The Cavs finished the season 53–29, going 34–9 after the night in Phoenix when they’d fallen to 19–20, to capture the No. 2 seed for the East playoffs. They sacrificed a few games at the end to rest players, or the record might have been even better. After dealing with back, knee, and wrist issues, LeBron James was healthy. After dealing with knee issues, so was Kyrie Irving, and frequently playing brilliantly alongside James. Love was battling back problems but was able to play through it most nights. The rest of the team was in good shape. They were going into the playoffs with star power, depth, health, and momentum, all a team could ask for.
Just before the end of the regular season the Cavs beat the Bulls, who had a strong finish to the season to surge into the No. 3 seed. James had played well, posting his first triple double of the season. But the Bulls, who lost three of four games to the Cavs, were in it until the end despite star Derrick Rose missing the game with a minor injury.
As they lined up for a potential showdown in the second round of the playoffs, the Bulls thought the outcome proved they’d fare well against the Cavs in a possible playoff series.
“It would be great to play them in the playoffs,” said Bulls team leader Joakim Noah, who had a healthy personal rivalry with James after seeing him in three playoff series over the previous five years. “It would be very, very exciting. Something that I really hope happens.”
At the first postseason practice, James had brought some show-and-tell material. He pulled out the two diamond-encrusted championship rings he’d won with the Miami Heat to show to his younger teammates.
Over the next few days, the Cavs’ three stars smothered the outclassed Boston Celtics through the first three games. In Game 1, James, Love, and Irving combined for 69 points, with Irving putting up 30 and Love pulling down 12 rebounds as he led a punishing of the Celtics’ big men on the boards. In Game 2, the three scored 69 again and again Love helped smash the Celtics in the trenches. In Game 3, the Celtics tried to push back on their own floor, going to the traditional underdog game plan of playing physical.
Celtics guard Evan Turner slammed James down and was called for a flagrant foul. Jae Crowder, Boston’s young and tough forward, leveled Irving on a drive to the basket, causing Timofey Mozgov to retaliate by shoving him. Later, Tristan Thompson got under the skin of Gigi Datome after a rebound battle and the two men went face-to-face. Celtics coach Brad Stevens was excoriating his team during timeouts to fight, and they were, but the Cavs were just stronger.
By Game 3, Irving looked a little off, not moving as well as normal. He’d say after the game that his acceleration was missing. What he didn’t say was that he’d sprained his right foot and it was affecting him. It didn’t matter. Love nailed six three-pointers, his most in two months, and scored 23 points. For Love, who’d waited for seven seasons to make the playoffs, it was a highly satisfying moment. It was the type of performance that made the drama of the previous nine months—the trade demand, the reduction in stats, the various controversies—worth it. That went for everyone.
“Kevin’s been highly criticized this year,” James said. “I know why. When you have a Big Three, they’ve got to find someone. When I was in Miami, Chris Bosh was that guy at one point. I’ve seen it before. They’ve got to find somebody. Kevin was the guy they tried to find and tried to tear him down. The one thing about him, he’s always stayed positive. I’ve always believed in him.”
This, of course, wasn’t true. There were times when James openly doubted Love. Others on the team did as well. But with the Cavs’ three stars averaging a combined 68 points a game over the first three games of the series, no one was complaining.
As the first quarter of Game 4 unfolded, the Cavs were playing beautifully as a unit. They jumped out to a 10-point lead, executing some of their smoothest offense of the season. James and Irving were playing together seamlessly, the product of months of work. Love was making an impact as a third scorer and combining with Thompson and Mozgov to create a relentless front line. J. R. Smith and Iman Shumpert were playing their roles perfectly, finding ways to contribute at both ends. David Blatt had found game plans that seemed to take advantage of his players. His defensive changes when the midseason reinforcements arrived proved to be effective.
Then Crowder missed a long three-pointer badly and the ball bounced toward Love, who was about to get yet another rebound. As he moved into position by boxing out Celtics center Kelly Olynyk—one of the players Stevens had been ripping into about the Cavs’ rebounding dominance—Olynyk got his right arm tangled with Love’s left arm.
The ball was to the right and Love was reaching to control it. Olynyk pulled Love to the left, grimacing as he yanked Love’s arm down and away from his body. The official called a foul on Olynyk, stopping play. James, Irving, and Smith turned and started heading up the floor. The crowd hissed at the call. But Love was yelling in pain.
