MIAMI -- The long-time Cleveland resident took immediate umbrage to the phrasing, that so much in these NBA playoffs were falling into place for the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James to make a championship breakthrough.
"That minimizes their work, 'falling into place.' " he said.
"Sometimes," he continued, "it's the nature of what happens. Things happen that you're not expecting, that you do not see happening. But that's a very good team. That's a team that didn't need to get anybody's help."
The Cleveland resident knows of what he speaks because he speaks about NBA basketball for a living. Mike Fratello has moved on from his days as Cavaliers coach, but he never moved on from Cleveland after his six-season tenure there ended in 1999.
In the midst of his work for Turner Sports, which this past week included working a game of the Miami Heat's series against the Charlotte Hornets for NBA TV, Fratello said he appreciates the increased hope of a long-awaited championship for Cleveland.
But he said it's about more than Steph Curry missing time for the Golden State Warriors, or other injuries. And he said it's about more than no team beyond the Cavaliers truly seizing the moment in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, with the Cavaliers' second-round opponent, the Atlanta Hawks, showing their own flaws in their six-game ouster of the Boston Celtics.
"The best the Big Three have played in two years is now," Fratello said of James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love. "For whatever the reason is, the stretch run, they're stopping their Twitter, whatever the reason is, they've gotten their act together.
"Kyrie is doing what Kyrie does. Love is taking his game down there. LeBron was willing not be the high scorer for the team in the first round for the first time since [Dwyane] Wade in 2011 in a series. And LeBron worked his butt off defensively against Tobias Harris, he really got after him."
So after a 4-0 sweep of the Detroit Pistons the Cavaliers got to exhale.
"From Day 1, they've had a deep roster," Fratello said. "There's a lot of good players on that team. There's a lot of experience on that team. You have three All-Stars that they're starting on that team."
And, well, things also have fallen into place.
"If you look at the East, on paper, a team that looked like that would have given them trouble, Chicago, got knocked out with the injuries," he said of the Bulls failing to make the postseason. And if Miami had [Chris] Bosh, that might have been really interesting.
"Anybody would have said that the path to the Eastern Conference championship was easier than the path to the West, to start with."
While Fratello has been well traveled over his coaching and broadcasting career, from Atlanta to Cleveland to Memphis to a turn as the Heat's television analyst, Cleveland has long held a special place in his sporting heart.
Which is why as some question James' decision to return from his championship success in South Florida, Fratello speaks as a Clevelander who appreciates how much a Cavaliers championship could do for the city. It is why he also speaks about how now, even with such a clear path to the NBA Finals against a potentially weakened Western Conference opponent, trepidation remains.
"It happens with towns that have had such a long drought," he said, with Cleveland without a major sports title since the Cleveland Browns in 1964 won the NFL championship game two years before the first Super Bowl. "They tend to think the worst is always going to happen. Instead of being on the other side, where, 'This is our year,' the approach almost is, 'We're doomed.'
"They want to win so bad in order to say they're a championship city."
Sports on 05/02/2016