One year after completing possibly the greatest comeback in NBA history by coming back from down 3-1 to defeat the 73-win Golden State Warriors, the Cleveland Cavaliers were defeated 4-1 in this year's NBA Finals. Some have been arguing that the Cavaliers never had a chance against the Warriors super team, but they had their chance to win game three and won game four. LeBron James and Kyrie Irving were both amazing, but what cost the Cavaliers a real chance was their other inconsistent starters and lack of a bench.
LeBron and Kyrie are not the problem
LeBron James averaged 33.6 points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in this NBA Finals, becoming the first player in history to average a triple-double during the finals. He also shot 56.4 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from three, although he was awful from the free throw line, shooting 64.9 percent. This was also the most points, rebounds, and assists LeBron has averaged in his entire career over a five-game stretch.
He also had his fifth postseason averaging 30 or more points, tying him with Kobe Bryant, only Jerry West (7) and Michael Jordan (12) have more. Kyrie Irving also showed up in a major way, averaging 29.4 points, 4 rebounds and 4.4 assists in the Finals.
He also shot 47.2 percent from the field, 41.9 percent from three and 90 percent from the free throw line.
The other starters were too inconsistent
For the NBA Finals, Kevin Love averaged 16 points, 11.2 rebounds, 2.2 steals and 1 block and assist per game. That does not seem too bad on paper, but he only shot 38.8 percent from the field and 38.7 percent from three.
He played great in games 2 and 4, scoring 27 and 23 points. However, he no-showed in games 3 and 5, scoring a total of 15 points on 3-17 shooting.
JR Smith had 3 points on 1-6 shooting in the first two games. Then he broke out over the last three averaging 18.6 points, shooting 19-31 (61.2 percent) from the field and 17-27 (62.9 percent) from three.
In the first four games of the series, Tristan Thompson averaged 3.25 points on 42 percent shooting, before his 15 points, 6-8 (75 percent) effort in game 5. He also had less than 5 rebounds in the first three games of the series, before finishing with 18 over the last two games.
Their bench was just awful
The end of the Cleveland Cavaliers bench, made up of Channing Frye, Dahntay Jones, Derrick Williams and James Jones, did nothing during the NBA Finals. The four of them played 35 total minutes, 23 of which came in the game two blowout. They were a combined 5-15 (33 percent) with 18 points.
The main backups on the Cavaliers bench, Kyle Korver, Iman Shumpert, Deron Williams and Richard Jefferson, did not do much better. These four combined for 74 points (14.8 per game) on 21-70 (30 percent) shooting from the field and 9-43 (20.9 percent) from three.