He immediately started running toward the tunnel to the visitors’ locker room, his left side lower than his right. His left hand was in a fist, the arm motionless. As he passed the team bench, the players saw what appeared to be a dent in his shoulder area. Several covered their mouths as they saw the damage. Olynyk had dislocated Love’s shoulder. The team’s momentum was crushed.
The incident instantly elevated the animus. Late in the first half, Kendrick Perkins, who was the Cavs’ de facto enforcer, buried his forearm in Crowder’s neck on a pick and the teams ended up in a scrum at the center of the floor. When the team got to the locker room, Love was in a sling and irate at Olynyk, telling his teammates he was convinced it had been done on purpose. The replays helped convince them.
Less than 90 seconds into the second half, Smith and Crowder got tied up fighting for positioning on a rebound. Crowder’s style of play had gotten on the Cavs’ nerves over the four games. When he shoved Smith in the back, Smith reacted violently, swinging his arm back and hitting Crowder in the jaw. Crowder crumpled, falling awkwardly and injuring his left knee. Smith was quickly ejected. As Crowder was carried to the locker room he screamed at Smith, telling him it was “a bush-league play.”
At that point the Cavs were up 19 points and the series was effectively over, but the body count was piling up. It was certain Love was going to be out an extended period. And it looked likely that Smith was headed for a suspension that would spill over into the next series. Meanwhile, Irving again wasn’t himself. The foot was bothering him and he ended up making just 11 of 30 shots over the final two games of the series. The Cavs had just finished a sweep, but there were no smiles.
“I have no doubt in my mind that he did it on purpose,” Love said about Olynyk. “Oh, the league will take a look at it and it better be swift and just.”
The league would also be taking a look at Smith. “This is a situation that I put my teammates in, and it’s a selfish act because I don’t want anything that we do collectively to be taken away by one individual,” Smith said. “My team is going to pay for it. I’m nervous as hell to see what could come out of this.”
The league ruled the next day. Olynyk was suspended for a game the following season. Smith was suspended for the next two games and hit with a $116,000 fine, his record of 27 previous suspended games certainly hurting his case. Perkins was fined $15,000 as well. But by the time the announcement was made, Love was getting ready to have surgery that ended his season.
The team had eight off days before facing the Chicago Bulls in the second round. It was the fourth time in six years that James would face the Bulls in the postseason, including his time in Miami, and the Bulls felt like they had a legitimate shot to finally beat him. Especially with Love out and Smith suspended.
And indeed Chicago got off to a good start, winning Game 1 by seven points. The rest had helped Irving’s foot—he scored 30 points—and Shumpert was excellent in moving into Smith’s spot in the starting lineup, scoring 22 points. But Rose ripped the Cavs, especially as he burned them with the same play over and over late in the game, setting up teammate Pau Gasol for baskets.
In an effort to deal with the personnel losses, Blatt altered his game plan to a style the team hadn’t used all year. Compounded by the fact that he tried some lineups that hadn’t ever played together, the Cavs looked lost for the first time in months. Blatt’s failed strategies became an issue, and grumbling that hadn’t been heard from the locker room for a while started to return.
James rallied the team to a 15-point victory in Game 2 as he scored 33 points, but he took 29 shots, the most he’d taken in a playoff game in six years. As the talent level dropped and the stress mounted, James kept ending up with the ball. It was not the style the team had worked on. Shumpert played strongly again but suffered a groin injury and was wrapped in ice in the locker room after the game.
Yet with the series 1–1 and going to Chicago, the Bulls were in a great position. Smith came back from suspension and made four three-pointers, but Shumpert was diminished in Game 3. James played poorly, missing 17 shots and committing seven turnovers.
At one point, James was called for a technical foul for taunting Noah. James and Noah had battled for years. Noah had once ripped James for celebrating too much, James barking at him from the foul line while Noah was on the bench. When James was in Miami, Noah called the Heat “Hollywood as hell,” his way of calling them phony. This time he called James a “bitch” after a play and it set James off.
“I love his emotion as a competitor. But I think the words that he used to me was a little bit too far,” James said. “I’m a father with three kids. It got very disrespectful.”
