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You don't "get the optimism"?
We won the title! We are the Champs. Battle tested.
Love is brand new person this year, Kyrie has clearly improved. Shumpert is shooting 40% from 3 this year(was useless last year) We just added Kyle Korver and may not be done.
Christmas proved that yet again, if the game is close, the Cavs have a distinctive advantage.
The Finals are a completely different situation than the middle of January. Suddenly a lot of things change.
A lot of the grabbing, pushing, hitting, etc...the physicality that the Cavs definitely have proven they bring to the table vs. the Warriors, that stuff will foul you out in January but won't even get you in foul TROUBLE come June. Draymond is still a loose cannon for flagrants, techs, ejections, suspensions, etc. The Warriors are blowing people the fuck out, but they are struggling with that crunch time identity. The Warriors are also not deep. The Warriors have not sustained any injuries this year. Maybe they have a horseshoe up their collective asses, but maybe they just haven't gotten hurt YET. The Cavs showed early in the year how easily we could cruise. We hit a rough patch in the dog days of the NBA season with a combination of injury, sickness, lack of continuity, bad-timed roadtrips, travel issues, etc.
Starters+ Shump, Korver, Frye, Jefferson is a 9 man rotation. Liggins puts it at 10. The Cavs are deep enough for a playoff run. May still have more help coming.
We have PROVEN, consistent line-up compositions that give the Warriors problems. LeBron at the 4 with a spread floor and Thompson/Love at the 5(Used to be JUST TT, but Love's defensive impact has gotten significantly better, and he is very viable for real minutes in those lineups) gives the Warriors problems. It did on Christmas and it did during the entire Finals. Even the ESPN dudes like Haberstroh(stat nerd who usually is pretty ignorant about everything Cleveland) have said: the January game's scheduling alone was a pretty good indicator of an impending blowout. Cavs should have rested starters for that game. He's written big pieces on rest in the NBA and how it correlates to wins and losses. The Cavs were depleted coming into that game and the Warriors were almost fully charged. We were down by 20 before we even could unleash one of OUR death line-ups, and I don't think we ever even did because of the deficit.
Categorizing love as a defensive liability is completely and totally wrong and ignores facts. He's been solid all around this season. Kyrie showed last year he's very capable of defending on the big stage. I also believe the Cavs will alter their scheme again back to a more basic scheme like last year with a lot of switching and I think it will prove way more effective than showing and recovering when you don't have the personnel to do it.
The Cavs are going to get through the next few weeks, and get to the all-star break, everyoone is gonna get some needed rest, and when we come back we;re probably going to start kicking everyones ass, like we do every year now, and then we'll get JR back before the end of the season with 2+ months until the Finals even start to get in groove.
I think people need to remember that this is usually the time every season when the Cavs start looking bad and people start getting all pessimistic. We might be going for a 3-peat if not for Kelly Olynyk and a kneecap.
