Looking ahead to Game 3: Golden State vs. Cleveland

Previously, on Warriors vs. Cavaliers …

I don’t know how we got here.

I don’t know why we’re talking about James Jones in the second week of June.

I don’t know how a team that made less than a third of its shots won a game, on the road, against a squad that entered the contest having won 80 of its previous 98 games.

I don’t know how this team, this Cleveland team, did as much with just seven players working double-figure minutes. In a 53-minute game.

I don’t know why we think we ever have this silly game figured out.

LeBron James had no Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, or even Sasha Pavlovic in Sunday’s Game 2 win. If you think this is braying sportswriter nonsense, you’d be forgiven, but it is absolutely astonishing that James was able to lead a dismantled and rebuilt Cavalier squad to a win over the Warriors in Oakland while missing 24 shots in 50 minutes of action.

James’ second-best teammate, emerging 7-footer Timofey Mozgov, didn’t even play in the fourth quarter or overtime. Your favorite sportswriter’s second-favorite player, Matthew Dellavedova, had to cinch the game with an offensive rebound and two made free throws. LeBron James couldn’t even get to the free throw line to end the game in regulation, but Matthew Dellavedova ran it at the stripe in overtime. This is what we’re doing now, I guess.

Mo Speights missed a dunk that could have ended up working as the deciding points in the contest. Again, it is the second week of June and we are talking about Marreese Speights with nary a reflex. How did any of this happen?

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The Warriors’ modern-as-tomorrow angularity left them in Game 2. The team gave up on too many possessions early in the shot clock, mirroring Cleveland’s minimalism, with the barely-there difference showing up in the space between someone like the hulking LeBron James (able to be lobbed to in the post at all times), and someone like the lithe Stephen Curry. Both players stunk for certain parts of Game 2, but little things matter when there are only two teams left, and the Cavs managed to weather James’ (referee-addled) dry spell down the stretch with an eight-point overtime run that featured three free throws from LeBron, one three-pointer from Iman Shumpert, and two free throws from the aforementioned Mr. Dellavedova.

Golden State just couldn’t find its center. It wasn’t for lack of effort of an overabundance of nerves; this is just how these things play out sometimes.

Klay Thompson had the best night of any Warrior, but he also missed 14 shots on his way toward 34 points, and somehow he looked no worse for the wear despite playing all of the second quarter, all of the third quarter, all of the fourth quarter, and all of overtime. We’re not sure if he showed up on the ABC set during halftime to guard Dwyane Wade, because we switched over to a baseball game during that break.

Stephen Curry was not himself. He appeared bothered by Dellavedova’s defense and shook by GSW’s reversion to Mark Jackson Era-form. The ball was not moving, the derring-do was absent, and Curry’s 13 missed three-pointers and six turnovers genuinely were the breaking point. One can point to stylistic switches on both ends all you want, but when a guy that tips the defense fails to act as a game-changing threat, the race is just about run.

Golden State still almost pulled it out late, somehow, with Draymond Green waiting until overtime to hit his first two field goals, with Curry and Harrison Barnes combining for 14 fourth quarter points, and for the Scott Foster-led refereeing staff missing endless calls both for (the dude traveled) and against (dude was hacked) LeBron James. James’ postgame dismissal of “cute, sexy basketball” was played out on the court, as two of the best offensive teams in the NBA still failed to work themselves into triple-digits despite being afforded 53 minutes of playing time.

A split, after two games, sounds about right. Even if none of this makes any sense at all.

Three Things to Watch Out For in Game 3

LeBron’s Legs

If it’s a tired trope, we apologize. It’s up to LeBron’s lower extremities to prove us wrong.

LeBron James had every right to cramp up in a miserable AT&T Center last June. He has every right to exult after tough, late spring wins that tax both his spirit and calf muscles. He’s already played more career minutes, counting the playoffs, than Larry Bird. He’s been to five straight Finals, six overall, while dotting his NBA career (which began around the same age that most of us discovered that one guy, Tyler, with the Che Guevara t-shirt that would buy us beer) with four different Team USA stints.

The man has been through more, in nearly 12 years since he was drafted by Cleveland, than any other player in NBA history. This doesn’t mean he’s better than every other player in NBA history, it just means he’s probably pretty tired right now.

