The Cleveland Cavaliers are a heavy underdog heading into the NBA Finals, and that is exactly the way general manager David Griffin wants it.
Following their closeout win over the Boston Celtics on Thursday night, Griffin said his team performs better when the odds are long.
“I hope everybody says we have no chance,” he said, via Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com. “Obviously the team we’re playing is as good as you can possibly put together, it’s going to be an unbelievable battle for us, but I think [the Cavs] love battling together. The greater the odds, the better we seem to play together. We really do rally around each other in that sense.”
It’s almost insane to think of the Cavs as a big underdog. They have lost just one postseason game, and they completely blew the doors off the Celtics in three of their four wins over them. However, the Warriors are coming off of three consecutive series sweeps and appear unstoppable.
We all know what happened last year: the Warriors blew a 3-1 series lead against Cleveland, and LeBron James put the Cavs on his back en route to his third NBA championship. However, things seemed to take a bad turn for Golden State when Draymond Green — one of their best defenders — was suspended for Game 5. That team also didn’t have Kevin Durant.
It would be silly to give LeBron “no chance,” but even he indicated he understands why the Cavs are a seven-point underdog in Game 1 when he made these comments on Thursday. We should be in for a highly entertaining series.
