We have become spoiled by the NBA finals being filled with transcendent superstars and All-Star laden “superteams”.
It’s easy to just assume that the Warriors with their All-Star line up have already secured another Championship and that neither the Rockets nor either of the teams from the East have a chance to stop them anytime soon.
However, both the Celtics and Cavaliers have already overcome great odds and turned in outstanding performances in these playoffs. That makes it hard to bet against either of them even though the scales seem to be massively stacked against them both.
The only question is whether you want to place your money on a team that has thrived in spite of losing their leaders or a legend who has placed a team full of mediocre talent on his back and carried them further than anyone could expect.
Obviously, if you are a fan of one of the teams, it makes it way easier to choose, but for the rest of us it makes more sense to believe we are about to witness some of the dramatic basketball we have ever seen. Boston has shown they can make it almost impossible for young superstars to outscore them and the veteran, LeBron James, has shown that he can destroy almost anything in his path.
LeBron has already thrown up four 40 point games in these playoffs. The fact that critics had the Pacers eliminating the King before he put on the gloves and started throwing haymakers, shows just how hungry he is to cement his legacy as a basketball diety. James has proven lately that he plays his best ball when he knows he can’t count on anyone else to help him out and right now it appears he has a squad that’s primed to make him shine in that regard.
Boston on the other hand has melded as a team because of heart and great coaching. They have already destroyed two upstart teams and sent them back to the drawing board to figure out how to beat a mature team that simply wants it more. They have made it pretty clear that if LeBron wants to beat them he might have to reach into his bag of tricks and pull out a couple of 50 or 60 point gems.
There are parts of me that wants to see Boston expose the Cavs for their inadequacies and pick them apart like a scanvanger on a roadkill corpse. It would be a great story and probably a better matchup for the critics to analyze when the Finals roll around. Fans would get an overload of clever quips like, “Imagine how good they will be when they get Kyrie back…”
Yet, the thought of LeBron going out and doing incredible things for another four to seven games and leaving us with our jaws on the ground, yet again, definitely has it’s own type of appeal. We know one thing for sure, if Cleveland wins this series, it won’t be the Cavs that win it, it will be the King himself, by himself, and that is exactly why we can’t wait to turn on the first game.
Right now, both of these teams are winning not only in spite of, but because of their weaknesses. That makes it impossible to predict who will prevail but it also almost guarantees that whichever team does win, will have also won over our hearts.