The Golden State Warriors picked apart the Cleveland Cavaliers on Sunday, 122-103, to take a 2-0 series advantage in the NBA Finals. The defending champs now eye to go up 3-0 this Wednesday, when they travel to The Land for the Cavs’ first game of this finals matchup.
The Cavs were doing a decent job of hanging around and keeping the game within striking distance in the second half on Sunday. That’s until Stephen Curry decided to break a record, making some insanely difficult three-point shots to kill any plans of uprising by Cleveland. Curry finished with 33 points on the strength of nine 3-pointers – a new NBA Finals mark. Should Curry carry over that kind of shooting in Game 3, then that should easily negate the Cavs’ home-court advantage. Curry aside, the Warriors were more efficient on offense in Game 2 than in the series opener, thanks to Kevin Durant making better shot selections, Durant had 26 points on Sunday on 10-for-14 shooting. The Warriors haven’t shot worse than 51 percent in any of the first two games of the series. One thing they will also have to sustain is their success in neutralizing Cleveland on the glass. After getting outrebounded by 15 boards in Game 1, the Warriors tied the Cavs in Game 2 with 41 boards apiece.
The Warriors are 6-4 ATS in their last 10 games in Cleveland.
Game 1’s loss looks like it was still hanging over the heads of the Cavs in Sunday’s game in which they remained struggling from the field. The Cavs shot just 41.6 percent in Game 2 with J.R, Smith and Jeff Green missing plenty of shots. Smith failed to atone his Game 1 blunder by going 2-for-9 from the field, while Green was only 2-for-7. LeBron James had a near triple-double of 29 points, 13 assists, and nine rebounds, but those were obviously not enough to tow his team into a victory. So far in the playoffs, James is averaging 34.9 points, 9.1 assists, and 8.6 assists per game. With Smith struggling, perhaps it’s time for Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue to replace the shooting guard with Rodney Hood in the starting lineup to see if such a change could spark the team’s offense. Hopefully for the Cavs, a game at home would also break their ongoing losing narrative. They are 8-0 SU in their last eight games at Quicken Loans Arena.
They are also 4-0 ATS in their last four outings there.
