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After a hard-fought 114-111 overtime victory on Sunday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers have a 3-0 series lead over the Atlanta Hawks in the Eastern Conference finals. A trip to the NBA Finals is inevitable at this point, without a historic comeback by Atlanta, so Cleveland needs to make sure key players are healthy enough to complete a title run.
Kyrie Irving has missed the last two games with tendinitis in his left knee, which speaks to the severity of the injury if he is sitting out playoff games at this stage. But the Cavaliers have won without him, and should continue to do so barring a significant injury that sidelines LeBron James. Irving should absolutely continue to sit until Game 1 of the NBA Finals, as long as an unlikely scenario doesn’t occur.
Irving will be a key player for the Cavaliers in the next series, with a likely matchup against the Golden State Warriors coming. Even though he may still not quite be at full strength, Irving can challenge league MVP Stephen Curry on both ends of the floor at a level that Matthew Dellavedova simply can’t.
Cleveland can win the Eastern Conference on Tuesday night, and even if the start of the NBA Finals is bumped up a couple days a full week between games would come at that point. Obviously, that would be an ideal situation to get Irving and other banged-up Cavaliers a bit of extra rest.
The only way Irving should see the floor again in the Eastern Conference Finals is if Atlanta somehow wins the next two games, and even then his minutes should be limited. Not to sound unkind, but the Hawks couldn’t win Sunday night when James started 0-for-10 from the floor, so there’s not much hope for Game 4.
Even though Irving was put through what was classified as an intense workout prior to Sunday night’s game, and theoretically is close to being able to play, there’s nothing for the Cavaliers to gain by playing him right now. Dellavedova has performed adequately in a bigger role, even if Hawks’ players haven’t appreciated his dives for loose balls over the last couple games.
Making sure Irving is as healthy as possible going forward has to be the top priority for Cleveland, if only to take some burden off of James. James embraces his place as team leader and he’ll remain clearly in that role, but I see Irving as the most important player for the Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals.
Brad Berreman is a Senior Writer at Rant Sports.com. Follow him on Twitter.
