
Detroit Pistons: +14.9 / +4.4
Atlanta Hawks: +21.5 / +4.0
Toronto Raptors: +13.3 / -8.8
Golden State Warriors: +5.3 / -6.0
Shooting Advantage / Possession Advantage per 100 (unadjusted):
Detroit Pistons: +1.0% / +6.9
Atlanta Hawks: +3.5% / +5.8
Toronto Raptors: +8.5% / +0.7
Golden State Warriors: -0.5% / +1.3
Postseason Usage/Efficiency Change adjusted for Opposition:
Kyrie Irving: +0.9% / +4.7%
J.R. Smith: -4.8% / +8.4%
LeBron James: -0.7% / +1.0%
Tristan Thompson: -1.1% / -3.9%
Kevin Love: -0.9% / -0.1%
Before we get rolling, I want to talk about a statline/player. The statline per game is 29 / 11 / 8 on +3.9% shooting (adjusted for opposing defenses), with a +10.3 BPM. That shooting is quite good; 29 points per game and +3.9% shooting is pretty comparable to ‘08-’10 Kobe Bryant’s scoring. And the rebounding profile (heavy on defensive boards) looks more like ‘19 Joel Embiid. And 8 assists a game is clearly pretty impressive. The BPM is outstanding; +10.3 BPM is more or less at the level of, say, ‘96 Jordan and ‘84 Bird’s playoff runs. So great players having great postseason runs. This statline is LeBron James in NBA Finals games since 2013.
Pretty impressive, right?
Anyhow. After the 2014 NBA Finals (in which LeBron’s Heat were incinerated by the white-hot Spurs, despite LeBron having an incredible series), he left for greener pastures. His hometown Cavs had acquired Kyrie Irving, an extremely promising score-first point guard, lots of youth and had freed up a lot of cap space. With the prospect of playing with Kyrie and an added Kevin Love as a stretch big, there was every reason for LeBron to think that Cleveland could offer far greener pastures than Miami could. So he left.
In his 2015 year the Cavs had an extremely promising season . . . right up until the point where both Love and Irving went down with injuries. LeBron almost single-handedly carried his team through the Eastern Conference (indicative both of how insanely dominant LeBron was and how weak the conference was), posting the 65th best PSRS on this list. But, of course, his team couldn’t realistically compete with the Golden State Warriors, who had emerged in the West from relative obscurity (8th ranked in the league, a 1 in 29 shot to win the Finals) to become the clear best team in the league. But they still took six games to beat a Cavs team without Kyrie or Love. In 2016 a rematch was promised, one that would pit a healthy Cavs team against a full-strength Warriors team at the height of their powers. It would be, prognosticators surmised, one of the greatest Finals matchups ever.
Side note. Do you know how so often the talking heads predict crap and it never goes anywhere, even if it seemed logical at the time?
This was not that kind of prediction. It wasn’t clear if the Warriors could replicate the magic of their ‘15 season, and it wasn’t clear if Kyrie and Love could stay healthy, and it wasn't clear if the rest of the teams in the league (by which I mean the West) would cooperate. There were a lot of reasons that this matchup couldn’t happen. Well it freaking did. And it led to, perhaps, the greatest Finals in NBA history. But I get ahead of myself.
The ‘16 Cavs . . . if I said that they did the bare minimum to get the one seed in the East (a weak conference) that’s probably selling them short. But let the record show that in the ‘15 playoffs they posted pretty close to a +10 PSRS with LeBron and a notably weak supporting cast (Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert, J.R. Smith, Timofey Mozgov and Matthew Dellavedova). All of those players have serious values to teams, but not one of them has any business being the 2nd best player on a +10 SRS team. And yet, somehow, the ‘15 Cavs played at an extremely high level (for their roster, if not for this list). And for the ‘16 regular season they get Kyrie and Love back and they put up a . . . +5.45 RSRS and win 57 games, exactly enough to get the one seed. So let’s just agree that they played well below what they were presumably capable of, but well enough to get the top seed. The East was, again, fairly weak. And at the same time, the 2016 Western Conference was turning into the most overloaded top-heavy conference since the West in 1972. The Warriors and Spurs both posted +10 RSRS seasons or better (winning 73 and 67 games), and while the Thunder were *only* a +7 RSRS team, a healthy Durant + Westbrook at their peaks promised a serious competitor.
In the regular season their strength was, unsurprisingly, their offense. They took a lot of threes (3rd most in the league) and made them at a high rate. And in turn, on the rare two pointers that they did take they converted very efficiently (4th in the league). It was the pace and space team design that we all now associate with LeBron, where you spread the floor with shooters (no more than one non-shooter on the floor at a time) and then force the defense to choose between defending the paint from skilled rim-attackers (like LeBron and Kyrie) and defending the arc from skilled shooters (J.R. Smith and Kevin Love, etc). And their shooting selection was notably resilient. Both LeBron and Kyrie were assisted on less than 60% of their 3s, showing the ability to create that shot with moderate success (their percentages with the shot, 30.9% and 32.1% respectively, suggested that it wasn’t a particularly efficient shot however). And all of LeBron, Kyrie and J.R. Smith could create twos pretty efficiently without assists. Another interesting facet of the offense was strong offensive rebounding. Tristan Thompson, for all his flaws was an ideal low-usage member of the lineup, a strong rebounder (especially offensively, where he would finish 2nd in the league) who could convert his limited looks efficiently. Purely with Thompson’s efforts (and some Kevin Love) the offense not only shot very well but also grabbed a lot of their misses. Their defense was less inspiring, and mostly leveraged the fact that Thompson, Love and LeBron combined to form an extremely effective defensive rebounding trio. But yeah, there’s absolutely nothing about their regular season that suggests ATG team. At all.
That said, the heroics of LeBron James in the playoffs had been becoming kind of a thing. Since 2011, when he had proved all the haters right, he had been pretty much crushing the playoffs as few had ever done before. And he seemed even better in the NBA Finals. So even though the regular season ‘16 Cavs weren’t that good (from an ATG perspective) there was every reason to think that they soar over the East like Vince Carter over Frederic Weis.
And they sure freaking did.
The Cavs’ first series was pretty weak, against the +0.4 Detroit Pistons. Granted, the Cavs swept them easily by 8.5 points a game. Kyrie averaged an efficient 28/2/5 on +4.4% while LeBron seemed to struggle with a 23/9/7 on -0.3% shooting. It was a good win. But against a weak team like Detroit, I would have expected more.
Against the Atlanta Hawks (+5.5) in the second round, they did more. The Cavs again swept their opposition, this time by 12.5 points a game. And 12.5 may not seem like a lot better than 8.5, but you have to remember, the Hawks were actually quite good. Not “compete for the title” good, but “legitimately good team” good. The Cavs crushed them on the glass (Thompson and Love combined for almost 10 offensive boards a game) and shot extremely well (+4.9% as a team). Irving averaged a 21/2/6 on +7.9% and LeBron averaged a 24/9/8 on +3.2% (3 steals a game). It was an extremely dominant win over a good team (I, personally, vastly prefer these kinds of wins to 20 ppg wins over mediocre teams).
And in the Conference Finals they faced the +4.0 Toronto Raptors. The Cavs somehow took six games to close the series out, despite winning by an astounding 15.5 points per game. The Raptors’ wins: +15 and +6 points. The Cavs’ wins: +31, +19, +38 and +26. And that +38 game was actually up +40 going into the 4th. The Cavs shot extremely well (+6.4%) and LeBron averaged an excellent 26/9/7 on +12.4% (2 steals a game). At the same time, they held the Raptors to -2.1% shooting.
Through these first three series the Cavs’ offense had been historically excellent, at the level of some of the best playoff offenses ever. But their defense, which had somewhat mailed it in against the Pistons and Hawks, proved against the Raptors that they were capable of dialing it in if need be. And so the Cavs advanced to the NBA Finals, having vaporized all of their opposition. But standing in their way was a horse of a completely different color, the +11.0 Golden State Warriors, clearly one of the best teams ever. They boasted an extremely smart, athletic defense led by Draymond Green and an extremely mobile, smart offense led by Steph Curry, who was coming off perhaps the best regular season scoring season . . . ever. The rematch had happened.
Game 1 was the Cavs’ worst nightmare. The Warriors played excellent defense and the Cavs’ juggernaut offense stalled out. James was held to a 23/12/9 on -3.6% shooting, and Kyrie to 26/3/4 on -6.4% shooting. The Cavs’ offense overall shot at -6.1%, an incredibly low level for such a dominant team. And the Warriors’ offense shot well (+2.8%) despite Steph Curry having an impossibly bad game (11/5/6 on -17.4% with 5 turnovers); Draymond chipped in a very Draymond 16/11/7 on +8.6% with 4 steals. The Warriors prevailed by 15. And if the Cavs thought Game 1 was bad, Game 2 was even worse. The Warriors absolutely dominated them in all the things the Cavs were good at. They kept the Cavs off the boards (the Cavs’ entire roster had only 9 offensive boards) and held the Cavs to a revolting -11.1% shooting (LeBron’s 19/8/9 on -3.5% shooting was one of the only stat lines that wasn’t pure garbage; Kyrie shot -17.8% for the game. And the Warriors shot +10.3% and . . . yeah, it was bad. The Warriors were up by 20 going into the 4th and the Cavs simply sat their starters, rightly calling the game a lost cause. So. Two games in, and Warriors had absolutely humiliated the Cavs in both. Compounding matters, Kevin Love was going to miss Game 3 because of a concussion. At least the series was about to move to Cleveland.
