Where are you cherry-picking your stats from? PPG for opponent GS is 19th and CLE is 4th. Defense wins championships, PERIOD!!!
CLE shut down this so called high powered offense (#1 in the league). That is why they won but that doesn't fit with the fairytale storyline.
Oh JTZ, next you're going to tell me wins is the best indicator of performance for pitchers in baseball
. Nobody uses straight PPG anymore. How good you are defensively is about how well you defend each possession. Therefore points allowed per possession (or per 100 possessions, which is how the stat is kept) is the number that matters. GSW allowed 103.8 per 100 possessions to CLE's 104.5.
We had a pretty unique situation here with the last 2 years. Same 2 teams, different result. The standard line about the game slowing down in the playoffs was on full display in both years, easily identified through pace (essentially possessions per game). CLE's regular season average was 95.48 possessions per game (94.78 last year), with GSW at 101.65 (100.69 last year). The finals averaged 95.38 over the series this year, and 94.78 last year. So in both years, CLE was able to slow the game down to their preferred pace. And in both years, the defense was remarkably similar. CLE allowed 104.7 (per 100 possessions) this year and 104.4 last year, right around their regular season average from last year (104.1) and a little worse than this year (102.3).
So what was the difference? It was actually their offense. Last year they played their hearts out on defense, but couldn't score for the life of them - 93.8 points per 100 possessions, a marked decline from their 107.7 regular season mark. That makes sense of course, as they were missing their #2 and 3 offensive options. This year they did a much better job in that regard, averaging 105.3 vs their regular season average of 108.1.
Like I said, I won't disagree with the whole idea. You absolutely can't win in the NBA without a really good defense. And good defense is probably at least a little more important than good offense. But let's not attempt to equate it to the NFL.