In the hours ahead of Thursday night's Game 6 matchup against the Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Richard Jefferson gave fans an inside look at the team's season in an essay on The Players' Tribune called, "Who We Are."
Here are five things we learned from the article:
1. Jefferson has taken Lil Kev to Starbucks with him: A laminated magazine photo of a guy who was deemed a dead ringer for teammate Kevin Love became a staple in Jefferson's Snapchat videos. It caught on with Cavaliers fans to the point where a Starbucks barista recognized it when Jefferson passed through the drive-up.
2. The Cavs ignored the noise: "We obviously had a high-profile coaching change. We had slumps. We had injuries -- Kyrie missed the first 24 games of the season, so he's only just now getting to playing the type of MVP-level ball he's capable of. We clawed our way to 56 wins just trying to find our rhythm. It's O.K. for others to speculate, but those narratives didn't show us as we really were. And for most of the season, that was fine with us. We ignored it and tried to get our groove."
3. LeBron is a gracious dinner host: Before the first round, LeBron James hosted the team at his house. In the middle of the meal, after addressing each player individually, he gave each person a gift. "I think it just struck us all in that moment how special a position we were in. Bron was saying to us, 'We can only do this if we do it together. That's all that matters.' He's won championships before. We wanted to listen," Jefferson writes.
4. Channing Frye and Richard Jefferson like to arrive early: When Kevin Love hosted the team at his home after the series against the Hawks, Frye and Jefferson arrived three hours early to the team dinner to challenge Love to darts and to "raid his liquor cabinet." There was no mention of who won those matchups.
5. He is not taking this chance for granted: "Everyone knows Cleveland's sports history. But unlike the Cubs or the Red Sox before their titles, Cleveland's lack of championships isn't accompanied by a sense of misery," he writes. "It's not fake. It's not, 'We'll get it next year.' It's, 'We can do this.' Let's do this.'" He also refers to Game 6 as "probably the biggest game in Cavs history."
This is Jefferson's first trip to the NBA Finals since 2003, when he was a member of the New Jersey Nets.
Jefferson has averaged 7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game in the first five games of the Finals.
