OAKLAND, Calif. — For several days, LeBron James was preaching and teaching about the evils of turnovers. The Cavaliers had 17 in Game 1 and they led to 25 Warriors points. Hellfire and brimstone poured forth from James.
And then he committed the sins himself.
On a night when James’ offense was needed most — Kevin Love was injured and limited to 20:46 and Kyrie Irving was little more than a 10-point spectator — James committed seven of the Cavs’ 18 turnovers. And he shouldered the blame when he was asked if he needed to be more selfish in his play and just take the ball and score instead of trying to find teammates.
“Selfish is probably the wrong term. I got myself in a lot of trouble tonight personally,” said James, who finished with 19 points, nine assists, eight rebounds — but only shot four free throws and sat the entire fourth quarter as the game turned into a rout. “Turned the ball over way too much.
“And I said after Game 1 we just can’t turn the ball over against a great team and expect to win, and I had basically half of the turnovers. We had some in the fourth quarter, but we had our third group in. They had some. But I had half of the turnovers when I came out, and it resulted in them getting some easy baskets.”
And easy baskets for the Warriors is the surest path to elimination for the Cavs. Not that they’ve shown a lot to get all pumped about.
“I’ve got to be better. I’ve got to be better with the ball. You know, trying to play-make for myself and play-make for my teammates at the same time, I’ve just got to be more solid,” said James.
Even with a 2-0 lead, the Warriors are not all peppy about going to Cleveland to face a frustrated, desperate and determined James.
“We’re not comfortable playing against LeBron, to be honest with you. We’re comfortable as a team playing together,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said. “We’re comfortable with our ability to defend. We’re comfortable with our ability to create offense off of our defense because of the shooting and the playmaking that we have. And I would say we’re confident that we can beat anybody.
“But we’re definitely not comfortable playing against LeBron. He’s obviously one of the great players in the history of this game, and we’ve had success the first two games, but there’s a lot of basketball left,” Kerr said.
James knows that.
“We’ve got to get back to the film and we all have to figure out ways we can help the team be successful. It’s hard for me to kind of pinpoint what’s not working and what could work right now,” James said, missing the key word: everything.
“Obviously not much is working, especially offensively. Defensively we’ve been good at times and then at times we just looked like, OK, we’re a step slow. We messed up on the coverage. We don’t get back or we’re just one step behind where we should be,” James said.
