Cleveland Cavaliers: 2016-17 Season Outlook

Three Key Storylines: 3. Cavaliers vs. Warriors, Part III

Let’s not beat around the bush: Barring injuries and some sort of unexpected leap from the Raptors or Celtics in the East, the Cavaliers are heading for their third straight NBA Finals appearance, while the same could be said of the Warriors out West.

Cavaliers vs. Warriors Part III is on the docket.

Of course, there’s a reason they play the games. If everything had gone according to plan, the Thunder would’ve been thoroughly beaten by the Spurs, or the Warriors wouldn’t have overcome a 3-1 deficit in the conference finals, or the Cavaliers wouldn’t have overcome a 3-1 deficit in the finals…you get the picture.

However, a 73-win team just added one of the three best players in the NBA, and unlike the super-teams we’ve seen over the past few years, he’s really an idyllic fit for his new team. The versatility, defense, scoring and three-point shooting in Golden State is going to be unfair.

With another monster preparing for its league-wide onslaught, everything the Cavaliers do this year needs to be with this potential — and entirely likely — Finals matchup in mind.

Feed Kevin Love minutes now; he might be unplayable for long stretches of a Finals matchup. Keep Kyrie healthy; Cleveland will need him at 100 percent to pull off an upset. Rest LeBron; he’ll need to unleash his finest Finals performance yet at age 32.

By re-signing J.R. Smith, the Cavs avoided having a gaping hole on the wing — one which Iman Shumpert has repeatedly failed to fill. That being said, did Cleveland do enough to prepare for this newest Golden State beast by bringing back Smith and trading for Dunleavy, especially with Mozzy and Delly gone?

The Warriors aren’t a deep team, and like the Cavaliers, that won’t matter in a high-octane Finals series when rotations are severely shortened. As much as Cavs fans will never admit it (especially after they were banged up in the Finals the year prior), that 3-1 comeback really did require a perfect storm.

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LeBron’s heroic final three games of the series were the lasting image, and rightfully so, but it doesn’t change the fact that without Draymond Green‘s Game 5 suspension, Stephen Curry‘s inconsistency born from a knee injury a few weeks prior, Andrew Bogut‘s injury and Harrison Barnes going 5-for-31 over the last three games of the series, the end result may have been very different.

Again, that’s not to take anything from the Cavs. Like we said about the Warriors in 2015, you can’t help what happens to your opponents en route to a title; you play against who’s out there.

But the Cavaliers would be fooling themselves to bank on a similar self-destructing act from Golden State in 2017. Barring injury, the Dubs are going to be even more dangerous in the playoffs than they were last year.

A healthy Stephen Curry isn’t going to be as timid in his third Finals with vengeance on his mind. A motivated Klay Thompson probably isn’t going to stink up the joint again. Kevin Durant isn’t going to miss all the wide open threes Harrison Barnes bricked in those last three games.

Kyrie vs. Curry. J.R. vs. Klay. LeBron vs. KD. Love vs. Draymond. Thompson vs. Zaza Pachulia. The matchups are going to be glorious, and the entire 2016-17 season is pretty much on a collision course toward this inevitable showdown.

The question is whether we can finally get a fully healthy series between these two teams, and if that’s the case, whether LeBron and company have enough in the tank to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds one more time.

Next: Best, Worst Case Scenarios