The Conditional Cavaliers Face Elimination Again

Toward the end of Game 5 of the N.B.A. Finals, on Monday night, the commentator Mark Jackson, inspired by the Cleveland Cavaliers’ spectacular two-fronted attack, pluralized his most famous exclamation: “Momma,” he roared, “there go those men!” If the Cavs somehow manage to claim the title, staving off death by blue-and-gold confetti two more unlikely times, the Warriors will have the heroics of those men—LeBron James and his smaller, shot-happy sidekick Kyrie Irving—to blame. Their duelling-solos act, good for a combined eighty-two points on Monday, has, over the course of the Finals, revealed itself as the key trait of this Cavs team. When they win, they do so not by especially impressive movement—of the ball or of players without it—or by intricate defensive scheming but by the irrefutable and occasionally unstoppable talents of their two best players. This creates a slight difficulty for our current, obsessively “X”-and-“O”-focussed sports media: little of the usual talk of “adjustments” and “tweaks” seems to pertain. If LeBron’s and Kyrie’s shots are falling, the team is almost invincible. If they aren’t, they aren’t at all.

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