The 2015 NBA Finals Game Thread AKA Battle Of The Australian Institute Of Sport

GeorgeCostanza · Jun 5, 2015

The Social Chair said:
12.9 overnight rating. New high for NBA on ABC. World series game one did a 8.0 last year for reference.

That makes me very happy as a basketball lover. It was an entertaining game last night aside from when Cleveland went into ISO mode on offense but it seemed to work for them in stretches when lebron had it going so can't argue with it.

OCST · Jun 5, 2015

I spent a lot of time in the Bay Area in the early '00's, when the Ws were awful, and I was impressed by how devoted their fanbase was. FWIW.

nattysez · Jun 5, 2015

Some pricing info for those that care:

The worst seats in the house for Game 1 were going for $700 per. I assumed the market would never bear that amount, but it did.

For Game 2, the cheapest seat on StubHub and NBATickets.com is $830.

For Game 5 of the WCF, I paid $300 each for what I consider the best seats in the upper deck (6th row at halfcourt - section 232). Those same seats were going for $1000 for Game 1 of the Finals.

Al Zarilla · Jun 5, 2015

nattysez said:
Some pricing info for those that care:

The worst seats in the house for Game 1 were going for $700 per. I assumed the market would never bear that amount, but it did.

For Game 2, the cheapest seat on StubHub and NBATickets.com is $830.

For Game 5 of the WCF, I paid $300 each for what I consider the best seats in the upper deck (6th row at halfcourt - section 232). Those same seats were going for $1000 for Game 1 of the Finals.

OMG, in Oakland, no less, home of the occasional $2 A's tickets, which were even $1 6 - 7 years ago. It would be interesting to see a fan demographic of the top five cities represented at last night's game. Oracle Arena is right on 880 and an easy driving destination from anywhere, really. Just one example of Warriors fan support, I went to Oracle for a Celtics - Warriors game about five years ago when the Celtics were very relevant and the Warriors very not. The crowd was great for the Warriors. Of course, they plan to move to a new arena in SF, less than a mile south of AT&T Park. 2017, or "within the next 5 years" is the plan.

The Social Chair · Jun 5, 2015

https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisMannixSI/status/606934182304964608

Nick Kaufman · Jun 5, 2015

Kyrie out with a fractured knee cap for 3-4 months. Such a shame.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 5, 2015

Hate to jinx it for the Dubs, but man, will that be tough for CleveBron to come back from.

Ed Hillel · Jun 5, 2015

Has Brian Windhorst killed himself yet?

Remagellan · Jun 5, 2015

If this were a sports movie, Lebron would now accept playing within Blatt's system, the team would suddenly gel and they would upset the Warriors.

But this is not a sports movie...

If Kyrie is done, so are the Cavs.

JCizzle · Jun 5, 2015

This really sucks. At least we'll always have that first 48 to remember what this series could have been.

Devizier · Jun 5, 2015

No point in watching at this point, methinks.

johnmd20 · Jun 5, 2015

Death blow for the Cavs. Damn shame.

Sam Ray Not · Jun 5, 2015

Wow, that sucks.

1. Godspeed, Kyrie. Get well soon.

2. Knocking wood because LeBron, but I feel like we may have been deprived of an Epic Finals for the ages. Even with LeBron at the top of his game and the other guys coming up huge, I’m not sure they physically have the horses to win a grueling four wins against a young, 11-player-deep team. (Again, knocking wood.)

3. That said, the 2015 Warriors are freaking 80-18 right now, and don’t have anything to feel sheepish or apologetic about. If they close this out, they're going down in history as one of the 5 or 6 best NBA teams of all time, full stop.

4. That Shumpert missed-by-a-milleter buzzer-beater may now go down in the annals of Cleveland sports infamy.

radsoxfan · Jun 5, 2015

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
/Fellow Curryette nodding his head in agreement except for # 4. That thing clanged off the "front" (actually side) iron and wasn't as close as it initially looked though Shumpert did have a good look.

I'm firmly with Sam Ray Not on that one.

That shot was perfectly on line, and hit the front rim in a way that it didn't bounce back or straight up, but rather low and forward directly over the back of the rim from that angle (almost actually hit the far end of the rim as it skimmed by).

That was about as close as you can get without it rattling around the rim and then bouncing out. Extremely close to going in, absolute heart breaking shot for Cavs fans.

radsoxfan · Jun 5, 2015

As for the injury, even as someone rooting for the Warriors, thats a bummer.

Lebron could honestly still pull it out, but it was a much more even series with Kyrie. Now if the Cavs win its an epic Lebron performance for the ages, and if the Warriors win, it's even more expected than it was before.

