1. It's far too early to make any concrete declarations about victors or losers in this series. Mainly because Stephen Curry is a preternaturally gifted lightskinned genie equipped with the ability to actually make the type of shots that regularly get terrible pick-up basketball players stabbed for even attempting. And I'm forever fearful of people who give so little fucks that they didn't even bother getting a shape up for their own wedding.
But, I'll go out on the limb right now and say this: Playoff Lebron James apparently does not lose to little guys. In the last decade, the teams who have beaten the teams he's been on have had one thing in common. Dominant big guys. Boston with Kevin Garnett. Orlando with Dwight Howard. San Antonio with Tim Duncan. And Dallas with Dirk Nowitzki. But every time he's played against a top team whose best player is a perimeter player (Chicago with Derrick Rose, Oklahoma City with Kevin Durant, and now Golden State with Curry), his teams seem to have the advantage.
This all could be coincidental — and Golden State can very well still win this series, making this moot — but I think it just has to do with the physicality Lebron brings to the game. As great as Rose and Durant and Curry are, Lebron is able to impose his will on the game and swallow them up. And, even if he's not actually guarding them himself, his physicality has an osmosis effect, permeating and reverberating through the other nine players on the court and ultimately bending everyone else's reality to align with his. Basically, he's a bully. Which may seem like an insult, but isn't. Because all historically great players are, in some way.
2. Just to give you an idea of how weird and wacky this Finals has been, Matthew Dellavedova shot a 25 foot runner last night. While contested. And with enough time left on the shot clock where a contested 25 foot runner was not his only option.
And I was surprised that it didn't go in.
Nothing makes sense anymore. Matthew Dellavedova is an event horizon.
I love that the reaction to how he's playing represents everything I hate about how low information fans generally perceive the NBA. I love that he might have been the worst regular rotation NBA player in the league this season, but he's currently bothering the league MVP enough to make people seriously wonder if Curry has a serious brain injury. I love that every time Mike Breen says his name, I imagine him having the same stars in his eyes that Ser Jorah does when he sees Khaleesi. I love the fact that every time he shoots it looks like an SNL cast member doing an impression of Dane Cook doing an impression of Mark Price.
Nothing makes sense anymore. Matthew Dellavedova is an event horizon.
3. Harrison Barnes sucks.
4. Raise your hand if you want me to devote some space to how the quality of the refereeing is affecting your enjoyment of the game and/or making you believe things are scripted or predetermined in some way. Now keep that hand up, walk to the nearest mirror, look at yourself, and give yourself the finger.
5. Lebron James is basically averaging a 40 point triple double. In the NBA Finals. While playing against an historically great team (numbers wise, at least). And playing with seven functional NBA players. Plus a guy (Mike Miller) who always looks like he just woke up from a car nap at a rest stop in Aliquippa. And a coach who, at this point, is more of a "coach" than a coach.
And I don't think he's playing particularly well.
Nothing makes sense anymore.