Noah was stunned. He’d called James much worse to his face at other points within the same game. “Disrespectful?” he said. “I got mad respect for LeBron. We’re just two players trying to win a game. That’s all. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
Beyond that, the bad news for Cleveland was Irving reinjured his right foot. He stayed in the game and played on it, limping at times and putting more weight on his left side. “I just tried to stay out there for my brothers,” he said. “And use myself as a decoy.”
It was the first time it appeared as if Irving’s injury was serious, and it came at a bad time. Despite the challenges, the Cavs were tied in the final moments and hoping for overtime. With three seconds left, they defended perfectly, breaking the Bulls’ inbounds play. Rose threw up a desperation shot at the buzzer with the much taller Thompson challenging the shot, and the ball banked in off the backboard, winning the game and giving the Bulls a 2–1 series lead.
Rose just stared ahead as teammate Taj Gibson lifted him into the air while the crowd in his hometown screamed in glee at one of the biggest shots of his life, the last of his 30 points. Thompson bent over as if someone had punched him in the stomach. When he got to the locker room, his teammates consoled him as he broke down and started to cry for not having been able to defend the shot.
Thompson is a relentless competitor who has a sensitive side, which has always made him endearing. His parents are Jamaican, but they moved to a suburb outside Toronto, where he grew up. At the urging of his parents, he played soccer as a child, which helped him develop good footwork. He became more interested in basketball after attending some Raptors games where he saw Vince Carter star. As he grew, eventually to 6 foot 10, his footwork proved to be valuable. It’s a talent few big men have.
He moved to North Jersey in high school so he could play against better competition. When his school, St. Benedict’s, lost a high-profile game to St. Patrick and a young star named Kyrie Irving, Thompson got in a fight with his coach and quit the team. That is not Thompson’s personality—he’s usually even-tempered. The Cavs drafted him with the fourth pick in 2011, three picks after they’d taken Irving.
He can get emotional, and it can be an aid—he had developed into a relentless rebounder and worker. When he struggled with free throw shooting after his first few seasons in the league, he stopped shooting left-handed as was his nature and instead shot right-handed.
As Thompson and the rest of the team collected themselves after the brutal loss, James remained calm. He’d been here before. The year he won his first title in Miami, the Heat had been behind in three consecutive series and rallied back to win them all. He’d won elimination games on the road. So being down 2–1 wasn’t devastating. But with Love out, Irving shaky, and now Shumpert limping, a feeling of unease surrounded the team. James preached calm, even if he wasn’t.
The Cavs got a break in Game 4 when Gasol was scratched because of a pulled hamstring, but Irving and Shumpert were a mess. They combined to shoot 3-of-18 and limped through it, especially Irving, who labored through 40 minutes. The Bulls had a seven-point lead going into the fourth quarter and looked to be on the verge of taking a 3–1 lead.
The Cavs rallied back, Smith hitting four three-pointers, and had a two-point lead with 27 seconds left. Then the team seemed to go into a collective brain freeze. They called three timeouts during the next possession, once because they couldn’t get the ball inbounds. Referees advised the Cavs bench that they were out of timeouts.
The timeouts appeared to be wasted as the Cavs struggled again to execute the inbounds and James was quickly trapped. Without a timeout, he tried to get free and was called for an offensive foul. It was his eighth turnover over the game. He was carrying a heavy burden but he was far from playing his best.
Moments later the Bulls tied the game when Rose left the hobbled Shumpert in the dust and scored on a layup. There were 9.4 seconds left. Matthew Dellavedova, who’d been pressed into more service with Irving’s injuries, went to inbound the ball. Blatt, inexplicably, started walking onto the court to call timeout. A timeout the Cavs didn’t have.
It was perhaps ironic that it was in Chicago on the second night of the season Blatt stood outside the locker room and reminded everyone he was not a rookie head coach. He had become furious months later when media questioned why Lue was seen signaling for and managing timeouts from the bench. It was this loss of composure in the heat of the game that had shaken his players’ confidence in him. And it all came to a head in that moment. Had Blatt been given the timeout, the Cavs would’ve been called for a technical foul and the Bulls would’ve gotten a free throw and the ball in a tied playoff game with less than 10 seconds to go.
Lue immediately saw Blatt’s mistake and reached out and pulled him back to the bench. Veteran referee Scott Foster looked at the Cavs bench as Blatt was asking for time, but he didn’t stop the game. It was a near miss, a moment of infamy avoided.
“I almost blew it,” Blatt said.
