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Earlier today, I wrote about how the Cleveland Cavaliers shouldn’t put any stock in the idea of sitting Kyrie Irving if he was at all able to play through his injuries.
I may have changed my mind. Let Irving rest, I guess. The Cavs don’t appear to need him.
Cleveland took on the Atlanta Hawks in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Finals tonight without Irving on the floor. His knee tendonitis was deemed too difficult to play through, so the Cavs had to try and beat Atlanta without him. Already playing without Kevin Love for the rest of the year, Cleveland was now down to relying on just one of their vaunted Big Three.
And yet, it didn’t even matter. In fact, on this night, it sure looked like the Cavs could’ve won without LeBron James, too.
Ok, that might be a stretch, as James’ 30 points, eleven assists and nine rebounds were certainly a key factor in Cleveland’s dominating 94-82 win over Atlanta. Still, somehow a depleted Cavs team just took the top-seeded Hawks to the woodshed, and did so with yet another star player unable to take the court.
Seriously, how is this happening? There were plenty of people around the NBA who thought the Cavs were in significant trouble when Love went down way back in the opening round of the postseason. Take away Irving, too? You’d think any opponent would jump at the chance to take down Cleveland when they have such a weakened roster.
The Hawks, however, left this game sitting in an 0-2 hole as the series heads to Northeast Ohio. Not only could they not beat a Cavs team missing two of its best players, they got absolutely annihilated.
Honestly, you wouldn’t have been terribly surprised if Cleveland came out a little slow tonight. The team knows how badly Irving is hurting, and hearing he wasn’t going to be able to play tonight certainly had to be deflating. But, if it was, you really couldn’t tell. The Cavs came out fast and strong, and after a back-and-forth first quarter, they proceeded to run away with the game.
They did it thanks to the aforementioned stats from James. They did it with hot shooting from Iman Shumpert, with clutch minutes from James Jones and – stop me if you’ve heard this before – with Tristan Thompson owning the glass yet again, grabbing another 16 rebounds.
Again, desperately needing a win to get back in the series, the Hawks had to rally tonight. With Irving deemed unable to play, this was their opportunity to regain momentum and take down a hobbled Cleveland team.
Instead, they were absolutely wrecked. Love wasn’t needed. Irving wasn’t needed. The Cavs wiped the floor with the best team in the conference, and they did it with what seemed like half of their everyday roster.
It just doesn’t really make any sense. If you only saw the final score of tonight’s game, you would’ve never guessed Cleveland was able to win so convincingly against the Hawks with Irving playing zero minutes. This game should’ve been closer, it should’ve been apparent the Cavs were missing so many key pieces.
But it wasn’t. Somehow, a team which many thought had a little too top-heavy of a roster was able to easily prevail despite two of their best players being unavailable.
Love won’t be back this postseason. If Irving returns, it’s likely he’ll still be in pain. Despite all of this, though, Cleveland is just two wins away from heading to the NBA Finals. It shouldn’t be possible. You’d think a situation like this would be a devastating blow for any team.
Well, any team except the Cavs, apparently.
Casey Drottar is the Cleveland Beat Writer for www.Rantsports.com. Follow him on Twitter or “Like” him on Facebook