Interesting how he fractured his patella, I didn't see anything that looked like direct trauma to it. He had proximal patellar tendinosis (jumper's knee), that was obviously not resolving well, and eventually he probably pulled off a piece of his inferior patella. I wonder if he had a non-displaced fracture all along that he just exacerbated.

HomeRunBaker · Jun 6, 2015

radsoxfan said:
I wonder if he had a non-displaced fracture all along that he just exacerbated.

Kyrie played the best defensively game of his career in slowing down Curry. Is it possible he could have performed this way with a non-displaced fracture?

It was a hard plant that I guessed aggravated his tendinitis. Either way there clearly was some kind of weakness already prevalent in the knee.....I'd be interested to know what the Cavs doctors told the team and if it was the same they told Kyrie.

radsoxfan · Jun 6, 2015

HomeRunBaker said:
Kyrie played the best defensively game of his career in slowing down Curry. Is it possible he could have performed this way with a non-displaced fracture?

Sure, why not? People play with bone contusions, stress reactions, stress fractures, non displaced fractures, etc. all the time. They are all along a spectrum of the same thing. Small microscopic fractures of the bone trabeculae (contusion/reaction), it gets a little more serious and you may see a fracture line macroscopically on X-ray or MRI (stress fracture), and then the displaced fractures that often eventually you can't play with and need surgery. The distinctions are very blurred until the end stage when the fracture is obvious.

Athletes play with pain all the time, often quite well. Of course there is a point at which eventually they can't continue, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Kyrie already had a stress reaction/stress fracture of his inferior patella that was diagnosed as "proximal patellar tendinitis with some abnormal bone marrow edema at the inferior patella" (essentially "jumpers knee"), and eventually that inflamed piece of bone completely broke loose in overtime of Game 1.

Painful, sure. But not unstable or painful enough to prevent him from potentially playing well until now.

As far as what the team docs told the team and what they told Kyrie…. who knows. Not always the same thing. Professional sports medicine is high stakes, and there are often conflicts of interest. Players' long term best interest is not always top priority unfortunately (they should probably get second opinions more than they do).

54thMA · Jun 6, 2015

Tangled Up In Red said:
Hate to jinx it for the Dubs, but man, will that be tough for CleveBron to come back from.

Looks like the Cadavers are now toast; incredible to think no one in Cleveland under the age of 60 can remember the last championship that city has won should they go on to lose this series.

Well, the Browns have won two posing as the Ravens, so they've got that going for them, which is nice.

HomeRunBaker · Jun 6, 2015

radsoxfan said:
Sure, why not? People play with bone contusions, stress reactions, stress fractures, non displaced fractures, etc. all the time. They are all along a spectrum of the same thing. Small microscopic fractures of the bone trabeculae (contusion/reaction), it gets a little more serious and you may see a fracture line macroscopically on X-ray or MRI (stress fracture), and then the displaced fractures that often eventually you can't play with and need surgery. The distinctions are very blurred until the end stage when the fracture is obvious.

Athletes play with pain all the time, often quite well. Of course there is a point at which eventually they can't continue, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Kyrie already had a stress reaction/stress fracture of his inferior patella that was diagnosed as "proximal patellar tendinitis with some abnormal bone marrow edema at the inferior patella" (essentially "jumpers knee"), and eventually that inflamed piece of bone completely broke loose in overtime of Game 1.

Painful, sure. But not unstable or painful enough to prevent him from potentially playing well until now.

As far as what the team docs told the team and what they told Kyrie. who knows. Not always the same thing. Professional sports medicine is high stakes, and there are often conflicts of interest. Players' long term best interest is not always top priority unfortunately (they should probably get second opinions more than they do).

There is talk about locker room confrontations between Kyrie's father, his agent, and the Cavs GM. Regardless of who knew what....to play Kyrie 43 minutes with as many as 6 more games to go in the series after where Kyrie's knee was 9 days prior is something David Blatt should have to answer to. Yet nobody in the media has gone after him one bit on this which I had expected.

radsoxfan · Jun 6, 2015

HomeRunBaker said:
There is talk about locker room confrontations between Kyrie's father, his agent, and the Cavs GM. Regardless of who knew what....to play Kyrie 43 minutes with as many as 6 more games to go in the series after where Kyrie's knee was 9 days prior is something David Blatt should have to answer to. Yet nobody in the media has gone after him one bit on this which I had expected.

Blatt doesn't have to answer for anything, he's not a doctor. If there was a minutes restriction, obviously someone would have communicated that to him (I assume there wasn't or we would have heard). David Blatt is an NBA basketball coach, he's not supposed to know how to medically manage these things.

Obviously the team docs (and James Andrews) don't look great given how everything turned out, and maybe it could have been handled differently. But sometimes shit happens and it's no ones fault.

