Hit us up on Twitter @CrossoverNBA
“People that dry-hump stats to make a point probably prefer reading sheet music to hearing the song.” – Aqib Talib.
If you’re the sheet music type, you probably didn’t care much for Matthew Dellavedova’s impact last night. The legendary Delly was a pretty crusty looking 3 of 10 from the field, 1-6 from deep, and had 9 points. He also had as many turnovers as rebounds and assists combined (6).
But that’s the stupid thing about numbers and statistics. They’re like arguing with a woman. The argument can be manipulated any way you want so you’re going to lose every single time. Stats don’t show the real pivotal things that define success in just about everything, but they look good on paper because it helps you justify opinions and give straw man type arguments some spine.
Bottom line is, Cleveland doesn’t win that game last night without Delly Magic. It took a while to get the car jump started, and the tie rods still felt like they might pop out after driving over every chuck hole until they pulled in the driveway with the win, but the ends justify the means and the ends weren’t happening without the guy.
Early on, it didn’t look that way. Steve Kerr saw Klay Thompson being guarded by a much shorter Delly and looked at that match up the way a starving fox looks at a nest of rabbits. The funny thing about defense is that you can be great at it but not be good at it against certain guys. Klay was just too tall. So Delly moved on over to the reigning MVP of the league, Stephen Curry, who can get three jumpers off in the time it takes you to complete a sneeze.
Delly gnawed at Curry all night, being the lion’s share of any defensive reason Curry’s performance was as morbid as you’re going to get from him. Delly was in his shirt all night long, and Curry never could find his normal ju-ju to eventually get the better of a guy so many people said shouldn’t even be on the floor and had the (media fabricated as impossible) task of filling in for Kyrie Irving.
If Delly was a cologne, Curry was wearing it. Come to think of it, Delly should get into the cologne foray.
Truth is, if you watched Delly play in college, you knew he was born for this sort of thing. Mercilessly clutch at St. Mary’s when most normal people are sleeping, Delly has been doing this stuff his entire basketball life. Just because not as many people are watching or sometimes he looks like he just rolled out of bed doesn’t change that. Some guys just get things done when you need them to get it done.
Every successful group has them, and while not as much obviously as Lebron James has rubbed off on the Cavs, Delly and his ways have rubbed off too. He’s tough as a Denny’s steak, mean as a gas station bacon tornado, and plays with the reckless abandon of someone going full body dry heave every time down the floor.
At one point, this basketball game was tied at 62. Aqib Talib’s folks that just look at stats probably wondered why Delly was in. Then, #WhoaDelly happened. He’d score the next two buckets on floaters from about 15 feet. A short time later, he’d knock down a three that put Cleveland up 11. Well done is better than well said.
And obviously, late in the game, he put up the two foul shots in the most pressure of pro basketball situations … down 1 in the Finals … and those would prove to be the winning points because his subsequent salty defense on Curry caused an ugly air ball and that’s all she wrote. There Delly was, foaming at the mouth, pointing at stuff, screaming, hollering, celebrating, and most importantly … winning.
It was said in this spot a few days ago … Delly is the key to this thing, and that’s because he is. You’re going to get yours from Lebron. Occasionally, his other cohorts like the criminally underrated Iman Shumpert, erratic as a night with Four Loko J.R. Smith, Timofey Mozgov, and others being cast as dudes off the street who can play in the roles they need to, will show up and at times they won’t.
But it’s Matthew Dellavedova who holds the set of spare keys to the house with this thing. If he can vex Curry consistently, Golden State won’t win. If you’d have said four months ago that the key to the NBA Finals would be this Delly fellow, you’d either be me … or have your friends cut you off. Yet here we are.
Delly does things when they need to be done. He’s got no time for sheet music, only smooth tunes.
