The Cavaliers have been beaten — twice. They have been bludgeoned and they have been embarrassed. They have made the Eastern Conference look like the AFL in a pre-Namath Super Bowl.
Now, trailing the Warriors, 2-0, and heading back to Cleveland for Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, the Cavaliers find themselves just a couple of missteps from elimination.
Going against a defending champion doubling as the best regular-season team in NBA history, LeBron James sees it no other way, especially since no NBA team ever has come back from a three-game series deficit.
“Obviously, it’s a do-or-die game for us,” James said Tuesday. “We can’t afford to go down 3-0 to any team, especially a team that’s 73-9 in the regular season and playing the type of basketball they’re playing. So it’s a do-or-die game for us, and we understand that.
“There is no way we can go down 3-0. … It will be more adversity if we got to that point, which I don’t believe we will.”
Despite back-to-back losses by a combined 48 points — including a 33-point blowout in Game 2 — the Cavaliers find belief in their undefeated record at home in the playoffs (7-0). They find confidence from having defeated the Warriors at home in Game 3 of last year’s Finals.
The Cavaliers also find comfort across the court, facing an opponent who was even closer to the end of its season after getting hammered in consecutive games in Oklahoma City, which put the Warriors down 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals.
“Yes, we talked about it,” Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said of Golden State’s recent predicament. “They came back, and it’s just winning one game. When you win one game, it changes the whole series.
“So we’re not in that bad of shape as they were — 3-1 is worse than 2-0. And they came back and took it one game at a time, like we have to do. Like I said, we’re confident and we’re home. We haven’t lost a playoff game here either, so we’re going to be ready to play.”
If Cleveland is to become the fourth team in Finals’ history to win a championship after losing the first two games — most recently accomplished by the 2006 Heat — at least one win will be required in Oakland, where the Warriors have lost just three times all season.
Earning another opportunity on the road may be more attainable than it appears against the seemingly unstoppable Warriors, who have gone 3-4 away from home in the postseason and have lost Game 3 in every round of this year’s playoffs.
Coach Steve Kerr said Golden State previously may have “let [its] guard down” with a 2-0 series advantage and need to be prepared for the Cavaliers’ increased aggression and emotion and energy, created by the Cleveland crowd.
Stephen Curry said he hoped the Warriors’ lead wouldn’t prevent them from doing the same.
“We know they’re going to come out with a sense of urgency in the moment, but we need to have that same mentality, because for what’s at stake, if we’re able to go up 3-0, that is a great position to be in,” Curry said. “So we can’t get complacent. We can’t celebrate anything because we haven’t accomplished anything yet.”
The Warriors are two wins from a second straight title — something that could happen as early as Friday in Cleveland — but don’t sound like a team on the verge of another championship, merely one who knows what it takes to capture it.
“I’ll tell you now, [the Cavaliers are] not going to lay down because they’re down 2-0,” Klay Thompson said. “It’s not easy, but it’s very possible for a team to even up the series. So we can’t relax. No time to relax.”