I certainly put zero blame on Blatt. He was told Kyrie was good to go as long as he wanted. I have no idea why he would overrule the team docs and FO and institute his own personal minutes restriction.

Edit: to be clear, I think as a basketball decision, I can see an argument for playing Kyrie less. He might not have his stamina and Dellavadova played pretty well last series. I'm not saying playing him 43 minutes was a great idea. But as far as the injury goes, I don't expect Blatt to be worrying about managing that. Kyrie had a 25 min restriction against the Hawks in Game 4 if I remember correctly. If the docs/FO wanted something similar in Game 1 of the finals, they should have said so.

HomeRunBaker · Jun 6, 2015

radsoxfan said:
Blatt doesn't have to answer for anything, he's not a doctor. If there was a minutes restriction, obviously someone would have communicated that to him (I assume there wasn't or we would have heard). David Blatt is an NBA basketball coach, he's not supposed to know how to medically manage these things.

Obviously the team docs (and James Andrews) don't look great given how everything turned out, and maybe it could have been handled differently. But sometimes shit happens and it's no ones fault.

I certainly put zero blame on Blatt. He was told Kyrie was good to go as long as he wanted. I have no idea why he would overrule the team docs and FO and institute his own personal minutes restriction.

Edit: to be clear, I think as a basketball decision, I can see an argument for playing Kyrie less. He might not have his stamina and Dellavadova played pretty well last series. I'm not saying playing him 43 minutes was a great idea. But as far as the injury goes, I don't expect Blatt to be worrying about managing that. Kyrie had a 25 min restriction against the Hawks in Game 4 if I remember correctly. If the docs/FO wanted something similar in Game 1 of the finals, they should have said so.

Don't get me wrong, I agree that a coach is going to go balls to the wall to win an NBA Finals game (shit, Thibs does same to win a game in February) and if his player is medically cleared with no restrictions under Kyrie's circumstances someone should be asking why. I was only asking why THE MEDIA hasn't come after Blatt and make him answer this question.

snowmanny · Jun 6, 2015

The media that I have heard comment on this subject has said that playing Irving was a no-brainer: he was playing great, his knees looked fine (e.g. the block), he certainly wasn't asking out, they needed this game, etc. Have you heard media questioning the decision to play him?

Edit: And I think that even if you think you are risking a three month injury you play the guy. What else are you saving him for? Those were probably the most important minutes of the season: the win expectancy difference for the series if they had stolen that game would have been pretty dramatic, I imagine. It would have been much more arguable had they been down ten.

radsoxfan · Jun 6, 2015

HomeRunBaker said:
Don't get me wrong, I agree that a coach is going to go balls to the wall to win an NBA Finals game (shit, Thibs does same to win a game in February) and if his player is medically cleared with no restrictions under Kyrie's circumstances someone should be asking why. I was only asking why THE MEDIA hasn't come after Blatt and make him answer this question.

I suppose the media can ask the question, and maybe they did for all I know. But I'm sure they know the answer (not that that usually stops them from asking questions).

"The medical staff cleared him with no minutes restriction, he was playing well, and didn't ask to come out. Next question"

The only people who can give a useful answer to that question are on the medical staff, but I doubt they are available to the media.

Soxfan in Fla · Jun 6, 2015

radsoxfan said:
Blatt doesn't have to answer for anything, he's not a doctor. If there was a minutes restriction, obviously someone would have communicated that to him (I assume there wasn't or we would have heard). David Blatt is an NBA basketball coach, he's not supposed to know how to medically manage these things.

Obviously the team docs (and James Andrews) don't look great given how everything turned out, and maybe it could have been handled differently. But sometimes shit happens and it's no ones fault.

I certainly put zero blame on Blatt. He was told Kyrie was good to go as long as he wanted. I have no idea why he would overrule the team docs and FO and institute his own personal minutes restriction.

Edit: to be clear, I think as a basketball decision, I can see an argument for playing Kyrie less. He might not have his stamina and Dellavadova played pretty well last series. I'm not saying playing him 43 minutes was a great idea. But as far as the injury goes, I don't expect Blatt to be worrying about managing that. Kyrie had a 25 min restriction against the Hawks in Game 4 if I remember correctly. If the docs/FO wanted something similar in Game 1 of the finals, they should have said so.

