#CavsRank Moments: 27-25 (The tantrum, all you can eat Fryes, and the podium)

27. Stephen Curry’s Temper Tantrum

Clocking in at No. 27 of the #CavsRank, Stephen Curry’s temper tantrum during Game 6 of the 2016 Finals may not be the most impactful moment to appear on this list, but is certainly among the most delicious for Cavs fans. After facing elimination in Game 5 at Oakland’s hostile Oracle Arena, the Cavs were able to extend their championship series on the heels of an epic 41-point duet co-performed on the road by LeBron James and Kyrie Irving. The team needed to fly back into Cleveland anyway, players had observed, so why not to play a Game 6 encore at Quicken Loans Arena? Well, what an encore they gave –highlighted by a new-age acapella rendering of King James’ classic “41 Points in B Major” (the “B” is for Basketball, of course!) and a wire-to-wire victory in which the visiting team scored the fewest points (11) in the first quarter of an NBA Finals game since the shot clock became a thing. While it may seem fitting that the “Q” arena plays host both to Cleveland-based sports teams and touring musical performers, the music-themed analogies end here. Because what really went down in that arena on that night of June the 16th resembled less art, more Roman Colosseum circa 100 A.D. — and it was all capped off with a veritable meltdown by the NBA’s can-do-no-wrong golden child.

I’d like to point out that as a sports fan, I’ve always liked to think that when I attend a game, I’m contributing some effect, however small, to the “home turf advantage” and the ultimate outcome of these games, regardless of that being true or not. Call me a hopeless romantic (or just hopeless) if you’d like, but leading up to tip-off in Game 6 (which your author was very fortunate to attend) and hearing the frenzied roar of that desperate, championship-starved Cleveland crowd, I just knew — knew — in that moment there was no way we could lose. I don’t use the word “we” lightly either when discussing the exploits of a team comprised of large, athletic men who I am decidedly not — but it was “us” in that thing together. Inside the arena and out we became the living embodiment of #AllIn. In a radio interview the Friday after Game 6, Fred McLeod, TV play-by-play announcer for the Cavs, choked up when asked to recall the Q’s atmosphere the night before. Richard Jefferson described the Cleveland/Cavs fandom as “very rare,” among other adjectives, in an excellent pre-Game 7 memoir from The Players Tribune. I remain convinced these things helped turn Game 6 into the spectacle it was (so, you know, you’re welcome). But no, in actuality, one didn’t have to be in the arena to feel there was something special in the air that night.

In the blood bath that was Game 6, Cleveland jumped to a 31-11 lead and never really looked back. The Cavaliers could to do no wrong, staving off every push the Warriors made to trim their large deficit. Alley-oops and heat-check threes for the home team; rubber rims and hanging heads for the visitors. Nevermind the series still had one last game to play; it was enough to soak it in because with the outcome of the game itself never truly in question, Game 6 played out more like a celebration than a contest. After decades spent as the sports world’s stepping mat, for once Cleveland/Cavs fans were witnessing some other team have to deal with us for a change. The all-time great, LeBron, was on our side this time, and he was not going to let his team lose.

Yes, King James, magnificent in his shining white armor jersey, delighted his ravenous subjects with an array of vicious swat-downs anytime Steph Curry made the mistake of venturing a shot attempt into the paint. That same Steph Curry, who had been unofficially anointed the new face of the NBA in leading his team to a record 73 wins, who became the first-ever unanimous MVP as decided by the media, whose enthralling exploits seemed to overshadow all of the good accomplished by LeBron James and Co. but none of the bad… That same Steph Curry, who had never accumulated more than four fouls in a game all season, suddenly found himself in early foul trouble and playing reduced minutes in the first half. Do you think that Cleveland crowd had an inkling of Curry’s foul count??

I recall the whole thing as if it happened five minutes ago, and I can still relive it sometimes when I close my eyes.

The Cleveland crowd has lathered into a frenzy. Hands are raised high with a single index finger pointed skyward as a reminder: one more to go. Better not mess up! Late in the contest, LeBron, guarded by Curry, fed an easy alley-oop to Tristan Thompson to extend the lead to 13 points. Glorious. The good times rolling.

On the next play with 4:32 left in the game, James annihilates yet another Curry layup try and barks some choice words at the unanimous MVP for good measure — and I really can think of no better word than “barks” to describe how I imagine a man like LeBron James sounds while wearing this facial expression after doing this (unless there is an equivalent of “barking” for dragons or griffins or some other mythical beast).

Curry’s shoulders slump. He chews at his mouth guard just a little more anxiously, frustration setting in. You can see the gleeful Cavs fans from that YouTube clip: people are laughing, incredulous. The game is already decided, this extra stuff is just frosting! But Cleveland fans are so hungry. Starving from years in the desert. Lapping up every morsel of the finest game in franchise history and none of it is enough.

The very next play, the Warriors have trouble inbounding the ball but are able to eke out a couple free throws. The second attempt is a miss corralled by the Cavs, who then push the ball up the court past Steph Curry, who reaches across LeBron — say, that can’t be clean — but WAIT was that a whistle!? IT SURE WAS. Pure bedlam. He’s done!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruDPY20XYHM

The Q’s jumbotron had ensured no spectator was unaware of No. 30’s foul count. It’s not over, though, as Curry, whose frustration has boiled past the point of return, hurls his trademark mouth guard into the crowd while arguing with officials. This can’t be happening, can it? The crowd has gone rabid. “KICK HIM OUT!” we chant, thirsting for blood. An NBA championship is far from the mind as we decree a “thumbs down” for this fallen Warrior.

But we aren’t barbarians, so we serenade Curry with a ritualistic dirge often sang in times such as these: “Na na na na… NA NA na na… HEY hey hey… gooodbyeee…” This is the highest high a Cavs fan has ever felt; for now, at least, the script is flipped. A blowout Game 6 culminating in the opposing team’s star player throwing a tantrum for the whole world to see? There is real reason to celebrate! Heck, is winning a sports title even any better than this? This is the type of question that lingers on our minds as we dance off into the cool, Cleveland evening with a 14-point W. Our bloodthirst sated, we are left with our imaginations and all the infinite possibilities a Game 7 might bring.

26. The Channing Frye Game

Scene: it is Game 3 of the 2016 Eastern Conference Semifinals versus the Atlanta Hawks. Just days earlier in Cleveland for Game 2, the Cavaliers had set an NBA single-game record 25 three pointers and were looking to carry that record-breaking performance on the road to Atlanta. Enter one Channing Frye, who, in what will be forever known in Cavs: The Blog annals as “The Channing Frye Game“, drilled 7-of-9 three point attempts en route to a playoff career-high 27 points. He was pretty spectacular, but don’t take my word for it — if you haven’t already, check out Frye’s own memoir from The Players Tribune that touches on basketball, life, and the 2016 playoffs, entitled, “Let’s Enjoy this Wonderful French Toast.”

As evidenced from his writing and other comments made over the course his career, Frye is a thoughtful individual. When we look back to the Cavs 2015-16 championship run, Frye’s addition to the roster is about more than timely three’s in a near-7-foot body (it has been said that Channing Frye is the guy you’d get if you took JR Smith’s attitude and transformed it into height) — it’s also about the unassuming camaraderie he brought to a locker room that, by all accounts, did not exude a, shall we say, “championship togetherness.” However, these are details that have come to light in the late stages during and after the Cavs hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy. For most Cavs fans, Frye will be remembered for an outstanding game in a middle round of the playoffs and what that performance represented.

We have to talk about the burritos.

The burritos that the Cavs provide are next level.

Every other place I’ve been, the preshootaround spread had been nonexistent. In Cleveland, they give us burritos, coffee, yogurt, parfait and some wonderful French toast. When I first saw the spread, I was like, “Free burritos before shootaround? Are you shitting me? This is the best!”

They’re not standard, O.K.? I’m talking a whole wheat tortilla, egg white, maybe a little goat cheese, maybe some cheddar. Sometimes they have pork sausage, sometimes chicken sausage. They switch it up to keep it fresh.

This might sound crazy to you. But life moves so fast in the NBA, sometimes we players don’t appreciate the little things. Let’s enjoy this wonderful French toast. Made-to-order omelets. Let’s eat these breakfast burritos. Let’s get some wins and let’s make history…

That’s exactly what we did. And I was a part of it, thanks to the biggest and best game of my career.

Channing had been acquired at the past season’s trade deadline to fill a role as a sharp-shooting big man, a “combo stretch 4/5” in the truest sense. The catch: in order to help create cap and roster space for the acquisition, the Cavs jettisoned longtime fan-favorite, Anderson Varejao, much to the bemoaning of Cavs fans everywhere. Technically, the Cavs didn’t need to rid themselves of Varejao and his rather bloated wreck of a contract was dumped in a separate transaction from the one to obtain Frye, but it was easy to view the transactions as tied together. Varejao had been a rare Cavs lifer for just under 12 full seasons and was the sole remaining player who bridged three distinct eras in Cavaliers franchise history. Sure, he didn’t play much anymore, but it sucked to see him and his bouncy hair go. That Varejao was quickly snatched up by the hated rival Golden State Warriors only added to the injury. The thought process went: “We got rid of a player who the reigning champs saw fit to take a flyer on? AND we didn’t actually need to shed his contract to bring in the new guy? All mere weeks after these players who run the asylum got their head coach fired??? Someone get me a drink.” (And not necessarily in that order.)

The Channing Frye Game was a necessary therapy for a fanbase that had been on a herky-jerky rollercoaster ride the past two seasons. For every step forward there seemed to be both one taken back and/or to the side; for every camera shot of “the guys” yukking it up on the bench there was a “cryptic subtweet”. All the while, the team was still winning a lot of games and making it to the postseason and Cavs fans had no choice but to strap in and hope it didn’t all blow up in their faces. Which is what made the Varejao-for-Frye pill so tough to swallow: was this a move to save @CavsDan money or did the team truly get better? Well, Mr. Frye assuaged those fears considerably in his second game as a Cavalier, in which he exploded for 15 points in 18 minutes on 5-for-9 shooting (4-for-8 from deep) against the Charlotte Hornets. Frye would have his moments during the regular season, but on a team whose aspirations were a neon, bold-lettered “Championship or Bust”, his contribution couldn’t truly be measured until the postseason.

Defensively, the Hawks had to make a choice. Every game they chose somebody different to leave open, and every game someone from our team stepped up…

[In Game 3] They weren’t gonna leave Richard open, because he was hot. They liked to play a big lineup, and they put Paul Millsap on LeBron in the second unit. Al Horford was on me, and he’s a center. It was Horford’s job to sag off the center some in order to help defend the lane from LeBron’s drives. That was just their defensive scheme.

So I let it fly. The first one went in, and I said to myself, It’s your time.

I went 7 for 9 from deep and we won.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XIMrRqa0WI

Hence, The Channing Frye Game as Moment No 26. Not only did Channing prove to be a viable weapon coming off the bench — an instant-offense matchup nightmare who fit perfectly into the team’s philosophy — his playoff coming out party instilled faith. It is games like The Channing Frye Game that indicate to fans that management does, in fact, know what the heck they are doing. There was a strong, emotional response from fans when Anderson Varejao was released; we need these businessmen to look past that and make the best decisions for all parties involved. After knocking deals out of the park to bring the Cavs Timofey Mogov, JR Smith and Iman Shumpert, GM David Griffin kept his batting average up in the stratosphere by proving that what many perceived at the time to be a bad decision was in fact a good one. David Griffin has shown himself to be a great GM. Channing Frye was a great addition to the Cavs. We can see that clearly now. Here’s to many more playoff games being named after Cavaliers players (for positive reasons) to come. Oh, and on that note…

