OAKLAND, CALIF.: Here he is again, back in this familiar but unwanted position.
Here is LeBron James, looking around for help and instead finding missed shots and blown defensive assignments. As he has done so many times before, James is putting it on himself now as the Cavaliers return home buried in an 0-2 deficit in these NBA Finals.
James brags all the time there is nothing he hasn’t seen before, but he’s never seen an 0-2 deficit quite like this. The Golden State Warriors have smashed the Cavs by a combined 48 points through the first two games of this series, the largest margin for two games in NBA Finals history. Kevin Love’s status is uncertain now that he’s in the league’s concussion protocol and Kyrie Irving is struggling just to outplay Warriors backup point guard Shaun Livingston.
James, meanwhile, contributed seven turnovers to the Cavs’ misery in Game 2 and is putting it on himself now to be better when the series resumes Wednesday night at Quicken Loans Arena.
“I’ve got to be better,” James said. “I’ve got to be better with the ball. Trying to play-make for myself and play-make for my teammates at the same time, I’ve just got to be more solid.”
Eternal optimists can look to the Toronto Raptors for hope. The Cavs hammered them by 50 points through the first two games of the conference finals and similar eulogies were being constructed about the Raptors’ demise. They rallied to win the next two at home before the Cavs ultimately overpowered them.
But the Raptors aren’t the Warriors, and to this point, neither are the Cavs. Their lack of length and athleticism has been exposed by a team that won 73 games during the regular season and was never really challenged until the Oklahoma City Thunder threw them into a 3-1 hole in the Western Conference finals. The rally from that deficit awakened the Warriors and now the Cavs are paying the price.
“When they went to the small lineup, their small lineup was a lot faster than what ours was,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “Being faster and being longer and athletic gave us some trouble. It gave us some problems. We’ve got to try to figure that lineup out.”
The Cavs continue to switch everything defensively, but it led to a lot of open looks for the Warriors and confused looks on the Cavs’ faces. Of the Warriors 81 shots in Game 2, 43 of them came without a defender within 4 feet, according to the league’s stats.
They’re running out of time and options to figure this out. Channing Frye, such a 3-point shooting weapon off the bench through the first three rounds, has been reduced to one shot in 11 minutes in this series. Frye played just seven minutes in Game 1, and Lue said he needed to find more time for him. Then he played just four minutes in Game 2 and didn’t take a 3-pointer after entering the series shooting 58 percent from deep.
If Love misses any games with his head injury, the Cavs may be forced to turn back to Timofey Mozgov, the disappointing center who was left on the side of the road months ago. Mozgov has been a major disappointment this season, unable to duplicate the success he had as the anchor to the Cavs’ defense as he was last year.
Mozgov was the Cavs’ second-leading scorer in the Finals a year ago, but times have changed. The Cavs may not have many other options, though.
“I think we’re surprised the way they won, yes, but that’s what the playoffs are about,” Lue conceded. “They took care of home court. We know we’re going home. We have to play better.
“The guys are not discouraged. More [angry] than anything. We’ve got to be tougher. That’s the main thing for us. We’ve got to be tougher, got to play more physical and then live with the results.”
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.