After dropping Game 1 of the NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors, 113-91, the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers will be looking to bounce back with a win on Sunday.
The champs will need to improve in several aspects of the game if they are to steal Game 2 inside a hostile Oracle Arena, including transition defense, ball security, bench productivity, and overall physicality. In Thursday night’s loss, the Cavs finished with 20 turnovers, 56 points allowed in the paint (42 in the first half), and zero takeaways (first team in NBA Finals history). Furthermore, Tristan Thompson, J.R. Smith, Kyle Korver, and Deron Williams combined for only three points.
Korver, who finished Game 1 with zero points, four rebounds, and one assist in 20 minutes of playing time, spoke to reporters and was asked if Golden State’s defense was the reason for Cleveland’s high number of turnovers, or if it was just a matter of being too loose with the ball.
“It’s a combination,” Korver said after playing in his first career NBA Finals game. “They do a great job of loading up the ball handler. I think the guys on the weak side, we gotta get ourselves into better position where they can make an easier pass to us — whether that’s just having smart movement or more action on the weak side. There are some adjustments there that we can kinda work on.”
Fox Sports Ohio’s Allie Clifton then asked Korver how important it is to understand that there are still a lot of basketball left to be played.
“Yea, I mean, that’s what we all have to realize,” Korver said. “Obviously, it hurts right now, but I think there are a lot of things we can do better. This team has been through a lot of amazing series’ before. We just gotta stay together, stay up, and there are a lot of games left to play.”
As most NBA fans know, the Cavs came back from a 3-1 deficit to win the Larry O’Brien trophy last season. When asked if he and the Cavs could draw some optimism from that fact, Korver wisely noted that one should never rest on their laurels.
“You don’t want to rest on that,” Korver said. “Like I said, these guys have been through some crazy series’ before. A lot of things can happen within a series from game to game. Things can change. Obviously, things don’t look good for us right now from the outside looking in, but we’re going to stay up and we’ll make some adjustments and get better.”
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Game 2 is scheduled to tip at 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, with ABC having live broadcast coverage.