Was just coming to post that.
Adande: Kyrie out, so pressure off LeBron now
With Kyrie Irving done, you can't reasonably expect the Cavaliers to beat the league's best team -- which means LeBron is off the hook.
I hate people. The Warriors were going to win anyways barring the Cavs going 3-0 at home. No chance they were going to win 2 games in GS. Now we'll be subjected to tons of writers coming forward making excuses for the Cavs(for Lebron, nobody cares about the Cavs or the city of Cleveland otherwise) while ignoring how good the Warriors were this season. They posted the 5th best record of all-time. They only lost a couple of times at home. Their margin of victory was +10.
A lot of people were riding the Cavs because they have Lebron and believe he is enough to take down any team(why I don't know. he's about to go 2 for 6 in the finals which is proof of him regularly being beaten) while not acknowledging the Warriors were the favorites in the first place. Lots of people actually considered the Cavs the favorites(mostly bias fans) because they have Lebron even though they won 14 fewer games. Keep in mind, the Warriors only lost 15 games all season. 14 more wins is a huge difference and that's not even factoring in the gap between how horrible the east is and how good the west is.
You even have people in the comment section saying how the Cavs could come back because it's "not like the Warriors are the Spurs". Why can't Cavs fans/Lebron fans get it through their head that the Warriors this year are better than the Spurs ever were, statistically speaking.
Some people act like the Warriors are good but not great simply because this is the first time most(if any) of their roster has been to the finals. So what? That doesn't take away from how great they actually are. Spurs never won 67 games and the Warriors did it when the west was as strong as ever. It's gonna be sickening listening to people bring up game 1 going to OT and acting like the Cavs would have won the series if Irving didn't go down. For some, it won't just be "they could have beaten the Warriors with Irving", it will be a lot of "they would have beaten the Warriors with Irving".
Reality is, the Warriors were the favorites to begin with. Played in maybe the strongest conference of all-time while the Cavs played in the weakest conference of all-time. The only teams to win more than 67 games are the 95-96 Bulls, 96-97 Bulls, 71-72 Lakers and 66-67 Sixers. Seeing as the Pacers were able to compete against a team of Lebron, Bosh and Wade while falling just short, I'm not sure why people find it so far fetched that the Warriors would make a speed bump of the Cavs regardless if Irving played. It's not like going to overtime means the Cavs with Irving wouldn't have gotten blown out the next 3 games. The odds of that happening was always more likely than the Cavs actually beating the Warriors 4 times. The Warriors are better than the Pacers were and Lebron/Bosh/Wade were better than Lebron/Irving/Thompson currently are. So if that Heat team struggled with the Pacers, this Cavs team has no chance against this Warriors team.
At least people betting on the Cavs in game 1 lost money and may have learned their lesson by picking a player over a team. The Cavs lost 2 players and that's all she wrote. If the Warriors lost Klay tomorrow, they'd still be better than the Cavs with Irving imo. The Cavs were never going to win this series anyways even with the great Lebron and his untrustworthy sidekick Irving.
Having said all of that, watch them win without Irving now and I'll be forced to eat my shorts. It's a bet I'd take though because I was already confident the Warriors would win the series. Unless Curry goes down, might as well chalk this one up in the history books. Even then, I'd still believe the Warriors are capable of beating the Cavs(without Irving and Love) down Curry. Other than Lebron, the Warriors would still have the better team with more depth and better coaching. This series was always going to be a loss for the Cavs once Love went down and the Warriors remained healthy imo. If Love and Irving had both been available for the finals, I'd still still place the odds at 60-40 in favor of GS. Lebron is great and all but the Warriors were also great this year.
You wouldn't know how good GS actually is from the way some people talk about how great Lebron is. You'd be made to believe the guy is unbeatable if you listened to everyone else. Truth is, the Warriors this year are closer to unbeatable than any team Lebron has ever played on. The Warriors 67-15 record is real, don't tell me it's not... I've done seen it with mah own two eyes. They're now sitting at 13-3 in the postseason while facing every other player from the all-nba 1st team(Lebron, Gasol, Harden, Davis) other than Curry who the Warriors obviously can't play. While disliking Lebron, I never ignored how good he was. Cavs/Lebron fans on the other hand do ignore how good the Warriors are despite their record and their place in the history books.
Again, 5th best record of all-time. That's nothing to scoff at but again, you wouldn't know how great that actually is with the way a lot people were saying Lebron was going to the run through the Warriors. And while he did score 44 in game 1, it took 38 attempts. That's on par with Melo on his worst nights. Looking at the Knicks record, I think it's safe to say nobody wants to be on par with Melo at this point in their career. Ask any coach and they'll tell you they'll take 5 guys averaging 10-15 points and scoring efficiently over a "star" averaging 25-30 while bricking 20 shots a night.
Anyways, some people look to Bron's bad game while saying "the Cavs still almost won". How about the Warriors? The Cavs actually took four more 3's than them while Curry only took 6. That's probably the fewest Curry will take the rest of the series and unlike Lebron making 18 shots with 20 misses, Curry won't have that problem as he's too good of shooter to.
tl;dr yeah, yeah, yeah. Long story short. Warriors were going to beat the Cavs even with Irving. That's really the end of the discussion on my part. People can believe what they want but that was always my belief. Now Lebron has added excuses for falling to 2-4 in the finals after it inevitably happens. Again, I'll eat my shorts if the Cavs win this series now(barring an injury to Curry). If the Cavs manage to win a game, I'll start looking up recipes to make said shorts taste better as even a single win for the Cavs seems unlikely at this point.