CLEVELAND: For as much effort as the league has put into pushing Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry as the new face of the NBA, they still aren’t ready to break away from their past.
The Warriors won an NBA-record 73 games this season and Curry is adored by grandmothers everywhere, yet it’s James still anchoring the league’s coveted Sunday afternoon time slot.
James and the Cavs open their first-round series against the Detroit Pistons at 3 p.m. on Sunday, leaving the Warriors for the less-than-ideal Saturday afternoon slot.
It might not seem like much of a difference, but the extra day of rest is crucial at this point, particularly for a Warriors team that opened the throttle at the end of the season to break the all-time wins record. James and the rest of the Cavs’ starters already sat Wednesday’s finale, meaning they will play just one game in eight days.
James routinely sits the season finale and opens the playoffs on Sundays, giving him ample rest before the start of the series. Perhaps that is why he has been so dominant in first-round matchups.
James has won his last 13 first-round games, including sweeps in each of the last three years. Justin Bieber fans are certainly rooting hard for another sweep this time — a potential Game 5 at home next week conflicts with Bieber’s concert at Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavs are working with the tour’s management for other date alternatives should the concert need to be moved.
The Pistons took three out of four from the Cavs during the regular season, but Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy isn’t putting much faith in that. Van Gundy toppled James as head coach of the Orlando Magic seven years ago, but conceded now there is no good way to defend him.
“What you’re really doing is just throwing stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks,” he said. “If there was a way to play those guys that actually worked, if there was a book on those guys, then they wouldn’t be who they are. If there was a way to play him, that shut him down, well, then people would latch onto that and they wouldn’t be the great players they are.”
Van Gundy compared James to Detroit Tigers slugger Miguel Cabrera, perhaps the most feared hitter in baseball in the past decade.
“It’s like major league hitters,” Van Gundy said. “If you’ve got a hole somewhere and people find out about it and they can hit it, you’re not going to be very good. If you’re Miguel Cabrera and you don’t have a hole, good luck. Pitch him the best you can, he’s still going to hit the [expletive] out of you.”
James has been hitting opponents hard for years. And now that he finally knows his opponent, he’ll begin his playoff preparation with plenty of days off. He plans on spending the time off doing exactly what he’s been doing.
“Staying in rhythm and get in the gym and continue to work on my game and my conditioning,” James said. “Everything I’ve been doing as of the last eight months, nine months.”
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.