In Game 3 the Cavs bounced back hard. Tristan Thompson grabbed seven offensive boards himself, and the Cavs held the Warriors to only -2.6% shooting. The entire Cavs’ starting 5 posted strong games: LeBron posted a 32/11/6 on +1.7% (5 turnovers), J.R. Smith had a 20/4/1 on +17.9% (3 steals) and Kyrie had a 30/4/8 on +2.9%. The Cavs ended up running the Warriors off the court, taking Game 3 by 30 points. Perhaps the tables were about to turn?
Nope.
Steph Curry went on a rampage in Game 4, posting a 38/5/6 on +10.5% (with 2 steals) while the Cavs shot 24% from three and shot -1.6% for the game. LeBron’s 25/13/9 on +0.8% (2 steals, 3 blocks and 7 turnovers) didn’t move the needle enough, nor Kyrie’s 34/4/4 on +2.2% (3 steals). The game was close, but the Warriors pulled it out by 11. The Cavs were now down 3-1, one game away from elimination.
Quick aside. Do you remember that “29 / 11 / 8 on +3.9% shooting (adjusted for opposing defenses), with a +10.3 BPM” statline I referred to earlier from LeBron’s Finals games since 2013? I wasn’t being entirely honest; those were his average stats in *non-Elimination games*.
LeBron in NBA Finals Elimination Games since 2013: 34 / 12 / 9 on +7.8% (adjusted for opponent) and a BPM of +14.4.
Do you realize how nuts that is? It’s basically the equivalent of the scoring of peak regular season Jordan (‘88 or ‘90), the rebounding of ‘01 Kevin Garnett and 9 assists a game. *This* is "Elimination Game James".
Totally unrelated, in Game 5, LeBron had a 41/16/7 on +7.1% (3 steals, 3 blocks, 2 turnovers, game-level BPM of +21.5). Incidental point, LeBron has 22 playoff games at +20 BPM or higher; Jordan has 14 (and 10 is the next highest). In the NBA Finals he has 5, Jordan has 3. Anyhow. Also, Kyrie had an amazing game (which in almost any other circumstance would have been the best performance of the game) with a 41/3/6 on +28.3%. With their powers combined the Cavs won by 15. It wasn’t quite as simple as this; Draymond Green didn’t play on account of a suspension incurred for a groin hit to LeBron in Game 4. So the best defender on the excellent Warriors’ defense was missing. That probably played a role.
In Game 6 LeBron posted a 41/8/11 on +13.1% (4 steals, 3 blocks and 1 turnover). The Cavs as a team shot +9% even as they held the Warriors to -0.8% shooting. The Cavs won by 14. And we went to Game 7. It was tight beginning to end, befitting the end to such an epic series between two such epic teams. The Warriors led by 7 at the half, but the Cavs fought back, getting to within 1 going into the fourth. At 4:39 left in the fourth quarter, the game was tied at 89.
No team scored in the next three minutes. At the intersection of tight defense and tired offenses, nobody could score.
I can’t overstate the level of tension that these three minutes had. You know how soccer fans are like “No, but you don’t understand, the low scores are exciting! Every time somebody gets near the goal your heart jumps into your throat!”? It was like that. But more. Do you know what it reminded me of most watching it live? It reminded me of the end of the final fight in the Death of Superman comic. Doomsday and Superman have been going at it forever. They’re pretty much both invincible, and in each other find something they never thought they could find; pain. Injury. Doomsday’s bones are so sharp that they can *cut* Superman, and Superman is so strong that he can actually *hurt* Doomsday. So early in the fight they’re throwing down hard with each other, each seeming to expect that *this* punch is the one that will reduce the opponent to another fallen rival. And, instead, each time the opponent recovers and slugs them back, and the cycle keeps going. And there comes a point in the fight where both of them are basically dead on their feet. You see Superman, the unblemished and pristine Man of Steel stumbling, bleeding from a dozen wounds, his sky blue suit marred by the blood that he had never needed to shed before. And Doomsday, the pure engine of destruction, is sputtering out of gas. Both of them realize that this might be it. That this may be where it ends for them. That they can lose. That their identity, that of unstoppable forces of victory, might be lost and with it their life. And they’re both scared. But they can’t stop. It is not in their nature to stop; neither even knows what it means to run. Doomsday doesn’t know anything besides fighting and killing. Superman doesn’t know anything but laying it all on the line to protect others. And so they stand there, finesse gone, pounding at each other with brute strength, the force of the blows so intense that it shatters the glass of the buildings around them, each putting everything they have into every blow, only to find out that it isn’t enough and they need to swing even harder the next time.