Yeah. The only way this is on Blatt is if they told him something like 25 minutes max. If that was the case we'd know it by now.

radsoxfan · Jun 6, 2015

David Blatt told reporters that Irving was not on a minutes restriction in Game 1, nor any other restriction in regards to his knee after suffering from tendinitis the past two rounds. Blatt said the fracture in Irving's left kneecap was a contact injury caused by knee-to-knee contact, and had no impact from his previous injury.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25207269/cavaliers-warriors-react-to-kyrie-irvings-injury-before-game-2

Is this true? I only saw one replay, but I didn't see any knee-to-knee contact. Maybe I missed it. If so, just a fluke occurrence I guess. I'm skeptical though.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 6, 2015

radsoxfan said:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25207269/cavaliers-warriors-react-to-kyrie-irvings-injury-before-game-2

Is this true? I only saw one replay, but I didn't see any knee-to-knee contact. Maybe I missed it. If so, just a fluke occurrence I guess. I'm skeptical though.

I watched multiple times and saw no direct contact to the knee. It must have been a structural/stress thing like you mention upthread.

radsoxfan · Jun 6, 2015

Tangled Up In Red said:
I watched multiple times and saw no direct contact to the knee. It must have been a structural/stress thing like you mention upthread.

Weird thing for Blatt to lie about right? People can watch the tape and pretty easily see if he is lying. Strange all the way around.

Soxfan in Fla · Jun 7, 2015

Could the contact have happened earlier and the move exacerbated things?

HomeRunBaker · Jun 7, 2015

radsoxfan said:
http://www.cbssports.com/nba/eye-on-basketball/25207269/cavaliers-warriors-react-to-kyrie-irvings-injury-before-game-2

Is this true? I only saw one replay, but I didn't see any knee-to-knee contact. Maybe I missed it. If so, just a fluke occurrence I guess. I'm skeptical though.

It's a flat out lie and a stupid one at that when you have replays showing on every sports network in the country. I've watched all year Blatt seemingly being in over his head.....then he calls the timeout that almost cost his team a playoff game and now makes a head scratching statement like this? Bizarre.

radsoxfan · Jun 7, 2015

Soxfan in Fla said:
Could the contact have happened earlier and the move exacerbated things?

Nope. If it was direct contact leading to a fractured patella Kyrie would have known right away. Two totally different mechanisms.

Blatt's explanation doesn't make any sense based on the video, I wonder if Kyrie or anyone else is saying the same thing.

Tony C · Jun 7, 2015

JCizzle said:
This really sucks. At least we'll always have that first 48 to remember what this series could have been.

Devizier said:
No point in watching at this point, methinks.

Yep...what a disappointing playoffs. Meh.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

Oh yes, Carlos and wife! Nicely done.

johnmd20 · Jun 7, 2015

Tangled Up In Red said:
Oh yes, Carlos and wife! Nicely done.

Woeful anthem.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

johnmd20 said:
Woeful anthem.

Must be JP Souza for you.

Woeful was second foul call on a hot Klay Thompson.

johnmd20 · Jun 7, 2015

Tangled Up In Red said:
Must be JP Souza for you.

Woeful was second foul call on a hot Klay Thompson.

I am admittedly not a Santana fan.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

But they're managing too hang around, which is maybe the best they can hope for.
And two fouls on both Klay and Iguodala.

bosox4283 · Jun 7, 2015

I don't watch much basketball. It seems to me that Mozgov is a technically sound player.

ifmanis5 · Jun 7, 2015

Bron genuinely surprised he was called for that.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

bosox4283 said:
I don't watch much basketball. It seems to me that Mozgov is a technically sound player.

Agreed, though he's traveled on his last three post moves.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Anybody who called this series over after Irving went down simply underestimated LeBron James. He is a man amongst boys.

This is far more true than I would prefer it to be.

HomeRunBaker · Jun 7, 2015

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Anybody who called this series over after Irving went down simply underestimated LeBron James. He is a man amongst boys.

Cleveland still has LeBron and still has the power paint advantage of Mozgov and Thompson.

Stu Nahan · Jun 7, 2015

Lebron is unreal. Just carrying these guys.

PedroKsBambino · Jun 7, 2015

Lebron just has no help creating shots---it's all him, every trip down. It's amazing that the score is what it is given that.

A shame Cleveland is so banged up.

Tangled Up In Red · Jun 7, 2015

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
This is about as aesthetically unpleasing a game as I have seen in quite some time. And it benefits Cleveland in every way.

Dubs shoot reasonably well and this isn't the case. Missed shots = no flow = ugly basketball = benefit Cavs.

They can't shoot this poorly for 4 Qs, can they?

Devizier · Jun 7, 2015

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Anybody who called this series over after Irving went down simply underestimated LeBron James. He is a man amongst boys.

Sheepishly raising hand

Still, I don't see the Cavaliers winning this. Lebron is the man, but he's still human.

shawnrbu · Jun 7, 2015

Bogut is so damn bad. Why is Kerr playing him so much?

FelixMantilla · Jun 7, 2015

Golden State has looked like dogshit for much of the night.

The 2015 NBA Finals Game Thread AKA Battle Of The Australian Institute Of Sport

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