James and his Cavaliers had eight days off between the squad’s dismissal of the Atlanta Hawks and Game 1 of the Finals, and though LeBron has missed 44 of 73 shots to begin this series he’s also played a Wilt Chamberlain-worthy 48 minutes per contest. Game 3 will represent the third contest in six nights for James, hardly a Herculean task for most, but not for a player that has just about pitched a Herculean effort (41.5 points, 12 rebounds, 8.5 assists per contest) in these Finals. He’s sat for 10 minutes in this series. Ten damned minutes, people.

Famously, James took a fortnight off just prior to the midseason mark, just prior to Cleveland’s turnaround, just prior to the run that secured a second seed and bit of confidence for the Cavaliers. At this point in Cleveland’s run, it’s not about asking others to step up. The same plan is in place, and LeBron will have to carry his usual ungodly load of the Cavs want to keep this thing running.

If he can’t run, literally, please understand why. This is some unprecedented stuff we’re watching.

Forgotten Centers

Carrying over from his dips and drives and dunks from Game 1, Cavs center Timofey Mozgov acted as a crucial counterpoint to Golden State’s attempts to make Game 2 all about LeBron. He scored 17 points and pulled in 11 rebounds in 29 minutes of play, a minutes allotment truncated by coach David Blatt’s decision to pull him from the game with just under two minutes to play in the third quarter and refuse to re-enter him.

You don’t have to agree with Blatt’s decision, but at the very least it is understandable. The W’s did spectacular work in Game 1 with a small lineup, pushing shooting guard-sized Draymond Green up to center and playing as 2015 sees fit. GSW coach Steve Kerr took to the same approach just under the nine minute mark of regulation in Game 2, lifting center Andrew Bogut from the lineup and never looking back, and his absence dovetailed with both Cleveland’s seemingly-substantial growth of a late 11-point lead and the Golden State comeback.

How both coaches manage the minutes and also roles of their respective fantastic big men could decide Game 3. Both were treated as afterthoughts at times in Game 2 – Andre Iguodala even guarded Mozgov for some stretches – but both could act as the crucial screening and/or finishing element in what could be a deciding 12-2 second quarter run (yes, for once, we may have a blowout in this series) during Game 3. The hulking, defensive-minded 7-footer might appear to be an anachronism in today’s game, but both Bogut and Mozgov have survived amongst the weeds in the modern NBA.

It’s up to both of their coaches to turn them into toppling factors in a league that wants them to take a seat on the bench.

Your 2014-15 NBA MVP, Stephen Curry

Stephen Curry doesn’t have to put up a LeBron James-like box score in Game 3. He doesn’t have to flirt with 40 points, he doesn’t have to make sure that 12 of Golden State’s total assists run through his fingertips, and he doesn’t have to create a highlight for the ages with a last-second game-winner.

He just has to frighten people, again. He has to strike fear in the Cavaliers, as they worry about his ability to nail two out of five on average from 25 feet with a hand in his face, or feed a streaking Draymond Green with a lookaway. He has to make Bogut’s butt dangerous. He has to make the appearance of Andre Iguodala, peeling his warm-ups off, look like a relief for the home team. He has to be Stephen Curry.

That Curry wasn’t there in Game 2. It honestly isn’t about the 13 three-pointers he missed, or those six turnovers. He was an inert presence for the bulk of the contest, and even though you can’t damn the Warriors for falling in what was a tied game after 48 minutes, the squad just can’t afford to work this way again.

Yes, it is a team game, and yes, the Warriors can survive with Curry turning in box score contributions that run below his regular season averages. With the Cavs starting just about every one of their plays below the 17-second mark of the shot clock, that’s to be expected. Run another fake screen and roll and LeBron-less “action” all you want, Cleveland, we still know where the rock is going.

Curry has to scare people, however. The W’s can still win this championship with their best player having an off-June, but they wouldn’t want to risk such a thing with No. 23 on the other side of the ball, right? The movement has to tilt the court. The Splash has to come back. The Stephen we all fell in love with, taking chances and risking it all at just after midnight Cleveland-time during the winter, has to return.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops