OAKLAND -- The Warriors boasted the league's top-rated defense a year ago when they won the NBA championship, and assistant coach Ron Adams maintains, "We're a better defensive team this year."
The Cleveland Cavaliers are seeing that defense in full blossom. After struggling at times to contain the explosive attacks of the Portland Trail Blazers and Oklahoma City Thunder earlier in the postseason, the Warriors have hit their defensive stride."Obviously, not much is working, especially offensively," Cavaliers star LeBron James acknowledged after the Warriors' 110-77 rout in Game 2 of the NBA Finals.Games 1 and 2 were reminders that even when Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are merely mortal, the Warriors' success begins with something less transient than 3-point shooting.