If you saw the comment once about the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night, you saw it a million times.
“If the Cavs can play like this against Golden State in the NBA Finals, they could win.”
That’s the kind of statement which is simultaneously accurate, understandable… and bereft of any real meaning.
Such a statement reveals the complexity of athletic competition, and why it’s so gosh-darn fun to write and talk about sports.
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Yes, on one hand, the Cavaliers are clearly rolling. They are establishing the fundamental template for how they need to play. Last season’s team under David Blatt had to hang its hat on defense, especially when Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love got hurt. This team, with a healthy Kyrie and a reasonably healthy Love, is built to score. The addition of Channing Frye paid dividends for general manager David Griffin on Friday night in Game 3 against the Atlanta Hawks. It must continue to pay off for Cleveland in the next month and a half:
Channing Frye with a career best #NBAPlayoffs performance, scoring 27 points for the @cavs in the W!https://t.co/cyPSVlYHx3
— NBA Canada (@NBACanada) May 7, 2016
The Cavaliers are doing exactly what they need to do. Their Game 3 win represented a classic “bide your time” game from a heavyweight team: Withstand the first punch from the desperate home team down 2-0 and playing for its season; make enough shots over the course of the first three quarters to stay in the conversation; surge in the fourth quarter to put the game and the series away.
Not one critical thing can be said of the Cavs through seven games in these playoffs — not critical enough to mean something, at any rate. Playing well is its own inherent reward. To a certain extent, the Cavs’ performance contains intrinsic value.
The non-intrinsic value is what’s at issue here.
In terms of tangible and measurable gains, the Cavaliers’ 7-0 start in the playoffs is valuable because it is buying added rest for LeBron James. With ample time off between the first and second rounds, and with a long layoff coming up before the Eastern Conference Finals, LeBron’s older body will be recharged for the NBA Finals. Consider what a low-strain playoffs did for him on Friday night against Atlanta:
LeBron! https://t.co/GRcqggNt4j
— The Comeback NBA (@TheComebackNBA) May 7, 2016
Being able to carry a fresh-legged LeBron into the NBA Finals represents a more-than-merely-minor achievement for Cleveland. That’s a supremely beneficial product of this stroll through the East playoffs. Giving Tyronn Lue added time to scout the Toronto Raptors and Miami Heat won’t exactly hurt.
As for other elements of this discussion, one should be much more careful before asserting how valuable “sweeps month” really is for the Cavs. Being mindful of the level of Cleveland’s competition, one can’t overreach in terms of assessing where the Cavs stand in the NBA.
It is true that playing well in any setting or circumstance creates positive muscle memory. When performers in any endeavor — artists, athletes, politicians — do something well, they are able to trust themselves more fully. If they visualized the successful practice of a given action, that self-visualization becomes more convincing with each well-executed repetition. Turning visualization into actualization enables performers to establish healthy patterns.
In sports, the particular tension involved in this pursuit is obvious, and it’s at work in Cleveland’s march through the East: Establishing confidence and self-trust can occur against lesser opponents, but one never fully knows how much value such positive experiences contain until stronger opponents arrive.
It is true that an athlete can succeed against inferior competition and gain confidence simply because the sensation of dominating feels so good. What the athlete himself does matters more than anyone else. Sometimes, however, succeeding in a narrow context against weaker competition does nothing to improve one’s fortunes against heavyweights.
The question can’t be avoided; it sounds like a criticism, but it’s not meant to be: Does one’s performance against Detroit and Atlanta mean anything against Golden State or San Antonio? Maybe it will for the Cavs. They might be so confident when they reach the Finals that they’ll be able to convince themselves they’re not the same team which lost to the Warriors, 132-98, on January 18.
Or… Golden State could put its foot down.
One point has to be made in the attempt to lend perspective to what the Cavs are currently doing: Great opponents frequently make it difficult to excel.
Yes, it’s undeniably true that if the Cavs play Golden State the way they’re playing Atlanta, they’ll have a great chance to win it all… but Golden State’s defense has Draymond Green, and Atlanta’s doesn’t. Golden State has Stephen Curry, and Atlanta doesn’t.
Roger Federer, when playing at his very best, usually defeated Rafael Nadal… but Nadal’s skill set and his tactical approach to tennis made him uniquely suited to defuse Federer’s game, to make the Swiss not play well. Sure, the Cavs are roaring right now, but Golden State and San Antonio defend and adjust in ways which typically force opponents to play at a lower level.
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Maybe Cleveland is playing so well right now that it can shed the baggage it accumulated against Golden State during the regular season. Maybe these knockout punches and short series in the East possess a level of value far greater than what we can currently appreciate.
However, the most responsible and honest statement to make about the value of the Cavs’ easy conquests is that we don’t yet know the answer. It could be supremely high; it could be predictably low; it could fit between those extremes. Ultimately, it’s best to take a wait-and-see approach instead of saying that the Cavaliers exist on Golden State’s level.
It’s true that the Cavs were met with hysterical media reactions late in the regular season, but that doesn’t mean the media or fans should try to overcorrect in response.
The Cavaliers were never in the crisis state many commentators felt they were. Similarly, they haven’t yet “arrived” as a transformed team ready to take on Golden State in June.
It’s simply too early to make broader conclusions about the work the Cavaliers are doing against a tissue-thin Eastern Conference.
