Come The Hour, Come The Man: Richard Jefferson

It does not matter if you have a 426 Hemi American muscle car if you don’t have a spark plug to get the engine going. Wednesday night, that spark for the Cleveland Cavaliers was Richard Jefferson.

The feel-good story of the NBA Finals is Richard Jefferson. Clearly the Cleveland Cavaliers‘ second-best player in Game 2, Jefferson provided the energy and spark that had been missing from Cleveland’s Finals campaign so far against the Golden State Warriors.

With Kevin Love out through the concussion protocol, Jefferson was moved into the starting lineup, creating history along the way. His 13 years between NBA Finals starts is the longest in NBA history.

The start is thanks to the way that he played in Game 2. In his 33 minutes in Game 3, Jefferson had only nine points on 4-of-7 shooting. He also had eight rebounds, three of which were on the offensive glass, two assists and two steals.

It would have been so easy for Tyronn Lue to start Tristan Thompson at power forward and Timofey Mozgov at center. The result of the game likely would have been quite different had he done that.

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Mozgov brings quality interior defense, but he does not have the same spark that Jefferson has.

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As usual, the stats don’t tell the whole story.. Anyone watching the game saw the energy and intensity that was Jefferson. His tight defense caused poor shot selection and a very slow start from

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Andrew Bogut scored Golden State’s first four points and had to take a three-point shot. Thompson was grabbing defensive rebounds. Talk about turning an opposition team on its head.

When Jefferson caught the ball in the corner to shoot for his first three, he never looked like missing the shot, capping off a 9-0 run for Cleveland to start the game. Cleveland never trailed in Game 3, winning by 30.

There will be other stories from this game. Kyrie Irving ending the first quarter with 16 points. He ended the game with 30 points on 12-of-25 shooting and had eight assists.

LeBron James collected a game-high 32 points on 14-for-26 shooting. He also had 11 rebounds, eight assists and two blocks. More than that, he rediscovered his energy and closed out on defense, turning that into the devastating offense that he is so famous for.

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Jefferson’s energy was infectious. James nor Irving looked like shells of themselves in the first two games.  In Game 3 they were back to their devastating best. I did not see Golden State get one uncontested layup in the first three quarters, a stark change from the Game 2 disgrace.

One question is whether or not the performance of Jefferson means that Love comes off the bench in Game 4? This would mirror the Golden State story of last year when Bogut started every game that he played until midway through the finals.

He was replaced in the starting lineup by Andre Iguodala. Bogut barely played after that and Golden State won the title.

That would be an incredibly gutsy call by Lue, but this Finals series desperately needed a shakeup. The intangibles of Jefferson caused just that. If his energy starts Cleveland off in Game 4 like it did in Game 3, with Love then able to come off the bench and have less pressure on him, why not?

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Jefferson was never going to carry the offensive load for this game, he is no longer that player. At least we have a contest now.