The defending champions Cavs came into this game having just lost one game all through the playoffs and if you thought that was impressive, The Warriors came into this round undefeated 12-0. Now for the purists of the game, you know who you are, the anti-analytics fans, these numbers must be driving you crazy. Not as crazy as they drove the Cavs head coach Tyronn Lue in the first half. The home team Warriors went into the break leading 60-52, just an 8 point lead. Well, on paper and as a casual observer, that might have seemed infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things but consider this.

The Warriors had 42 points in the paint compared to 20 by the visiting Cavs, a 20-point differential. These numbers alone should stick out like a sore thumb. The Cavs game is predicated on getting easy points in the paint, going just by the physical constitution of the team. On any given day trying to guard LeBron James is going to be a handful, just ask the Boston Celtics, who kept having mismatch issues with him in the first two games of the Eastern Conference Finals. That being said they really shoot the 3-ball well, well enough to stretch any opposition defense to perilous limits. However in this particular start of the NBA finals, they looked a pale shadow of their 3-point selves, shooting a woeful 35 percent, going 11 of 31 from beyond the arc.

That however was not their biggest problem in this game. There was a concerted effort by Ty Lue and his charges to play a more inside game, after all, trying to out play a nearly 50 percent 3-point shooting team by jacking up shots from deep is not exactly a winning formula. To their credit they managed to do that early on in the first quarter with James attempting eight free-throws after strong drives to the basket, scoring 15 of his game total 28 points in that early period of the game. What essentially killed the wine and gold were their turnovers. They were careless with the ball to a tune of 20 for the game, 17 midway through the 3rd quarter.

While James was his usual dominant self, read 28 points 15 rebounds 8 assists, he was culpable for some of those turnovers, 8 to be exact; 4 more than what the entire Warriors team committed the whole game. With a team like Golden State whose offense is well oiled, you can’t afford to give them Christmas gifts in June. Some of that carelessness with the ball was not entirely unforced however as the Warriors stepped it up a notch defensively, perhaps weary of their 3-1 lead in last season’s Finals [we all know how that ended], stealing the ball 12 times while getting 18 second chance points.

The turnovers limited the Cavs game and seemed to cut a deep wound into their mental approach of the game. This was punctuated early on when a Steph Curry in-bound pass, which had no business reaching Kevin Durant at the opposite end of the court, was not picked up leading to an easy dunk by the former MVP. As a team, which protects the paint well, the Cavs were just poor, allowing a total of seven dunks in the first quarter alone. What do they need to do better in Game 2? Keep the turnovers to single digits, exploit the LeBron/Kyrie Irving pick and roll that exposed Steph Curry’s weakness in defending the play and defend well in transition. A few good things happened for the defending champs. They managed to stifle The Warriors 3-point threat, limiting them to 36 percent while winning the rebounding effort 59-50. It is a game of numbers and when the Cavs get back to their hotel and watch the game film, they will rue their missed chance of stealing Game 1, the most important stat of the night.

By Fidel Maithya