I've been watching basketball for the better part of 50 years. I've never seen a game end quite like game one did. The law of averages says that game two won't be as close or exciting as Friday nights instant classic, but I decided to write a little game 2 preview anyway.
Yes Golden State Will Win Game Two Too
Over the course of the NBA season, I have been working to re-tune my Pigskin Prognosticator to handicap NBA basketball games. Full disclosure: It's still way better at picking football games against the spread than it is picking hoops winners. That being said my python pick 'em app (I really need a good name for this system) likes the Dub's -9.
As I write this the line at oddsshark.com is 11.5 and has been pretty steady. Of course game one went to overtime and the line was a record setting 12.5. Game two's line makes sense to me. I think that KD will have a better game then he did last Friday. James probably won't score that many points again either, although with his astronomical usage rate it's a possibility.
Speaking of Mr. James, I will spare you my LeBron James should'a had at least 7-8 fouls rant, because really, that could follow the majority of Cav's games. To me the weirdest part of game one was not J.R. Smith doing J.R. Smith stuff, the Cleveland bench not being terrible, or Draymond Green baiting an opponent into over-reacting. The craziest part of game one was the charge/block call/review/reversal.
The reversal after review was wrong on so many levels and was the biggest swing in the game. If the Cavs get that call and James draws the charge on Durant, the Cavs win the game.
The ref's overturned the charge after watching a video to see if 'Bron's feet were outside the block/charge circle. They were. But the ref's saw something else they didn't like after watching replay after replay and overturned the original call. I would think that if you watched every play in a game over and over and over, you could see an illegal happening in the majority of the plays. But I digress...
I expect things to return closer to normal form in game 2. Sure the Warriors may turn the ball over a little more often than the 7 they had in the opening game. By the same token I have to think that Kevin Durant will have a better shooting night than his 8-22 effort in game one. The Warriors will have to rebound better, Cleveland killed them on the O-Glass in game one. If I was Steve Kerr, I would get them to push the ball more often, as transition points were the Dub's biggest advantage in game one.
And of course I expect J.R. will be doing J.R. stuff.