Frustration is all you can see right now on the faces of the Golden State Warriors (80-20 SU, 55-44-1 ATS).
They're down 2-1 in this best-of-seven series to the Cleveland Cavaliers (67-32 SU, 49-50 ATS), and they are going to have to fight back if they want to knot this series up.
READING THE BODY LANGUAGE
LeBron James has already more than proven to us that he is the legitimately most valuable person in the entire NBA. There's no debating that any longer. He's been here, and he's done that, and even when things have been going against Cleveland in this series, he has always kept his head up, hasn't been afraid to seize the moment, and he has kept the team around him believing that games were going to go its way.
Stephen Curry has no such body language. In Game 2 when Golden State made its charge, there was never a point that we believed that he was ready to take over and make the biggest plays necessary to win on either end of the court. Yes, he hit a couple threes with the team way behind, and he did hit the layup to send the game to overtime, but when the chance was there to take the lead several times over in the OT period, he was nowhere to be found.
What many are going to remember about Curry in Game 3 are the three triples he made in the last minute and a half of the game. What we remember are those three turnovers that helped the team get into that position and the brick he fired when Iman Shumpert handed him a gift on an inbounds pass with less than a minute left in the game.
You can see it in the eyes of Curry, as well as it Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, the supposed leaders of this club. They don't know how to beat this Cleveland defense right now, and their body language suggests that they are really in dire straits. If they start to get some confidence and start whipping the ball around the court again, they'll be fine. It's when they get bogged down and try to run these half-court sets that you can see something is visibly wrong with the Warriors.
LOW POST PRESENCE
James is a monster, and he is going to get his 35-40 points or so in this game in all likelihood just as he has in each of the first three games. The question though, is what can the men do around him.
Timofey Mozgov has been aggressive with the ball around the rim, as has Tristan Thompson. Matthew Dellavedova has shown no relent when it comes to taking the ball to the hoop off the dribble as well, as four of his seven made field goals in Game 3 came either on runners going towards the basket or on short shots less than 10 feet from the cup.
You wouldn't know it by looking at Cleveland's field goal percentage, but it is getting really quality shots when James isn't shooting the ball. Granted, we know that LeBron can get his shot going to the rim as well, but he commands significantly more attention.
Cleveland's offense needs to start at the basket. Most of the threes that the non-James players hit are coming off of either offensive rebounds or off dribble penetration.
Live bettors need to be very aware of the fact that this slows down the game. If Cleveland is having its way with the shot clock, working things down into the late stages of possessions, there's no reason to believe that anything is going to change. Backing the Cavs and the under will clearly be the right call.
However, if the pace gets a little out of hand as it did late in the third quarter and into the fourth on Tuesday night, Cleveland could be in some trouble, and the over could certainly be back in play.
BookMaker opened the spread for this Thursday soiree at Golden State -2 and a total of 194.5. Now you can wager in-game while the action unfolds with BookMaker's live betting option.
BookMaker offers play-by-play betting odds for live sporting events every day! The user-friendly wagering interface on your smartphone provides an easy way to place bets on the go. Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook! The showdown between the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers will start at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 11, 2015, at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, OH. The contest will be broadcast on ABC.
