National Basketball Association

The disappointing Cavs are poised to repeat last year's NBA Finals loss

Published Jun. 3, 2016 7:30 a.m. ET

foxsports

OAKLAND -- The Cavaliers were supposed to be different in this year's NBA Finals. They were supposed to have an up-tempo, high-movement offense, and incredible ball movement. They were supposed to take on the Warriors with Golden State's own style.

That game plan -- the culmination of six months of work stemming from Golden State's NBA Finals win and a 34-point blowout loss to the Warriors in Cleveland in January -- lasted only a few possessions before Cleveland threw it out and went to a playbook that looked awfully similar to that they used in the 2015 NBA Finals.

Is it any surprise that the Warriors won Game 1 in such a decisive fashion?

For a week now, the Cavs have talked about their new look and identity -- the one they honed throughout the Eastern Conference playoffs -- and naturally, it had basketball fans excited. The Cavs' defense is hardly championship caliber, so they were going to have to beat the Warriors with a prolific offense. An up-and-down, high-paced shootout between Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Klay Thompson? Sign me up for seven games, please.

But we got nothing close to that in Game 1, and it's hard to imagine we'll see anything of the sort in the series. From an entertainment standpoint, these Finals are setting up to be as disappointing as Batman v Superman.

One can only imagine the dismay of Cavs fans who watched Game 1 and had to come to the conclusion that their team stands no chance to win this series unless they make massive, earth-shifting adjustments -- the kind of adjustments that were supposedly already made.

We weren't supposed to see a repeat of last year's NBA Finals -- Kevin Love and Irving are healthy, and the Cavs have a year's worth of lessons from which to draw. Everything was going to be different, but if Game 1 is any indication, everything stayed the same.

It might have even regressed -- Cavs' main lineup played at a sub-90 pace and had an assist-to-turnover rate of 1 in Game 1.

The Cavaliers had no choice but to play a no-pass, isolation-heavy, slug-it-out, slow-'em-down style around LeBron in last year's NBA Finals -- the team was without Love for the series and Irving after Game 1. Faced with a significant talent disadvantage, the Cavs coaches did their best to maximize the impact of the most dominant player in the world.

LeBron, while not necessarily efficient, was spellbinding in that series, but no one can win the NBA Finals singlehandedly, and the style only resulted in one win for the Cavs. Despite the Cleveland taking a 2-1 lead, the series was effectively a laugher the second the Warriors made a lineup change to start Draymond Green at center. Golden State increased the pace and the Cavs couldn't keep up.

The Cavaliers remembered how little of an adjustment it took for Golden State to seize control last year -- how much the increased pace knocked them off their game. The January blowout was a reality check. That's why David Blatt was fired and Tyronn Lue -- LeBron's confidant -- was put in charge. Lue was going to get the team to play a modern pace-and-space, run-and-gun style which would get the most out the deepest Cavs team in LeBron's tenure in Cleveland.

The new system worked wonders throughout the Eastern Conference Playoffs -- the Cavs were putting up 3-pointers at a record rate and the ball movement problems the team struggled throughout the regular season [a byproduct of frequently having two elite scorers (James and Irving) on the court together] looked alleviated.

The Cavs even learned a lesson in their relatively unfettered road to the Finals: When Cleveland dropped back-to-back games in Toronto in the Eastern Conference Finals, tying the series at 2-2, it was because they strayed from moving the ball on offense. The Cavs coaching staff addressed the problem before Game 5 and the players responded, running away with the series to clinch in six games.

The criticism on the Cavs was that they weren't tested heading into the Finals -- that of course, their newfound style worked against the weak competition in the Eastern Conference -- just wait until they play a real defense.

Thursday night's Game 1 lent tremendous credence to that argument.

The Cavs started the game with the intent of passing the ball, but after seeing the Warriors' defensive length and switching style, it seems they thought better of the idea and went back to running a variety of isolation sets for James, with some peppered in for Irving.

The Cavs spent last six months preparing for the first game of a rematch with the Warriors in the Finals and that plan lasted less than five minutes.

And if the Cavs play this offensive style throughout the series, they'll be lucky to win a single game. The Warriors know exactly how to stop it.

Perhaps even more concerning for the Cavs should be the apparent disconnect between LeBron -- who immediately addressed the team's lack of ball movement after Game 1 -- and Irving, who claimed that the Cavs' offense in the third quarter, which was mostly comprised of alternated isolation possessions between him and LeBron, was "our style."

Irving had four assists in the game -- one on the first play of the game, one on a swipe of a rebound that found Tristan Thompson, one off a deflected pass, and one brilliant one to JR Smith for a 3 down 17 with 4:45 to play. Irving shot a team-high 22 times, made 31 percent of his shots, and had three turnovers in the game.

If that's the Cavs' style, the Cleveland's sports fans better start turning their attention to the Indians -- because that's the only team with a chance to break the city's title drought.

James is in a no-win scenario: Against this Warriors' defense, running the offense through isolation sets with him, whether that's at the point or on the block, might be the most effective way to score -- when the Cavs need a basket to stop the Warriors' momentum, that's the play to run. But it's been proven that no one, not the Thunder nor the Cavs, can beat the Warriors playing that style for a majority of the game.

Can small ball, pace, and 3-pointers beat the Warriors? Only in their most prolific iterations, and the Cavs are not blessed with the personnel to reach that level.

But when you know the other option doesn't work, you at least have to try something else, right?

"We've got to be much better moving the ball, moving bodies," James said. "They're a great team when you just hold the ball and pound the ball. So we've got to do a better job with that, which Coach Lue and the coaching staff will make sure we do in Game 2."

The Cavaliers had months to figure out how to beat the Warriors. They found out within moments of the start that those efforts were made in vain. Now they have two days to figure out a new plan of action. It's hard to see that time wielding any answers, and because of that, it's hard to see the Cavs winning more than a game in this series.