In Game 3 of the NBA Finals the Cleveland Cavaliers could not win against the Golden State Warriors and now there is even a sweep. Rodney Hood’s performance should have given us hope – but this opportunity was also wasted.
It is one of the formative storylines of these playoffs from the point of view of the cavaliers, perhaps even the formative one: LeBron James doesn’t have enough help. His team is too inconsistent and often lacks a second playmaker, so the superstar has to create almost all litters for himself and his teammates. As an absolute one-man-show, the Cavs are notorious.
Often this criticism has also been appropriate in the postseason. Of course LeBron just defensively did not do everything alone, as this is not possible anyway, but he certainly had to shoulder more responsibility and shares of the game than anyone was supposed to do. George Hill had a few good games as a secondary playmaker, otherwise the Cavs lived offensively but almost exclusively from LeBron, the threesome and offensive rebounds.
She carried this not exactly complicated combination into the finals, so it was probably not “wrong” to bet on it. Now seems to be the end of the line, even for LeBron it’s not realistic to catch up by 0-3, especially against this team. And while Cleveland licks his wounds after another missed opportunity, the third game in the series raised questions – would there have been more in the squad after all?
For example, why did it take Rodney Hood so long to get a chance in the finals?
The relationship between the Swingman and the Cavs has so far been anything but positive. When Cleveland converted the squad to a deadline, Hood was actually regarded as a man of hope, someone who could become a consistent second or third option for the Cavs, after all, in Utah to date he had scored 16.8 points at just under 39 percent from the triple line, coming from the bank.
The start was also promising, with Hood’s debut against Celtics promptly scoring 15 points. To this day, however, this has probably remained Hood’s highlight with the Cavs – a mixed rest of the Regular Season was followed by a hitherto miserable postseason. Before match 3 of the finals, he scored an average of 4.4 points (15 percent threesome) and at times flew out of the rotation completely.
He horsed with Tyronn Lue when he refused to get up from the bank during garbage time of game 4 against the Raptors. Even though he apologized afterwards, there were understandably more DNPs – which continued to scratch his self-confidence. Hood even admitted to Sports Illustrated after Game 2 that he looks at some of the highlights from his jazz days on YouTube to remember playing productive basketball not so long ago: “I have to remember:’That was this year!'”, Hood said.
For Hood, who had already polarized in Utah with partly outstanding and partly invisible ideas, Cleveland should actually be a great opportunity. The Swingman becomes Restricted Free Agent, with strong playoffs he could have been one of the more interesting names on the market. Instead, he has probably already cost himself a whole bunch of money, on the one hand with bad performances and on the other hand with this non-teamwork breakdown.
Lue is not without blame here either. The head coach sometimes held on to players for far too long during the playoffs, although they didn’t deliver consistently – possibly because he didn’t trust the alternatives. Players like Hood and Cedi Osman played no role at all at times, while a J.R. Smith, apart from the Toronto series, showed hardly any good games in this postseason, but still played the second most minutes in the Cavs (32.4).
And as I said: It was enough to get into the finals. Especially against Golden State, however, players who can switchen and take some weight off LeBron’s shoulders offensively are worth their weight in gold for Cleveland. Although Hood is not the most constant player, he at least brings the equipment to be a more than usable two-way wing.
That’s exactly who the Cavs need – actually. Game 3 showed the Swingman’s strengths: That Lue let him play 25:38 minutes at once after such a long time without relevant playing time, he used to 15 points (7/11 FG) and was in the second half partly Clevelands best offensive option. At first the Warriors had no answer to his drives and his midrange game, perhaps also because they had gotten a little cold from taking him in.
“Rodney played a good game. I’m very happy for him. He was aggressive and attacked the basket well,” praised Lue at the subsequent press conference. “We see what he brings in our training sessions. He’s very talented. “So I thought we’d give him a chance today, and he made the most of it.”
With regard to the offense, one could (almost) leave it at that. Defensively it turned out, however, that Hood had neither a rhythm nor the necessary coordination with his teammates. It often gave the impression that he didn’t know exactly when his team was going to switcht or when he was going to tramp or stay with his man. So it wasn’t a coincidence that he looked bad at several Warriors scores in the last minutes. Maybe a little more playing experience or a good team spirit would have helped here?
It was also not quite clear why Hood was almost completely out of the offense in the last four and a half minutes (except for one last roll with 2 seconds on the clock when the game was decided). He had scored three of his four litters in the fourth quarter before, while only James had scored a field goal from the rest of the team in this period (1/6 in total).
In the last four and a half minutes a three and a layup by James were the only field goals for Cleveland, otherwise there were eight bricks to see. Kevin Durant was also able to decide the game because the Cavs didn’t get anything on the chain for minutes and James couldn’t switch to supernova mode either.
It is paradoxical: Game 3 did not correspond to the narrative that LeBron has no help. This time at least parts of the supporting cast were absolutely delivered, first and foremost Kevin Love and Hood. James, however, played a below-average second half, compared to his standards, and so it was not enough in the end. That his ankle might have had something to do with it will soon be of no interest to anyone anyway.
Now even the sweep is imminent, nobody spoke of a comeback in the Quicken Loans Arena for the time being. LeBron’s assessment of Hood’s performance also showed that he won’t get another Larry O’Brien Trophy tattoo before Game 4 like Jason Terry once did.
“His athleticism, his length and his touch near the basket – that was just Rodney Hood we saw today. He was just aggressive. I think that apart from what he gave the team, this was a very important moment, especially for him. That was great to see,” James said.
Even if the moment was probably too late for the cavaliers.