Sheridan: Iguodala making a case for MVP of NBA Finals

CLEVELAND – This baby was all but in the books as LeBron James, scoreless in the fourth quarter, dribbled upcourt halfheartedly with 4:10 remaining and his team trailing by 14 points. There was only the slightest of chances that the Cavaliers could pull off a comeback to match the one the Warriors had engineered in Game 2, but James’ heart and head were not in it – and Iggy pounced.

With a somewhat casual swipe, Andre Iguodala knocked the ball away from James to start a fast break that ended with an alley-oop layup by Shaun Livingston. The fans at The Q started streaming toward the exits right after the ball went through. The Warriors were up 16, and that was that.

Series tied. Homecourt advantage regained. Statement delivered. The Dubs are very, very much alive.

And Iguodala, the man who had the greatest impact in his first start of the entire season had capped one hell of a night with one last piece of one-upsmanship on James, whose point total in the final quarter was a big fat goose egg.

Iguodala has not stopped James in this series, but he has worn him out. Never was that more clear than in Game 4. James was a shell of his recent self while playing his third game in five nights — with a five-hour flight from Oakland to Cleveland thrown in.

James seemed to shrug the whole thing off afterward, showing surprisingly good spirits, while Iguodala was the player who looked so fatigued and spent that you wondered how he would drag his body off the interview podium and make it all the way to the team bus.

“Everything – every emotion, every thought, everything physical, mental, psychological is thrown into the game. It’s just so .. my brain is like fried,” Iguodala said.

There is a chance now that Iguodala can emerge as the MVP of the series. The award was James’ to lose going into Thursday night’s 103-82 haymaker, but the Cavs got nothing from their outside shooters (4-for-27 on 3-pointers) and could not capitalize on the best game of Timofey Mozgov’s career in allowing the Warriors to even the series.

It was a balanced attack that featured MVP Stephen Curry as an ensemble player, sharing team-high scoring honors with Iguodala as each scored 22. Draymond Green (6-for-11, 17 points with seven rebounds and six assists) and Harrison Barnes (4-for-9 for 14 points with eight rebounds) gave the small-ball Warriors four solid offensive contributors.

That was more than enough on a night when the Cavs got half as much as usual from LeBron while reminding everyone that their role players who have been elevated into 30-something minute-per-game pieces have the tendency to regress to their norms when pushed as hard as they are being pushed.

“I don’t think the biggest difference was the starting lineup or the adjustments we made. I think the biggest difference as that we played a lot harder,” Golden State coach Steve Kerr said.

It can sound so simple, and sometimes it is. If you play hard, win the 50-50 balls, believe in yourselves and get back to what has worked for you all season, things can turn around. The Warriors paid in the paint for going small, yielding 29 points to Mozgov and 16 offensive rebounds. But they played the game more at their pace, using five guys who can run, run and run some more against a Cavs team that is going just seven guys deep and being led by a superstar whose exhaustion level over the past two days has been off the charts. Watching him Wednesday – the day before Game 4 – I couldn’t help but notice that James’ eyes were half-shut.

That sleepy look somehow disappeared in the wake of this latest loss, and James seemed at peace with being 2-2.

No, he said, this would not be the biggest challenge of his career – a spot he reserves for the 2012 Miami Heat team that trailed the Boston Celtics 3-2 before winning the final two games (including a Game 6 that represented Miami’s first playoff win ever in Boston) and advancing to the NBA Finals, where James won his first championship.

This?

This is a speed bump by comparison.

James even ended his interview session by referencing his “pretty cool career,” then walking off with a smile. It was the same type of smile he gives us an occasional glimpse of when discussing his “secret motivation” in this series, which will remain a secret to everyone not named Dwyane Wade for at least a few more days.

This “street fight” as Green called it will not resume until Sunday night, and there is guaranteed to be a title on the line when we are back in this building for Game 6 next Tuesday. The two days of rest Friday and Saturday will be a boost to everyone, and from here the adrenaline will kick in. I guarantee you will not hear Iguodala repeat the phrase that his “brain is fried.”

From here, one of these teams will display a finishing kick and/or a knockout punch. It is now Cavs coach David Blatt’s turn to adjust, and one of the biggest adjustments will be to find an offensive balance between Mozgov, who is going to be allowed to control the paint, and James, who is going to have to bear the burden of dropping another 40. The Warriors double-teamed him a little but not a lot, and James never went into the otherworldly mode we had seen from him throughout the first three games.

The educated guess here remains the same as it was going into this series: It has 7 written all over it, and James will deliver in the end – perhaps even on the final play of the series. He was due for a lull, and now he has had it – thanks in equal parts to fatigue and Iguodala’s relentlessness.

For me, the big takeaway regarding James was seeing how well he absorbed this loss. It id not seem to bother him in the slightest. Heck, he looked better at 2-2 than he did when he was ahead 2-1.

The best is yet to come for sure, and there really is no homecourt advantage at this stage. The team that wants it most is going to get it. If that team is the Cavs, the reason will be James – with big assists from Matthew Dellavedova and maybe even Mozgov. If it is the Warriors, it could be because of Curry. But at this stage, I’d hazard to say that it will be because of Iguodala, who is getting it done on both ends of the floor better than anyone.

“He’s been out best player through four games,” Kerr said.

And he was the best player in Game 4, even if he exited as the most fatigued. We shall see what both he and LeBron have left in the tank between now and next Friday night.

For everyone’s sake, let’s all hope both have plenty of fuel left, because this series is quite a gas, no matter how gassed it is leaving everyone.

Chris Sheridan is publisher and editor-in-chief of SheridanHoops.com. Follow him on Twitter.