The Warriors and Cavaliers have a rivalry going, but let’s wait until June

The Golden State Warriors’ Christmas Day loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers won’t mean a whole lot if these two teams face each other in the Finals again.

Last Christmas, the Golden State Warriors took on the Cleveland Cavaliers in a much-anticipated primetime matchup. ESPN ran a promo with Santa declaring LeBron James’ wish: “All I want for Christmas is to beat the Warriors. Signed, Bron Bron.” Everyone was dying to know if LeBron and Cavs — at full strength — could exact revenge for the Warriors beating them in the Finals over the summer.

They didn’t. The Warriors won, 89-83. The Cavs still weren’t a legitimate threat. A few weeks later, the Warriors traveled to Cleveland and turned the Cavs into a laughingstock with a 132-98 blowout. Not only were the Warriors the defending champions, but they had also embarrassed the Cavs again in two regular season games.

But here’s the thing: those wins meant nothing. Fast forward five months and the Cavs were hoisting the Larry O’Brien Trophy at Oracle Arena after the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead (a phrase I have typed so much that we should create a code name for “blew a 3-1 lead”).

We are all prone to the recency effect, and the Cavaliers pulling off a thrilling — albeit controversial — one-point win over the Warriors on Christmas just fanned the flames.

The game had everything you could have possibly wanted from this matchup, which barely lasted a minute before Draymond Green lost his cool and was preceded by an admittedly magnificent (as petty as it was) troll job by the Cavs:

The game had to give Warriors fans PTSD from last season’s Finals. LeBron did that chasedown thing again. The Warriors blew another big lead. Once again, Steph Curry couldn’t find his shot. Once again, Kyrie made THE shot. And Richard Jefferson came back from the dead.

People, of course, had salt to rub in. Plenty of salt.

But regular season games mean nothing in the long run. If we didn’t learn it after the Warriors went 2-0 against the Cavs last year, we definitely learned it when they won 73 games and didn’t win a ring. The Cavs, meanwhile, fought through a sluggish regular season that featured a mid-season coaching change, passed through an easy Eastern Conference en route to the Finals, and looked dead in the water before winning three straight games.

Though, if you must seek some sort of meaning from this game, it’s this: the Warriors and Cavaliers are so far ahead of the rest of the pack, it’s not even funny. The rivalry, the intensity, the skill, the storylines — no other non-conference matchup in the NBA right now comes close. Spurs-Raptors? Punt. Clippers-Celtics? Nah.

Barring injury or something else unforeseen, these two teams will be meeting in the NBA Finals this season, next season and the season after that. Every game will be another iteration of who wins out: the Warriors and their embarrassment of riches or LeBron and his sheer willpower.

We also can take away the disconcerting fact that the Cavaliers are the only team in the league who are not rattled by the Warriors. They have a blueprint of shutting down Steph. They took on the addition of Kevin Durant and somehow negated his effect, too. They don’t give in when falling behind, while other teams glance at a double-digit fourth quarter deficit against the Warriors and start forcing the issue. At no point in that game did I feel comfortable about a win, even when the Warriors were up by 14. Against any other team, I might have already penciled in a “W” before the fourth quarter began.

I will not go as far as saying the Cavaliers have the Warriors “figured out.” Nobody truly “figures out” this team; the only way they lose is if they underperform and beat themselves. When the Warriors have the ball hopping around, offense running crisply and efficiently with the talent they have, they’re unstoppable — and it doesn’t matter whether the other team has LeBron.

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But this is why we play the games. The Warriors have another half of the season to gel as a unit, to be more consistent and to find a way to have all of their big guns rolling every night.

For now, the Cavs can be proud, knowing they have the ring and still have what it takes to beat the Warriors. Though, they don’t have to look far to understand that this is far from a guaranteed repeat. The Cavs visit Oracle on Jan. 16, and maybe the Warriors will come away with a home win — but to be honest, I’m just sitting here, waiting for June.