James ended up going to the basket and missing, again, having his shot blocked out of bounds. He thought he was fouled, but he was also going one-on-three—he didn’t trust any of his teammates to shoot and the Bulls knew it. Shumpert was standing alone in the corner, wide open, as James forced the shot. Then the Cavs caught another break. The officials had to look at replays to determine how much time should be left. It was a free timeout to design a play. Blatt got into the middle of the huddle.
Blatt wanted to have James inbound the ball and for Irving to take the final shot. Irving hadn’t been in the game and Blatt wanted him to sub in. Blatt’s reasoning was sound. James was the team’s best passer and the Cavs had just struggled massively to get the ball inbounds against the Bulls defense moments before. Several times during the season, Blatt made James the inbounder on crucial plays and it worked.
James heard the play and stopped Blatt as he was drawing it up. He said he would be taking the final shot. He drew up a simple play where he’d fake going to the rim and then pop out to take a jumper. It was not a high-percentage play. It was also not unusual for a superstar to overrule his coach at such a moment.
With 1.5 seconds left, James made his move and shook his defender, Jimmy Butler. As he popped open right in front of the Bulls bench, coach Tom Thibodeau jumped back as he almost made contact. He wasn’t expecting the James move either. James launched the shot from 20 feet, his toe on the three-point line. He fell into the bench and watched it drop through the net shoulder-to-shoulder with Bulls players.
It was salvation and a moment of redemption from James, who had been a big reason why his team nearly lost. It might have saved the Cavs’ season. It is impossible to know what would’ve happened had his team gone down 3–1, but it seemed unlikely they’d be able to recover. It was also one of the biggest shots in a career that was already filled with them.
After the game, Blatt explained the last play design, which featured Dellavedova inbounding. “We wanted Delly to throw it right in over the shoulder. And with that amount of time on the clock let LeBron take a shot and he did. Great play.”
When asked for his side of the huge event, James told a different story. “To be honest, the play that was drawn up, I scratched it,” he said on the interview podium as he gave a little smile. “I told Coach, ‘Just give me the ball. It’s either going into overtime or I’m going to win it.’ I was supposed to take the ball out. I told him there was no way I’m taking the ball out.”
In the locker room, the players added to the lore. “At first Coach had LeBron taking the ball out. I’m like, ‘Are you sure?’” Smith said. “Then he went, ‘No, no, no, no, Bron, you get it.’ I’m like, ‘Okay, we need to switch it up.’”
In the corner, Irving sat with not only his ailing right foot in ice but also his left knee, an ominous development that was just starting to present itself. He was favoring his right leg because of the foot, and now the left knee was barking and he was concerned he’d seriously hurt it.
Over the next twenty-four hours, three highlights kept running: Blatt trying to call timeout, James hitting the game-winner, and then the sound bite with James declaring, “I scratched it.” In what was supposed to be a triumphant moment, Blatt was having to defend himself. The issues from the season’s first few months were rushing back, Blatt’s fitness for the job and James’s trust issues with him again in the forefront.
“A near mistake was made and I owned up to it and I own it,” Blatt said. “A basketball coach makes 150 to 200 critical decisions during the course of a game, something that I think is paralleled only by a fighter pilot.”
Blatt comparing himself to a fighter pilot created a new cycle of reaction both for his supporters, who loved the brashness, and his critics, who seized on the arrogance. Coaches make mistakes, and it was expected in their playoff experiences. But Blatt’s attitude during the season and repeated declarations of his experience had eroded some sympathy. James didn’t much help when revealing the details of the final huddle.
While that was all happening, Irving was in an MRI machine having his knee looked at. The results came back showing no damage. Irving was relieved. He wasn’t just dealing with pain, he was having a mental battle while playing huge minutes through an injury that needed rest.
“This has been the biggest mental challenge of my career thus far, just because I want to do more,” he said. “I want to be that guy for my teammates as well as for Bron. We built a dynamic of me and him playing off one another extremely well. When you can’t do that, and you are limited to certain things, you have to come to grips with it.”
The tide had turned, though. James was due for a good game, and he found one in Game 5. He scored 38 points with 12 rebounds, six assists, and three blocks with no turnovers. Irving played with more confidence on his knee and scored 25 points. The Cavs won by five and took the series lead for the first time.
With 10 minutes left in the game and the Cavs up 10 points, the Bulls’ Gibson hit Dellavedova with a clean but hard pick. A few seconds later, Gibson knocked Dellavedova to the ground as they scrambled for rebounding position.
