The Cavaliers have found their Christmas Day excuse

The Golden State Warriors will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Christmas Day in a highly anticipated matchup. The Cavs already have their excuses.

With the game on the line, Kevin Love made a (smart) decision to give Steph Curry anything he wanted inside the arc. The league’s first unanimous MVP didn’t want the two, looking to respond to Kyrie Irving’s three with one of his own. Curry couldn’t get the space he wanted because Love only defended the tree and Twitter lost its collective mind.

A lot of things went wrong for Golden State in Games 5-7 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Curry’s injury clearly slowed him down as the minutes added to the stress of his MCL sprain. Andrew Bogut’s and Andre Iguodala’s untimely injuries didn’t help either. Draymond Green’s suspension hurt and Harrison Barnes forgetting how to play basketball did them in.

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All of the good fortune that the Dubs have had since Steve Kerr took over fell apart. They had their worst three game stretch in two years. The greatest team ever–that had thoroughly dominated the Cleveland Cavaliers in five of their last seven meetings–seemed to all of a sudden forget how to play basketball.

Now, the Warriors aren’t allowed to point these things out. Because they went 73-9 with the first ever unanimous MVP. Because they danced and celebrated all year long. Because they were up 3-1.

The Cavaliers are the rightful champions, but it seems odd that they get a pass for their loss when Golden State had just as much go wrong for them. The Warriors aren’t allowed to point out these things while their title was constantly discredited.

Whether it’s not enough help or some name calling on the court, LeBron James’ teams always seem to have some kind of excuse when they lose. The Warriors and the Cavaliers will face each other on Christmas Day for the second consecutive year. Golden State has armed itself with Kevin Durant while Cleveland has armed itself with excuses.

I can already hear it now; Charles Barkley’s slow drawl saying well Kevin and JR weren’t playing so those soft Warriors can’t beat Cleveland full strength. Twitter’s deplorables prioritizing their phones over their families on Christmas. They’ll angrily type “it doesn’t count.”

The Warriors are significantly better than the Cavaliers. A short handed and hobbled Golden State team played their worst basketball in two years and barely lost to peak LeBron and nearly flawless Kyrie in seven games. That was with a horrible Harrison Barnes’ performance. The Dubs are now armed with a front runner for the 2016-17 MVP in Durant.

I actually started writing this piece a few days ago when Love started to miss games. I figured Ty Lue would hold him out of the big game so that when the Cavs lose, they have an excuse to fall back on. It was the perfect plan.

Now, JR Smith is going to miss an extended period of time after having thumb surgery. Lue and James don’t even have to resort to forcing a player to sit out–Smith’s injury does that for them.

To be fair, the shooting guard was a serious difference maker in last year’s NBA Finals, especially in Game 7 when he bothered Andre Iguodala enough to allow James to execute his amazing chasedown block. And Love has been great this year, building off that final stop in Game 7. But neither of those guys are enough to stop the new-look Warriors.

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Golden State will march into Quicken Loans Arena and leave with a victory probably without really breaking a sweat, just like they did in last year’s regular season matchup in Cleveland. They would have done so with Smith and Love available. Instead, those two will sit out and we’ll do the thing again where we don’t give the Warriors credit for winning.

That isn’t all that bad. Draymond Green and co. do their best work when they’re getting slighted. They’ll just build on Barkley and the worst NBA Twitter has to offer and bring it all back in June.

Unless, of course, those other guys find another excuse.