Cleveland Cavaliers: Defending The Land Has Been Achieved

At last the championship drought has ended in Cleveland, Ohio with the Cleveland Cavaliers knocking off the Golden State Warriors.

As I paced around my living room when the score was tied at 89, I seriously started to wonder what disastrous thing was going to happen to the Cleveland Cavaliers. With the scars of seasons past still very visible, it was only a matter of time, right?

Somewhere, Craig Ehlo was holding his breath tighter than anyone. But the disaster never came. There was no “shot” or “fumble” or “drive” to crush the souls of the Cleveland faithful. There was only the accomplishment of “Defend the Land”, and it couldn’t be sweeter.

The Cleveland Cavaliers were not supposed to win. They were heavy underdogs coming into the series. They weren’t supposed to fight off elimination in Game 5. Then they weren’t supposed to win Game 7, since no other team had come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a series, and only three teams had won a Game 7 on the road.

The Cavs were not supposed to win — not against the best regular season team in NBA history with the MVP from the last two years. They were not supposed to be better than the Splash Brothers or the multi-talented Draymond Green. Cleveland was not supposed to win at all on the road, where the Warriors had been nearly invincible.

The Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t supposed to win. Not when the city of Cleveland had not seen a title since December of 1964, a 52 year gut wrenching, hair pulling, heart breaking streak.

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Cleveland had made it over 160 professional sports seasons without a championship and then the city of Cleveland had become synonymous with finding creative ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

But none of that mattered, not when LeBron James dominated the series in a way never before seen in the NBA. He led the series in every major statistical category and earned every bit of his NBA Finals MVP Awards. James’ chase down block late in the fourth on an Andre Iguodala fast break lay up fueled a strong run to close out the game.

It didn’t matter to Kyrie Irving, who announced loudly in this series that he wants back into the conversation of being among the best point guards in the NBA. Irving may have cemented himself in Cleveland sports history with his own version of “The Shot”, when he nailed a step back three pointer that proved to be the game winning shot.

For this city, the NBA Finals victory is highlighted by the people downtown on television celebrating the Cleveland Cavaliers win. People from all walks of life have united around this incredible team and this incredible run through the NBA Finals.

You could not go anywhere without being surrounded by wine and gold. Folks were looking to “Defend the Land” in their own way, by people that are simply proud to be from Cleveland.