Already a popular player in Cleveland because of his hustle plays, Dellavedova was spending more time on the floor and his style of play had irritated the Bulls. As he was lying on the ground, Dellavedova leg-locked Gibson, who reacted by kicking him to get free. Officials ejected Gibson, who was enraged because he felt it was a dirty play. It certainly was a unique one. As the replay was shown on the scoreboard, James and Mike Miller howled with laughter on the sideline at Dellavedova’s unconventional move. “I’ve never seen that in my life!” James screamed to Miller.
The Bulls were angry and they were defeated. The Cavs came back to win the series in Game 6 in Chicago, pulling away for a 19-point win. It was costly. Irving landed on Thompson’s foot in the second quarter and tweaked his left knee again, forcing him to leave the game.
Thompson, who had been victimized by a few shots in the series, had a strong game, scoring 13 points with 17 rebounds. Dellavedova, filling in for Irving, finished with 19 points in his best game of the season.
James missed a triple double by a single rebound and vanquished the Bulls yet again. Several days later Thibodeau was fired and the team began a multiyear restructuring. James had effectively ended a once promising era of Bulls basketball, not unlike the way Michael Jordan had with many teams in his career in Chicago. That included beating the Cavs three times in the playoffs, Jordan’s series-winning basket in Game 5 in 1989 being one of the great moments of his career.
The Cavs had five days off before starting the Eastern Conference finals against the No. 1 seed Atlanta Hawks, who assembled a 60-win season despite largely being in the shadows because of all the attention on the Cavs.
Smith made eight three-pointers in Game 1 and James again had a huge game with 31 points, eight rebounds, and six assists as the Cavs won on the Hawks’ floor. Smith dedicated the game to his mom, Ida, who’d supported him through his tumultuous life. He’d had suspensions, feuds with coaches, and legal troubles and tragedy. In 2007, he drove an SUV through a stop sign near his home in New Jersey and collided with another car. His close friend Andre Bell, who was in the passenger seat, died from his injuries. Neither Smith nor Bell were wearing seat belts. Smith avoided major injury. He later pleaded guilty to reckless driving and served twenty-four days in jail. It was a crushing and soul-searching time in his life.
After so many challenges and lessons, it felt to Smith like he was finally getting a chance at doing things the right way. James had been a part of it; he’d taken Smith under his wing as he promised, and Smith was flourishing.
“The chance to come to play with LeBron has been a dream come true,” Smith said. “I dreamed about this for years.”
In another turn, James praised Blatt for the game plan he’d constructed over the previous week to slow down the Hawks’ potent offense and three-point weapon Kyle Korver. It wasn’t quite on Smith’s level, but Blatt had shouldered plenty of negativity, and James, realizing a chance, tried to change the narrative.
“We have a great coaching staff that gives us a game plan,” he said. “Throughout these six days, we’ve been balancing ways we can try to stop what they do.”
But the aftermath was again about Irving as he reaggravated his left knee and was forced to the locker room. “The most frustrating part is seeing holes in the defense I’m used to attacking,” he said.
Irving was unsettled about playing on the bad foot and knee and now several times had not finished games because of discomfort. But there were hints from within the team that he just needed to toughen up. He’d been told nothing was seriously wrong, and it left the impression that it was simply about playing through the pain.
“It’s a combination of pain management and what the physical symptoms are,” Blatt said. “It’s just a matter of, is he healthy enough to play? Does he feel healthy enough to play? That’s all.”
“Everyone’s pain tolerance is different, but my responsibility is much higher than a lot of guys,” James said, seeming to compare his willingness to play through pain to Irving’s. “Not only on this team, but a lot of guys in professional sports, and I take it very seriously.”
The day of Game 2, Irving and Cavs team doctor Richard Parker took a private plane from Atlanta to Pensacola, Florida, so Irving could be seen by famed orthopedist Dr. James Andrews. Irving continued to be very concerned about his knee, and Andrews reviewed his tests and his case. He recommended Irving stop treating the right foot issue and focus solely on the knee and rehabilitating it. That included rest.