That’s what those three minutes of Game 7 of the NBA Finals felt like to me.
In the comic, Superman and Doomsday eventually strike each other with maximum force simultaneously, holding nothing back, and each combatant succeeds at taking the life of the other at their own expense. Hence the name of the comic, the Death of Superman. In basketball, that isn’t an option. There *has* to be a winner. And as the timer ticked down we all watched, eyes wide, knowing that there was a good chance that the winner would be determined by a play so great that we’d remember it for the rest of our lives.
We were blessed by three such plays.
At 2:00 left in the quarter Kyrie slashes past his defender and puts up a tough floater. He misses and Iguodala pulls down the board. It creates an instant 3 on 1 break, as Iggy, Steph and Klay run down the court with only J.R. Smith to defend the basket. This was a big deal. *Nobody* could score in the half court. A fast break opportunity represented an incredible chance for the Warriors to take a lead that might never fall. Iguodala passes to Curry and once Smith swivels his hips to Curry the ball goes back to Iggy for what appeared to be an open layup that Smith couldn’t possibly contest. Iguodala puts it up and out of effing nowhere LeBron explodes into sight and blocks the shot against the backboard.
Here’s the thing. If you watch the replay, James is with them from the halfcourt. And, frankly, he’s actually SLOWING DOWN as he approaches the rim (how insane is that at 31 LeBron was still so fast that he could run down a fast break *and* was going so quickly that he had to slow down not to overshoot the play). Watching the replay it’s like “Well, of course he made that block” (except then you watch and see that LeBron went up with *both* hands just in case Iggy tried a reverse and you become even more impressed). But that's in the replay. In realtime I’m telling you that all I could see were Curry, Smith and Iguodala. I didn’t see LeBron *at all* until he took off. It was the most . . . I literally pulled a Norman Reedus from Boondock Saints in my living room, surprising my wife as I shouted suddenly (I Can’t Believe That Just ******* Happened!). Absolutely effing insane. However insane I’m conveying that this block was (and more importantly, the moment it represented in the context of these last four minutes of this game of this Finals of this season) . . . it was bigger. Much bigger.
And that was only the first of the three insane players.
The second was at about a minute left. Kyrie is isolated on Curry. Clear isolation. And Irving jabs and takes a stepback three. Now. Irving is *not* a particularly good stepback three shooter. He’s certainly better than most, but the stepback is a really hard shot. Remember, Kyrie shot 32.1% from three in the regular season, and most of his makes were assisted. And Kyrie disproportionately loves hero ball, even if he’s unusually good at it. Normally, it would be an inefficient look. But in the playoffs, against tight defenses, sometimes you can’t generate offense reliably *except* through ISO ball. And this was sure as heck one of those times. So Kyrie took the shot and I remember thinking, “Well, 30% chance, so probably miss and still tie game”.
Swish.
Suddenly the Cavs had the lead. It’s the kind of shot that ball-dominant gunners dream of taking and making. And, to Kyrie’s credit, he freaking nailed it. And the Cavs went from being a 50% winner to an 80% winner. Huge.
But the Warriors still had 50 seconds to go and, more to the point, they had the best three-point shot creator (and maker) in NBA history. And the Warriors go down and they run picks to get Kevin Love matched up on Curry. Now Love was known to be a strong rebounder and an extremely valuable floor-spacing big. But defense had, I say charitably, never been considered a strength of his. He was often derided, even by Cavs fans, for his porous defense.
And now their season hung on his ability to defend the greatest ISO three point shooter ever. If there was a silver lining, it was that this, apparently, was a play the Warriors ran with some frequency at opposing centers and the Cavs had drilled it relentlessly in practice. So when Love gets switched onto Curry he doesn’t panic, he dials in. When the switch happens Love jumps way the heck out there, picking up Curry almost ten feet from the three point line. And while Love wasn’t as quick as Curry, he was the longer of the two. And so for 12 seconds there was the most tense game of cat and mouse ever as Curry kept trying to maneuver Love out of position and Love, somehow, through desperate lunges and quick recoveries, managed to stay with him. And several times Curry seemed to have something of a shot but each time he pulled it back, seemingly trusting that he could maneuver for a better one. But at four seconds Curry couldn’t find anything better and he put up the shot. Miss.
