Benefield: Disconnected Cavaliers no match for Golden State harmony

OAKLAND - LeBron James came bearing gifts.

Before Game 2 of the NBA Finals, with his Cleveland Cavaliers down 1-0 against the Golden State Warriors, James gave his team headphones, reportedly gold-plated Beats By Dre. And the undisputed leader of the Cavs, a guy who has muscled his way into six consecutive NBA Finals, included an inspirational quote.

The message?

“You've worked, dreamed and trained for this. Our time is now.”

If by “our time” he meant, perhaps later this week, or for a real naysayer, next year, he was right.

It was not the Cavaliers' time Sunday night. By any stretch. It was the Warriors' time to the tune of the 110-77 win.

After losing 104-89 in Game 1, clearly James believed his troops needed some inspiration. After getting taken to the woodshed Sunday night, did he think they missed his message?

“I give my teammates stuff throughout the whole year. All the time. It's no different,” he said. “We understand the moment that we're in, and it's not, it's not every year that you get an opportunity to be in this situation, you know?”

James should know. Here's a guy who has been in every NBA final series for the past six years. He's got two rings. If it's not every day, he's as close as you are going to get to it.

But still he feels like he needs to motivate his guys. This is telling. And it's no dig on James. He fell hard on his sword after the game, telling reporters he needed to up his play.

“I got myself in a lot of trouble tonight personally,” he said. “So I've got to be better. I've got to be better with the ball. You know, trying to play make for myself and play make for my teammates at the same time, I've just got to be more solid.”

James has some pretty wide shoulders but I don't know how much of the blame he has to carry on this one. He led the Cavs in every conceivable category Sunday night. He had a team-leading 19 points, a team-leading eight rebounds, team-leading nine assists, and a team-leading four steals.

But what James focused on was another category in which he led the Cavs: turnovers. He had seven.

“I had a lot of uncharacteristic unforced turnovers which resulted in those guys getting 26 points off turnovers,” he said. “So I'm one of the guys who kind of always wants to shoulder the blame when we don't play as well as we should. It's just who I am, and I've got to be better.”

The headphones are an apt metaphor for Sunday night's game. And perhaps for the series as a whole.

The Cavs played as individuals, disconnected from one another - like they were tuning each other out. Turnovers occur when players don't connect. The Cavs did not connect Sunday night.

The Warriors on the other hand are nothing if not connected. Even when they are announced in the pregame lineup announcement, they all shimmy toward the center and are soon a dancing mob so it's unclear who's who and whose name is being called. It's as if they are saying, “Don't bother with the names on the back of the jersey, just mind the name on the front.”

Even their turnovers - which coach Steve Kerr criticized postgame - came from perhaps a pattern of over-sharing. They make the extra pass. A drive into the paint as often as not leads to a kickout. The ball whips around the perimeter like it's on fire. For a team that loves to shoot, they sure do love to share.

The Cavs play like they are wearing headphones, the Warriors play like they are listening to a boom box.

“For sure, that's what we are about,” Stephen Curry said of team play. “If you watch us play, you know how we get the job done. Everybody falls in love obviously with how me and Klay shoot the ball, and that's a big part of what we do, and having success over the course of the season in a playoff run, you need to have that punch.

“But you look at the stat sheet and look at some names that jump off, whether it be Shaun (Livingston), L.B. (Leandro Barbosa), Andre (Iguodala), H.B. (Harrison Barnes), obviously Draymond (Green), what he did tonight offensively, that's huge, but it's the little stuff that you don't see on the stat sheet that has gotten us to this position. I'm talking about Andre's defense, talking about L.B. being ready, that microwave we need off the bench, and Shaun's steady hand. That's where you become a consistent team.”

The Warriors don't play like a team that needs extrinsic motivation. As generous as James' gift to his team was, it sends a message. And the message is this: James is into this series. Having to wrap up gifts and insert motivational quotes tells me the rest of his team is not.

If he has to fire his guys up to be ready to play, to remind them that they have “worked, dreamed and trained for this,” something tells me maybe they haven't.

I'll take a boom box over headphones any day.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”