Irving made it back for the game but did not play. The Cavs didn’t need him, winning by 12 as James was great yet again with 30 points, nine rebounds, and 11 assists. In the third quarter, Dellavedova was involved in a controversial play. With a loose ball on the court, he dove to corral it and in the process tried to block out Korver. He instead landed on Korver’s ankle, causing a bad sprain that ended up forcing Korver to undergo surgery a few days later. Dellavedova and the Cavs saw it as a hustle play with an unfortunate ending; the Hawks saw it as a player diving at the legs of one of their stars.
The Hawks’ last stand came in Cleveland in Game 3, but the Cavs won by three in overtime. Irving sat again. Dellavedova was strong relief, scoring 17 points, but again was involved in controversy. Going for a loose ball, he tripped over another player and fell at the knees of Al Horford, another Hawks star. After the Korver play, the Hawks were wary of Dellavedova. Horford responded by dropping an elbow on Dellavedova’s head and neck. He was ejected, like Gibson had been in the previous series, for retaliating.
“He went after my legs,” Horford said. “If it was on purpose, we don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t on purpose. But with his track record, I just felt like it was.”
By this point, Dellavedova was reaching cultlike status in Cleveland as his play was vital with Irving out. He had excelled as an Australian rules football player as a child, which formed his sensibility about competition. He focused on basketball by the time he was a teenager, eventually earning a scholarship to St. Mary’s College near San Francisco, which had established a pipeline of bringing in Australian players. He was a star there, becoming the school’s all-time leader in scoring, assists, games, and three-pointers. Undersized and without much athleticism, he went undrafted.
But Mike Brown, who was the Cavs’ coach at the time, had gotten to know Dellavedova’s game well. Brown’s son, Elijah, was a high school star in Orange County, California, and being recruited by St. Mary’s. Brown watched a lot of their games and fell in love with Dellavedova. On draft night, several teams called wanting to sign Dellavedova after he wasn’t selected. A little bidding war developed, and it came down to the team offering to guarantee him $100,000 to sign. The Cavs were unsure if he could be an NBA player but decided to make the investment. It turned out to be a quality one. His fearless play and willingness to outwork more talented players had kept him in the league, and his ability to learn the NBA game ended up making him needed. And the fans loved his workmanlike nature and his nickname, Delly.
By Game 4 the Cavs had regained the momentum of the second half of the season. They had found a way to survive without Love, mostly thanks to Thompson. When they crushed the Hawks by 30 points to end the sweep and clinch a trip to the Finals, things turned emotional. The group had earned the celebration and some reflection. Their journey had been unprecedented, and of all the dramatic moments, here they were zooming into the Finals with a seven-game win streak.
“I had to be very patient, which I’m not very patient. I’m not a very patient guy, but I knew I had to work on that,” said James after scoring 23 points with nine rebounds and seven assists. He was just three assists away from averaging a triple double for the series.
“To be able to sit at one point during the season and see us at 19–20 and watching my team struggle and me sitting out two weeks, they wanted Coach Blatt fired, saying we needed another point guard, will LeBron and Kyrie be able to play together? So many storylines were just happening at that point in time. For us to be sitting at this point today being able to represent the Eastern Conference in the Finals, this is special. It’s very special.”
After a grinding six months, Blatt was holding another trophy, this one for winning the Eastern Conference. He’d won many before in Europe, and here he was doing it again. As his fans, especially in Israel, pointed out, he must be doing something right.
“I know it’s hard for people to understand because they don’t really know well my path and my career, but this also is a new situation for me and a new place for me,” Blatt said.
“LeBron came home. I left home to come here, and I left a lot of people that I love dearly and a lot of people that I’m close, so close to, in order to pursue a dream. That’s a big sacrifice on the part of my family and the place that I’m from. It’s special because it’s all worthwhile.”
Part of the reason for the confidence was Irving, who returned and looked healthier as he scored 16 points in just 22 minutes. The treatment Andrews suggested was working and Irving was hopeful. They had some more time off before the next series and he was hoping it would help.
Their opponent would be the Golden State Warriors, who’d become the favorite after going through the season 67–15 as their point guard Stephen Curry morphed into one of the league’s most dominating players in winning the Most Valuable Player Award. They’d only lost three times in three series before reaching the Finals and would have home court advantage.
Even considering all that, the Cavs were feeling confident. They’d smashed the Warriors the last time they’d played. And they had the best record over the last three months of the season. James was playing at a high level. The role players were delivering. Blatt had pieced together a lineup that was working without Love. They figured they’d weathered the worst of the storm.
They hadn’t.