This article is part of our Staff Picks series.
The odyssey that is the NBA Playoffs have almost concluded. And they are ending with the epic match everyone wanted: Golden State versus Cleveland. However this ends, Anderson Varejo gets a ring. Here's how the RotoWire NBA Staff predicts things will go down:
Pick: Cavaliers in 6 games
Reasoning: While I believe this matchup is a true toss-up, I'm giving the slight edge to the Cavs. The Warriors are a better team entering this finals compared to last year, but the same can be said about LeBron James and company. LeBron was able to take the Warriors to 6 games last season. This year, he'll have Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, both of whom were injured during the 2015 finals, to help shoulder the load. Also, I don't expect Andre Igudola to play at such a high level this year.
Pick: Warriors in 4 games -- SWEEP
Reasoning: Golden State has three of the four best players in the series (Curry, Klay, Draymond). They have the best player in the series (Curry). They have the hottest player in the playoffs (Klay). They have the better coach. They have better defenders up and down the roster. The Cavs lost two games to the Raptors because Lowry and DeRozan went off. Lowry and DeRoza is like a super homeless man's Curry/Klay. Kevin Love will get ridiculously exposed on defense whenever he's out there, but in order to keep pace with the Warriors the Cavs will have to play their bad defenders. I just don't see any non-injury-related way the Cavs win.
Pick: Warriors in 6 games
Reasoning: While the Warriors deserve a ton of credit for their epic comeback from a 3-1 series deficit against the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, they still showed vulnerability in one main area: rebounding the ball. For all his all-around excellence, Draymond Green struggled to contain Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka and to a lesser extent, Enes Kanter, on the glass, and it certainly didn't help the Warriors that Andrew Bogut dealt with early foul trouble in a few of those games. It was one of the rare times all season we've seen the negative consequences of the Warriors' so-called "death lineup" featuring Green as an undersized center, and if the Thunder hadn't gone completely frigid behind the arc in Games 6 and 7 and actually cashed in on the extra possessions afforded to them by their dominance on the offensive glass, that series would have ended in six games.
Fortunately for the Warriors, the matchup with the Cavaliers is seemingly more favorable on the boards. After exiling Timofey Mozgov from the rotation, Cavs coach Tyronn Lue now runs Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love and Channing Frye as his primary big men. The latter two players tend to gravitate toward the perimeter offensively, which often takes them out of position to crash the glass on missed shots. Instead, those cleanup duties primarily fall to Thompson, who to be fair, is a prolific offensive rebounder, but he's only listed at 6-foot-9 and 238 pounds. When the Warriors go small, I don't foresee the 6-foot-7, 230-pound Green having nearly as much trouble fighting for position and holding his ground against Thompson as he did against the taller, heavier Adams, Ibaka and Kanter, all of whom are over 6-foot-10.
Unlike the Thunder, the Cavaliers have been quite proficient as a team from three-point range, with Love and Kyrie Irving in particular lighting it up from distance in the postseason. The Cavs are certainly capable of out-bombing the Warriors from deep to claim a couple wins in the series, but generally speaking, I think the Warriors are much better equipped and much more comfortable defending on the perimeter than outmuscling teams down low. I wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors fell into a 2-1 series hole on the heels of a tiring Western Conference Finals, but the Cavs don't have the sort of personnel that can dominate Golden State the way the Thunder did for quarters or even entire games.
Pick: Cavaliers in 7 games
Reasoning: This was a tough pick, and I almost went against my gut but it would have been for the wrong reasons. I picked against the Warriors in an upset last round, and because of that it almost feels like I should therefore pick them to win this time. But the same issues are present in this match-up that made me believe that the Thunder would beat them: the Cavs are led by an oversized dominant small forward (the weakness of Golden State's defense) that allows them to have lots of versatility in the size and make-up of the frontcourt (which we saw as a strength for the Thunder last round), and the Cavs have the scorers to be able to go toe-to-toe with the Warriors even when they go into video game mode. The main difference is that while the Thunder seemed to grip up at the finish line, LeBron has been here many times before and should thus be more ready to handle the moment. I think this is a great series, but the Cavs (finally) bring a championship back to Cleveland.
Pick: Cavaliers in 6 games
Reasoning:
LeBron James is on a mission right now and there's nothing that can stop him. This is the same path that he took with the Miami Heat as well, as he lost his first championship attempt in his first season with the Heat. After losing last years Finals , the Cavaliers are surely as hungry as ever and will come out full force for this title. I believe that Cleveland will steal one of these first two games on the road and then win every home game to cap off the series in six. James averaged 35.8 points, 13.3. rebounds and 8.8 assists in a historic Finals last year and he looks as strong as ever right now. He took that Cavalier team to six games without Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving against this same Warriors team. Irving will be the true difference maker in this series and if he shows out like he did all throughout the postseason thus far, Curry's got quite the task ahead of him. For an even bolder prediction, I think Irving is a great value at +700 to win the Finals MVP, if the Cavaliers can take care of business..
Pick: Warriors in 5 games
Reasoning: Cleveland is playing its best basketball of the season, but that doesn't mean it will be able to beat the Warriors at their own game. Part of the reason the Cavs were able to grab a 2-1 lead and force last year's series to six games is because of the way they controlled tempo. With Timofey Mozgov virtually out of the rotation and both Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love fully healthy, Cleveland will take an entirely different approach this time around. Throughout these playoffs, the Cavs have demonstrated that they can shoot with the Warriors, but can they do that, and defend at a high level for six or seven games? It's hard to see that happening.
Certainly, Cleveland can throw some things at Golden State that the Warriors will have trouble handling. But when it comes down to it, the mismatches -- on both ends -- are more easily surmountable for Golden State than they are Cleveland. It would be foolish to count out this Cavaliers team, but they'll need their A or A+ game to beat Golden State in any one game, whereas the Warriors' margin for error is considerably higher. The Cavaliers are a much deeper team this time around -- James Jones averaged 19 minutes per game in the 2015 Finals -- and that will ease the burden on LeBron James, but I have my doubts as to whether Love and Irving can be the two-way difference makers Cleveland needs them to be night in and night out. The Warriors aren't the Raptors -- if Love and Irving lapse for even a game, any edge the Cavaliers may have in this series will be erased in a hurry.
Pick: Cavaliers in 7 games
Reasoning: Cleveland is due. I don't mean the Cavs. I'm referring to the City. The Mistake By The Lake. The "Blue Balls Sports Capital of the World" according to my lifelong Cleveland buddy (shout out, JB$!). After The Fumble, The Decision, The Drive, The Move, The Blown Save, The Shot and too many other tragedies to list here, the city of Cleveland and it's tortured fans DESERVE a title. I don't care how illogical it is that this sometimes plodding, sometimes too dependent on LeBron squad defeats arguably the greatest team in NBA history. Cleveland deserves a big win, so I'm picking them.
To learn more about Cleveland's tragic sports history, I recommend this 2014 gem of an article from ESPN The Magazine. Or, if you prefer visual displays, relish the haunting piano of this tragic video:
Well, that's it from your RotoWire experts. But wait, how do the Taiwanese view this epic match-up? Let's let the good folks at Taiwanese Animators show us:
