If Cleveland Wins the Finals; It Will Not Be An Upset
While the Golden State Warriors seem to be the overwhelming betting favorites for the NBA Finals, they should not be looked at as underdogs. The Cavs won a measly 51 games this season which is nothing short of underachieving for a team of their calibre, and left them 16 games behind their opponents. If you go down position by position though, the Cleveland Cavaliers are actually the more talented team.
Their big three are every bit as talented in LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love (once though of as a top 5 or ten player in the whole league), but the big difference is the bench is loaded with talented guys who are former all-stars (Deron Williams and Kyle Korver) or guys who are more than capable on starting for most other teams (J.R. Smith, Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert, Channing Frye, and Derrick Williams). Golden State has a big four (Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green) and solid Andre Iquodala, but feature a much less heralded group in Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee, and Ian Clarke.
And judging by Cleveland's run through the playoffs, they totally mailed in the regular season and are only underdogs due to their often inconsistent performances throughout this year. They looked like a 66 win team in route to losing one game in three Eastern Conference playoff series.
In the end, this series will come down to whose big three will show up to perform and will the Warriors be able to put the three pointers down in the big moments of the series.