25. The “Delly” Podium Game

When we think back to the Cavs’ indelible 2015 Finals run, some of the first things that come to mind include Kelly Olynyk ripping Kev’s arm off off in what was both players’ fourth playoff game ever and Kyrie Irving shattering his knee in the first game of the Finals after limping through the entire playoffs. Perhaps more than any other lasting images from that run, however, the scene where Matthew “Delly” Dellavedova sat next to LeBron James for a podium interview while dressed like a roadie who’d accidentally wandered onto the set just may be the most memorable. After all, so much of our reactions and memories are based on expectations — and very few people ever expected an undrafted sophomore guard from Australia would be sitting next to the best basketball player on the planet after closing out a rival on the road in a Game 6 of the NBA Eastern Semifinals. Yes, the Delly Podium Game, in which Delly scored a team-high 19 points, keyed a second half surge on an array of difficult floaters and three-pointers, and was a leading force in putting the Chicago Bulls’ season to bed for good.

In Game 6, Irving had been limited to a mere 12 minutes after aggravating his knee and the Wine & Gold squad was down two of its biggest key players in a high-stakes closeout game. Not only was the team hobbled heading into the game, they were likely to be nursing injuries for the rest of the postseason. It was crucial for the Cavs to end the series as quickly as possible to utilize the time in between series to get healthy. LeBron scoring only 15 points on 7-of-23 shooting did not help matters, and it became quickly apparent that it would take All the King’s Men to eke out a victory on the road. No matter, apparently, as the Cavs slammed past the Bulls to the tune of a 94-73 final score, led by unheralded overachievers such as Delly in only the 10th game of his young postseason career.

For those who were new to the Cavs blog-o-verse around the time of the 2015 NBA Playoffs, the regular season featured some intense wars waged between Cavs fans divided into two factions: pro-Delly and anti-Delly. Nate Smith almost got in a rumble in the stands over it that year. Especially here at CtB, there were those who viewed Delly as a no-stats All-Star, the kind of player who doesn’t do a lot to show up in the box score but has an appreciable ability to make his teammates better and plays the game “in between the lines”; and those who saw him as an undrafted guard who is capable of pleasantly surprising from time-to-time but was ultimately a replacement-level player who could be easily… well, replaced. You see how expectations factor into those notions of the same player — was Delly an undervalued hidden gem or an overachieving career backup? No one could agree.

Or at least up until The Delly Podium Game, I suppose. From that point on there really was no denying that, while his game ain’t always pretty, Matthew Dellavedova was a legit NBA player capable of impact games. Of course, he would go on to further cement that status later in the playoffs, but Game 6 of the Chicago series is when we all agreed to just enjoy the experience that is watching the lil’ Wombat. But don’t take my word for it — just listen to what LeBron James himself had to say about the young Aussie in their podium interview:

“This guy right here,” James said of the guard, “he’s not the most athletic, fastest, doesn’t shoot it as great as all the other point guards in our league. But I’ll put him out there versus anybody. This guy has to guard Kyrie Irving every single day in practice.”

You say it like it is, ‘Bron. Not only did Delly’s overnight ascension as a cult hero place a deserving athlete into the international spotlight, however temporary, The Delly Podium Game came to embody the grit that would eventually personify the Cavs’ 2015 Finals run. The 2015 Cavs were a team of talented, plucky greenhorns who fell one by one, claimed by injury and fatigue until only an all-time great in LeBron James and a bunch of no-names were left standing in a series that really had no business going to six games. And right there, scrapping alongside LeBron in the trenches was Delly, who played himself to such a level of exhaustion in Finals Game 3 that he had to be hospitalized immediately after. When the Cavs 2015 run came to an end, the headlines around Cleveland simply read: Not Enough Grit.

That idea of grit started somewhere, though, and if you’re wondering where then look no further than The Delly Podium Game. It was a game that came to symbolize a team’s postseason, a game that validated a not-so-secret hoops-nerd-love for an unheralded player, and a game that helped create a fun story about defying people’s expectations — exactly like that 2015 Cavs squad did. And it wasn’t all grit: Delly went for 7-11 from the field, on various drives, flobs, and Delly treys. The Bulls dared him to beat them and he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfyjOMBGO8o