10. Battle of the Coaches
According to Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue, there’s a simple reason as to why the Golden State offense is so dominant.
“A lot of schemes you had in place before, we could try to double team and get the ball out of Steph’s hands. And now having that dynamic scorer, dynamic shooter in Durant it makes it tough because now you’re flying around and you have Klay and Durant on the back side,” Lue said. “It makes it tough. That’s why they’ve both been so efficient. Because with Durant, having those guys out there it makes it easier for him too. They both kind of play off each other, as well as Klay and Draymond. They have a good thing going.”
However, Lue and company are not backing down and he says his team is ready for the difficult challenge at hand.
“We’ve gotten better. We’re more versatile offensively, we’re more versatile defensively, we have more ball-handlers now that we can put on the floor,” Lue said. “They’ve gotten better by adding an MVP (Durant), probably the best scorer in the league. So both teams have gotten better and it’s going to be a good challenge.”
Unfortunately for Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, he is still suffering from back surgery complications that have led to his indefinite absence from the sideline, so this has created an unusual opportunity for his associate head coach in Mike Brown.
“He’s got so much head-coaching experience. And the best thing is this didn’t happen in the beginning of the year. It happened in the end. In the beginning of the year, he didn’t understand our team. He really didn’t. It was such a different vibe in here for him,” Kerr said on Tuesday with a laugh.
Brown is well known to the city of Cleveland and is now at the helm of a juggernaut Golden State team, as he was previously the head coach of the Cavs during two separate stints from 2005-10 and 2013-14.
Prediction: Cavaliers in 6
I’ve had the exact same prediction for the last three seasons, and I don’t plan on changing it. Despite the Cavs being the defending world champions, they are even heavier underdogs than they were last season coming into the 2016 NBA Finals.
It’s going to take an extraordinary effort for the Cavs to pull off the repeat, but they’re more than capable of the feat against Golden State’s super team. The Cavs managed to defy all odds to upset the Warriors last year for the city of Cleveland’s first championship since 1964, and they can most certainly play David again and take down Goliath.
