LeBron James says Cavs must believe in doing something special vs. Golden State despite 3-1 Finals hole
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The emotional carnage of a wasted opportunity was visible throughout the Cleveland Cavaliers’ locker room in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The Golden State Warriors had just displayed a second-half cool that the home team lacked in Friday night’s 108-97 Game 4 victory. J.R. Smith sat at his locker stall in a daze, looking at nothing in particular. A herd of media members surrounded him. But they might as well have been ghosts — Smith just gazed right through them.
LeBron James, a few stalls over, was fidgety.
With his knees swathed in ice bags and feet submerged in a bucket of ice water, James rested back in his chair. He surveyed the room. He was biting the bottom of his lip and focusing on the demeanor of his teammates.
Facing another NBA Finals defeat just one Golden State victory away, his mind seemed to be racing. At one point his body slumped and he began shaking his head in disappointment.
“I was just replaying parts of the game in my head and it was killing me with some of the stuff that we did out there tonight,” James told cleveland.com. “The mental lapses, the turnovers, the missed opportunities. It was all spinning vividly in my head.”
When Harrison Barnes nailed a deciding 3-pointer with 5:56 left in the fourth quarter to give the Warriors a nine-point advantage, James felt the dagger. At that point, the Warriors had fashioned a 12-1 run over a stretch of 4:25 — another Golden State surge that Cleveland couldn’t answer. The Cavaliers eventually went 6:37 without a basket and never found their poise or points until it didn’t matter.
Too much hero-ball from James and Irving down the stretch, with repeated sprints into a defense that had collapsed into the lane without much obvious concern about Cleveland’s long-distance options. Fans excited about a potential series deadlock with three games remaining were reduced to staring at the court in disappointment as the minutes ticked away.
During the course of a game, the humongotron usually zeroes in on a “fan” (employed by the team) with a Cavs shirt dancing up and down an aisle out of rhythm. He routinely urges applause as he takes off multiple shirts and flings them into the crowd.
However, his performance was foiled on Friday. A male Warriors fan made his way into the frame and started taunting in the background. Within seconds, the stunt was abandoned by the cameras.
The rest of the game essentially followed suit. The Cavaliers entered the game confident in the final result. Like the scripted fan, they were short-circuited by Golden State.
No team has won the NBA championship after falling behind 3-1 in The Finals. That’s 0-for-32. General Manager David Griffin departed The Q trying to boost morale; walking past some arena security officials saying “one more game at home, right?”
“Yes sir,” was the response. But it wasn’t convincing. All around The Q, arena workers tidied up and prepared for a hockey game on Saturday night that could complete a sweep for the Lake Erie Monsters and a Calder Cup title. Cleveland is that close to a championship in the NHL’s developmental American Hockey League. But a major crown once again seems out of reach.
That realization seemed to be everywhere inside the locker room.
“If you don’t think we can win, don’t get on the plane,” head coach Tyronn Lue told the Cavaliers. “I just think we have to come back anyway, so we might as well come back and play [Game 6].”
Does this team truly believe that? History says no. Has dancing man danced his last dance this season? Will there be a game at The Q on Thursday?
The answer comes Monday night in the Bay Area.
“That’s going to be my job, getting players to believe that this isn’t over,” James told cleveland.com. “Me personally, I’m good, but I know what type of challenge we’re up against and it’s going to be up to me to prepare my teammates for that.”
LeBron James says Cavs must believe in doing something special vs. Golden State despite 3-1 Finals hole
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