Take two historically awesome three-point shooting teams, put them on the court together for the NBA Finals, and watch them run wild.
Or, in the case of Game 1, run wildly inept.
The Cleveland Cavaliers shot 7-of-21 (33.3 per cent) from three on Thursday night, the Golden State Warriors 9-of-27 (33.3 per cent).
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson looked feeble and indecisive, Kyrie Irving was a brick-laying mess and LeBron James was a wrecking ball, if wrecking balls were tools designed to swing haphazardly and commit turnovers.
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All the best players in this series were far from it in the opener, and, that one thing being equal, Golden State had far more in reserve.
It was a strange game, in that sense. The Warriors have a better Plan B than the Cavs – playing more defensive-minded, deliberate basketball than people are accustomed to seeing from them.
And that was part of how they won the first game of the series, as they mostly did the final three against Oklahoma City. They just probably were not expecting to have to pair it with a Plan C.
Shaun Livingston was magnificent, scoring 20 points and commanding the mid-range, injecting desperately needed easy points into the Golden State offence. Harrison Barnes opened aggressively, slashing to the hoop and finding a few good looks, finishing with 13 points.
Andre Iguodala hit big shots, including a pair of threes, in a 12-point effort. Leandro Barbosa had a lively 11 points on a perfect 5-for-5 night, and even Andrew Bogut had 10 points with some soft touches around the hoop (he had 10 points across last year’s entire finals series).
Noticeably absent in that rundown is any mention of Curry or Thompson, who were both decidedly not good. Thompson was invisible throughout much of the night, missing open looks and easy lay-ups when he did pop back into view.
Curry, inexplicably, kept taking the ball out of his own hands, starting offensive sets by handing off to the likes of Draymond Green and Iguodala at the top of the key, to go running off and get smothered by James, who bullied him around off-ball all evening.
It served a purpose, to an extent, drawing attention and opening up a lot of the space that the rest of the Warriors were thriving in. But it seemed unnecessarily deferential to Cleveland.
Not that it mattered. James was 9-of-21, and just 5-of-16 after a first quarter in which he looked dominant attacking the rim in isolation.
Irving was 7-of-22, a hailstorm of bad long-range twos and errant short-range efforts.
Kevin Love was a muted 7-for-17, settling for mediocre looks out of isolation sets more than he was keeping the ball moving and draining open threes.
Tristan Thompson had some points, but pretty much no one else on Cleveland had anything to contribute. They had just their second sub-90 point showing since mid-March.
Green can take some credit for that, balancing a kind of erratic offensive game with an absolutely crucial defensive anchoring, particularly his work down low on James.
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Game 1 was a view into what happens when Plan A goes awry for these two teams, and it unsurprisingly benefited Golden State.
It almost certainly, though, is not a game that will repeat itself this series. In that way, it is still like the NBA Finals are yet to really begin.
Only now they begin with the champions already 1-0 up.
jraymond@thenational.ae
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