And that was pretty much game.
Were LeBron’s last three games “the best three-game stretch ever played” as some have claimed? Not clear. His 5 and 6 were insane, but in the first two games of the ‘91 Finals Jordan put up comparable stat lines (both 20+ BPM games). And his Game 3 was comparable to LeBron’s game 7. You could argue that LeBron’s games were later in the series and so had more significance. And you could argue that the Warriors were a better defense than the ‘91 Lakers (they were). But I still stop short of making such a claim. Let’s just agree that they were insanely good and move on.
Let the record show that the best player in that Game 7 wasn’t any of LeBron, Kyrie or Love, but was instead Draymond Green, who put up a scintillating 32/15/9 on +41.4% (2 steals and only 2 turnovers). Kyrie, aside from his big shot, was unremarkable with a 26/6/1 on -1.6%. And LeBron had a strong (but not overwhelming) 27/11/11 on -6.6% shooting (2 steals, 3 blocks, 5 turnovers). It was an insane Finals. The Cavs won. The Warriors could have easily done so. It wasn’t dominant. But it was a win over an ATG team. And it brought a title to Cleveland.
12 | Spurs
11 | Cavs, Thunder
10 | Warriors
9 |
8 |
7 |
6 |
5 |
4 |
3 | Heat, Hawks, Pacers, Clippers, Blazers
2 |
1 | Raptors, Jazz
0 | Celtics
-0 | Pistons, Wizards
-1 | Hornets, Bulls, Magic
-2 | Rockets, Knicks, Kings, Nuggets
-3 | Mavericks, Bucks, Pelicans, TWolves
-4 | Grizzlies
-5 |
-6 | Suns
-7 | Nets
-8 | Lakers
-9 | 76ers
-10|
I’ve written three times already about how 2016 was a non-competitive year because it was so insanely top-heavy. So I’m skipping past that part.
What to make of the ‘16 Cavs? Well, by the standards of this list, their regular season sucked.
Sorry, keeping it real.
It did. But their playoffs? Wowee. You’re talking three blowout victories followed by a victory over the team that set the regular season wins record. Skeptics would argue that the Cavs’ opponents in the first three rounds weren’t that good . . . but is that really true? Granted, the Pistons were bad, but the Raptors and Hawks were both legitimately good teams (not title contenders, but good). If you think that the Cavs needed to face a legitimate contender somewhere before the Finals . . . That’s fair but a lot of great teams simply don’t. I mean, throw out every single 80s Lakers team because (until ‘89) they really had almost no challenger in the Conference. It’s just not a reasonable expectation. All you can really do is look at how they played the teams they had. And they played two good teams and absolutely ripped them apart. And then they played the ‘16 Warriors toe to toe and eventually won. I’ll be honest, I think it’s a really impressive playoff run. Really impressive. I’d rather one of the blowouts had been against a better team (say, +7 or so) but there’s only so much you can ask for. If you’re making a list of the best playoff teams ever . . . You’d need to at least discuss them. They posted the 4th best playoff offensive rating on the list *and* a quality defense. And their opponents weren’t as bad as you think. If you take their opponent’s RSRS average over the playoffs they actually show the 23rd toughest playoff schedule on this list (in fact, only two teams above them on the list averaged tougher opponents). How is that possible? Well, part of it is the SRS-inflation that comes from a non-competitive year. That’s some of it. But the rest is the fact that the ‘16 Cavs played a fairly respectable (but hardly remarkable) set of series before the Finals, and in the Finals faced an ATG team.
I really can’t emphasize this enough; the ‘16 Warriors are one of the toughest teams any of these guys played in the Finals. They next best team beaten the Finals by a team ahead of this is the ‘17 Cavs, who slot in at #43. So if you’re saying “the only really good team they played was the ‘16 Warriors”, that’s fair, but please understand that almost *nobody* beat a team better than that in the Finals. Look at the ‘86 Celtics; a gold standard ATG team but nobody is confusing the ‘86 Rockets for an ATG team. The ‘96 Bulls were insane and the ‘96 Sonics made this list comfortably, but the Sonics are not in the same league as the‘16 Warriors.
And you could counter with “But they only barely won”. Totally true. It still counts though.
Where you put the ‘16 Cavs in the ATG list depends a lot on how important you feel like the regular season is. If you care about the regular season a lot, the ‘16 Cavs are going to be way down there. Possibly not even in the Top 50. And if you really, really favor the playoffs (and dramatic moments) I can see the case for ranking them in the Top 10. I think that’s too high. Where they are here may be higher than they deserve.
But hot damn. What a run.
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