Fate Comes to Believeland

Tomorrow night, Believeland will be tested once again.

On its face, it seems this is a paradoxical form of identification for a city that's often labeled as a mistake. A city whose best days are widely believed to be trapped in the past. A city that houses the honors for the best musicians of yesteryear. A city that makes you wonder for much of the year if Mother Nature is encouraging you to find a reprieve from its weather. A city that has its own Wikipedia page and ESPN movie for the failures and apparent curse of its professional sports teams. A city that quite frankly hasn't offered much to believe. Very few places on the planet, though, will you find a group of people who believe more than fans of the Browns, Cavaliers, and Indians. They believe so ceaselessly an outsider might wonder if Journey's most popular song plays on a loop in city hall. They believe in such a fashion Einstein would dub the whole city mad.

In a terrifying twist from the status quo, however, the outsiders are believing in Cleveland now. They see a destroyer of worlds playing with a determined ferocity to prove he's more valuable than the league MVP and willing his teammates to believe in his mission. They see an opponent who's battered with injuries, mentally agitated, and on the cusp of never before seen failure.

This reactionary xenophobia to the support isn't grounded in a fear of the geographically or culturally foreign, though. It's derived from the widely feared, yet impossible to anticipate, unknown. A fear of what today foresight would deem an impossible play manages to happen and swings the game the wrong way tomorrow. A fear of once again having to weigh whether giving into nihilism about winning a championship is a better option than following down the path of belief created heartbreak in the seasons to come.

Whether it's a stroke of fate and dynasty or cruel misfortune is to be determined, but Game 7 against the Golden State Warriors will fall on Father's Day. Across the state of Ohio, especially in its northeast quadrant, fathers and sons will watch the game together wondering if decades of suffering will come to an end. Grandfathers will root with their grandsons hoping the next generation of fans will escape the misery they've had to endure. Members from every generation will believe, and if things don't go well, the history will be rehashed by the elders to make sure the faith never fades away.

Throughout this series, I'll admit my belief wasn't always strong. It looked like the quest to win a title was going to end before it got started. Since then, I've shifted from no hope, to subdued levels of pessimism, to what I would describe now as mild optimism. A Cleveland championship hasn't happened in 52 years. No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals. The Cavaliers' opponent is a team who compiled a historic 73-9 record, whose coach laid out a list of grievances with the refs that would make it seem any close call will go their way, who's led by the league MVP motivated by attacks on both him and his wife, and who will be playing in a building where they are 50-4. Many would say I am stupid to get my hopes up now.

I say we might look back on June 19, 2016 and realize it was the perfect storm and the most satisfying reward Believeland deserved.

J. Nave

I'm Saying There's a Chance: How Cleveland Wins Four Games Against Golden State

On Thursday, I announced through Twitter my mind was telling me the city of Cleveland's championship drought would continue via a Golden State sweep (Let's face it. We're just going to have to wait until the Robert Griffin III led Browns win Super Bowl LI). In the following hours, the performance of the Warriors and a few replies from the haters  my followers did nothing to dissuade me from my prediction. Golden State is more talented. They play harder at almost every position on the floor. Steph Curry's confidence in pregame warm-ups alone should be enough of a sign no opponent is going to compile a 4-3 record against the Warriors, especially when a majority of those games are being played in Oracle Arena (He was trying to volleyball serve the ball in the hoop from the three point line before the first game. Game over). The odds are slim, but I've figured out the one path to a series victory for The Land.

Game 2: New Coach, New Result
If there's a better basketball catchphrase than Mark Jackson's, "Mama, there goes that man", I'm not familiar with it. Additionally, the former coach of the Bay Area's NBA franchise doesn't hold back his disdain from being let go after the 2013-2014 season when he's on the call. In the following two seasons since his dismissal, the Warriors have been on a torrid run of dismantling all notions of what were previously the universal limits of basketball, and Jackson has been looking for a team to stop Steve Kerr's Run and Gun offense. After last night, it became evident to me the Cavs should fire Tyronn Lue and give Jackson the keys. But just for the next two weeks. Hell, I wouldn't bet against him suiting up and giving the team 25 minutes and 15 points off the bench at the age of 51. He'll know how to best get inside the Splash Brothers' heads. He'll know how to trigger a costly flagrant foul out of Draymond. This man is the seer Cleveland needs. Dan Gilbert will realize he has no choice but to take out a third mortgage on who operates his team. Jackson calls his own number in the final minute, hits a game winning three with 4.8 seconds left, and the series is all tied at one.

