tlance
Kyrie Hater
You're missing my point. The point is while he didn't play a lot of minutes, and was not worth 16 million a year, he did contribute to the game and played some critical defense that made a difference. You take him out of the game and put some one else into the game who plays similar - May be you win still and Maybe you don't because you are changing rotation and the line up and the chemistry. At the worst Mozgov was a role player, but he still played an important role. If the Cavs had lost, then you think about making changes, but when you win a championship, I think it's important to keep everything intact and make as few change as possible. Everyone likes to talk about chemistry - that's part of it. I honestly don't think the Cavaliers look as good as they were last year, but I don't believe the Warriors look quite as good either. The finals will tell us what happens, but I think the Warriors will win it all.
Wrong.
He did not play an important role. He did not play until the game was decided. Garbage time only in last year's Finals. He was not in the rotation. In the playoffs last year, he had 8 DNPs out of 21 games and only appeared in 2 games decided by less than 14 points. One of those was a 7 second cameo at the end of game 1 vs. the Hawks.
You can't say his defense was important if he does not even get off the bench in the close games. The only games where he played more than 2 minutes were the following:
4 minutes in game 1 vs DET: close game
9 minutes in game 2 vs DET: 17 point win, still close
13 minutes in game 2 vs. ATL: 25 point blowout win
6 minutes in game 1 vs TOR: 31 point win
3 minutes in game 2 vs TOR: 19 point win
12 minutes in game 5 vs TOR: 38 point win
12 minutes in game 2 vs GS: 33 point loss
6 minutes in game 3 vs GS: 30 point win
Notice the theme here? After the first 2 games against DET, he fell out of the regular rotation completely.
The Warriors are significantly better than they were last year. You can't just go by record.