NBA Finals Preview

It’s Finals week, not the one that ends with college students either being completely devastated with their grades or beyond excited with their grades, it’s the one that ends with fans either sitting at home after the season is over crying in the championship tee shirt they already bought, or fans lining the streets of their city waiting for a championship parade.

Either way, the 2015 NBA Finals is one that has been talked about a lot already and rightfully so. The storylines keep coming up; who is going to guard LeBron James? Who is going to guard Steph Curry? Where is Reily Curry going to be located during the games? Those questions can’t really be answered yet. No one can guard LeBron, no one (other than maybe LeBron) can guard Curry, and Reily Curry will be all over the place most likely. (That’s the only time I’ll mention Reily Curry during the Finals.)

Two first-year head coaches in Steve Kerr and David Blatt look to add an NBA title for their teams, the first ever for Cleveland and the first for Golden State since 1975. Much was said about Blatt taking over in Cleveland; the Cavs started off slow so naturally the headlines read David Blatt should be fired. The criticism was harsh for Blatt but it wasn’t deserved. As for Kerr, it was a relatively smooth situation to go into; Mark Jackson left him with a pretty damn good roster, and before I go any further I want to give props to Jackson for building Golden State back up and helping with the emergence of Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes, but Kerr who had never coached before did pretty well in his first season. Michael Jordan would be proud.

 

LeBron James is making his fifth straight appearance in the NBA Finals, the first player to do so since 1966, and looks to add his third title in five years. And his third Finals MVP award to go with his four NBA MVP awards. LeBron is averaging 27 points, 10 rebounds, and 8 assists in this postseason, while only shooting 17% from beyond arc. SEVENTEEN PERCENT. If the Cavaliers go on to win the title, this might be considered not only LeBron’s greatest season, but also one of the best seasons in NBA history. No Kevin Love after the Celtics series, Kyrie Irving went down in the Bulls series and hasn’t been 100%. LeBron’s leadership level has been an all-time high this entire season and it has clearly shown.

Speaking of MVP’s, Warriors guard Stephen Curry made a promise to Golden State fans that they’d get to the NBA Finals and this year he delivered that. There’s a difference though in actually winning the Finals rather than just getting there. No one on the Warriors roster has this type of experience. Curry led the Warriors to the leagues best record (67-15), while capturing his first MVP. He’s shooting 48% from the floor and 43% from beyond the arc. Not too bad. Curry looks to bring a title to Warriors franchise that hasn’t seen the Larry O’Brien Trophy lifted since Rick Barry in 1975.

When asked how the Cavaliers are going to slow down Steph Curry, LeBron simply replied, “Well the same way you slow me down, you can’t”. He’s right. You can’t stop Curry, and you can’t stop LeBron for that matter as well, you can only hope to slow him down. It’ll be interesting to see who David Blatt puts on Curry to begin game one, will he go point guard on point guard and have Kyrie Irving try his luck? Will he put one of the better on-ball defenders in the league on him in Iman Shumpert? Or will he just throw everything at him and have LeBron guard him?

What about Draymond Green? Whose skin is he going to get under this series? If he takes the liberty of defending LeBron then he will try everything he can to knock him off the mountain he’s on right now. Maybe even this?

Finally, who will win? Now obviously we have to wait until the series is over for that question to be answered, but what’s the point in waiting when I can just type up an answer right now? I said at the beginning of the season that this title is Cleveland’s to lose and that LeBron is on a mission to bring Cleveland it’s first sports title since 1964. Now I know Golden State had the best record, the league MVP, and were the best team throughout the entire season, but when it comes down to it LeBron James is LeBron James and to bet against him in a seven game series just doesn’t seem practical. I’m going with Cleveland to take it in six games and of course, LeBron will be Finals MVP.

P.S.- David Blatt WON’T get fired if they win.

The Fight, and Beyond

There’s an old saying, “don’t judge a book by its cover”, that saying does not apply to Floyd Mayweather. The pound for pound best fighter in the world and the undisputed king of self-promoting has a domestic violence history that has haunted him for quite some time. But Floyd doesn’t seem to let that show. When asked questions about his history he merely brushes it off and uses a promotional tool to jab the question. Needless to say, Floyd Mayweather is not a crowd favorite and that was evident Saturday night in his fight against the “hero”, Manny Pacquiao. What was dubbed the fight of the century didn’t necessarily live up to the lofty expectations that were set six years ago when the fight first came into our lives. The idea that two boxers with as different of backgrounds as you will find slugging it out for 12 rounds would win over the hearts of millions of people and turn them into boxing fanatics seemed far fetched from the beginning, and if the fight was any indication, it’s going to stay that way.

Leading up to the fight the talk wasn’t about who had the quicker hands or who had the quicker feet, but who had the cleanest life outside of the ring. It wasn’t a split decision in any way; Manny Pacquiao is to the Philippines what Lance Armstrong was to the United States, someone that could carry an entire country and win over the hearts of people in other countries. It wasn’t hard for him to do that though, as Floyd Mayweather backed himself into a corner with his domestic violence history and with the way sports are handling those types of situations, he was never coming out of that corner.

Many people who know me know that I’m a fan of Floyd Mayweather. I’ve been a fan since before I knew ANYTHING about his history. I’m still a fan of Floyd Mayweather, but don’t label me as someone who is pro-domestic violence. Do I respect the things he has done, absolutely not, and if you think that I’m totally cool with dudes beating women, then you’re the one who needs to rethink some things. I’m a sports fan, I’m a sports writer, and I appreciate the greatness of certain athletes when they are in their atmosphere. When Michael Vick got charged and convicted in his dog fighting case, I was torn up; being a fan of Vick was hard at first because of the heinous nature in which his crimes were committed. But for those three hours when he was on the field, I put all that on the back burner and just watched him play football.

Let me ask you this, if Adrian Peterson goes into the last game of the regular season and is 10 yards shy of breaking Erick Dickerson’s single-season rushing record, what are you going to do? Are you going to cheer for him to break the record or are you going to boo him because you know his history of beating children?

Sports are a way out for us, they are what brings out incredible passion and brings so many people together who have a common bond. They are an escape for some people whose lives are filled with unthinkable tragedies and a way to let go of all the wrong in life and just be free for just a few hours.

I get the fact that some people might not root for certain athletes based on what they know about that athlete, but don’t cloud the minds of the rest of us who like to watch those athletes for the sole purpose of seeing them do some of the most incredible things a human being can do. Let us live in our own world where we think nothing is wrong.