Game 3: Praise The Lord of Light 
There might be a public backlash for openly worshiping a fictitious paganism, but the ability of this god's most devout followers cannot be understated. Resurrections are common place. Their priestesses turn 400000 into the new 40. Outside of Chance the Rapper, I don't think there's been a single increase in admiration that can rival R'hllor's newfound popularity. When you resurrect Jon Snow, that's bound to happen. It's quite simple really. Let's get LeBron James and his kingsblood in the same room as Melisandre and get one of those smoke baby demons conceived. Fear not, though, there shall be no killing from this strange life form. When it sweeps down from the rafters of Quicken Loans Arena to block Andre Iguodala's go ahead three, the Cavs will hold a 2-1 series lead. Even better, this will be accomplished without having to burn a child alive!

Game 4: H-O-R-S-E
With the trajectories of the Warriors' regular season and the Cavaliers' postseason, it seemed possible the NBA Finals could come down to a glorified three point contest. That's why to take Game 4 the Cavaliers will shoot nothing inside the arc. Think about this for a second. In Game 1, the Cavaliers took 105 shots. Entering this series. the Cavaliers had been making about 43% of their threes. 105 shots at a .43 success rate with a possible of 3 points a shot, means the Cavaliers mathematically could have expected to score about 135 points. I don't care how badly you play defense. The Warriors are going to have a hard time outscoring that number. By the time they catch on to the strategy and try to implement it themselves, it will be far too late. J.R. Smith and Channing Frye and Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving and basically everybody not named Matthew Dellavedova pulls up every single possession to one up the Splash Brothers with a cannonball of a performance. Cleveland goes up three games to one.

Game 5: A Setback
Sorry, even in this fairy tale scenario, a team isn't beating the Warriors four games in a row and simultaneously clinching the series in Oakland. Cavs lose by 32.

Game 6: Play the Trump Card
Just when it appears the Golden State Warriors are going to come back from a 3-1 deficit once again after jumping out to a huge halftime lead in Game 6, the Cavaliers channel their inner real estate mogul and build a wall around the Golden State locker room at the break. Right before the third quarter should begin and unable to fight through the structure, Golden State attempts to broadcast the sabotage to the outside world. However, they come to find @Cavs has already dominated the Twittersphere with insults and vague claims about the Warriors' players, front office, and fans. Most importantly, the team is shocked to discover the wall is being justified as a necessity because forward Anderson Varejao, a native of Brazil, was rumored to have contracted the Zika virus on a recent visit home. The quarantine is hailed by the Cavs as national security preservation. With "Wallgate" delaying Game 6's second half for more than an hour, the normally unflappable Adam Silver is overcome with fear and anxiety on how to proceed. He checks his phone to see he has become the team's next victim online. He reads a news article focusing on a former college roommate's testimony Silver cheated his way through law school at the University of Chicago. Overwhelmed and seemingly outmatched, Silver makes an executive decision that Golden State must forfeit Game 6. The Warriors, in the most unexpected chapter to R. Kelly's saga, are forced to hear the far off cheers from the confused Cleveland fans and blasts from decades old confetti cannons while they're trapped in the locker room. In the coming days, it is revealed nothing Cleveland claimed was true. By then, half of the city is burned in celebration, champagne overtakes water as the main liquid in the Cuyahoga River, and a statue of LeBron James is constructed on every city block. The title is allowed to stay, and one of the longest droughts in sports history is eviscerated. Cavs in 6 comes to fruition because like Kevin Garnett once said, "Anything is possible."

J. Nave