Does LeBron have a chance in hell against the Warriors?

The 2015 NBA Finals are nigh, so we shared our thoughts on how the championship series will shake out in the latest edition of FLANNS & ZILLZ. Enjoy.

ZILLER: On paper, and with all due respect to what the Cavaliers have accomplished, this looks like a blowout in the making. All evidence points to the Warriors' superiority on both ends of the court even when Cleveland is healthy. And Cleveland is not healthy. I believe in the innate greatness of LeBron James as much as anyone. But I don't see a path to victory here.

ZILLER: Anything is possible, as the great KG said. But these tasks are so much harder than they sound. Split the first two games at Oracle AND win a Game 7 there? The Warriors are 46-3 at home this season (including playoffs). I'd like to believe Cleveland's defense is real. Yet it wasn't fantastic in the regular season even after the trades and the Cavs didn't exactly face a murderer's row of offenses in the East bracket, given the state of the Hawks. The offensive rebounding thing is real, and J.R. Smith is good for one of those unconscious evenings. But Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes ... hell, Shaun Livingston are all capable of the same.

So we're left with LeBron, who has carried undermanned East teams to the Finals before and been throttled by better West teams once there. And this is the best West team he's ever faced in the Finals. LeBron is pure greatness, but against this team? I can't see it being enough ... unless Kyrie Irving is the second or third best player in the series.

FLANNERY: For the record, I don't either, but I do think he and the Cavs have a puncher's chance of getting out of this thing alive. I don't see this going down the way last year's Finals went when the Spurs ran roughshod over the Heat, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the Warriors won it in five games with a few close ones going their way. Win one of those 50-50 games and you can make it into a series. The longer it goes, the more it favors the best player.

ZILLER: We saw the Warriors make perfect adjustments to slow Anthony Davis, the Memphis bigs and James Harden. Those are three extremely different tasks; Golden State aced all three defensively while also putting up big offensive numbers against two of the better defenses in the West (Grizzlies and Rockets). Granted, the Warriors avoided the Clippers and Spurs, who were the most imposing foes entering the postseason. But Golden State's been so dominant against the teams they did face it's really hard to imagine any team beating them four times in seven games. Despite LeBron's omnipotence, I don't think Cleveland is much better (if at all) than Houston or perhaps even Memphis.

FLANNERY: I feel like they've been living on the edge a bit more than generally acknowledged due to the length of the series' they've played. There was that infamous Game 3 in NOLA and the first two games of the WCF that could have gone either way. That Memphis series was tight until Tony Allen got hurt. I'm not taking anything away from them. Indeed, it's a huge credit to their run that they've been tested without losing ground along the way, but the juggernaut is maybe not as strong as it appears.

ZILLER: Fair. This is one way in which a Warriors title would be fairly unprecedented: the core is young and not yet bitterly desperate. You'd have to go back to the 2003 Spurs or 2004 Pistons to get something similar, and even then Tim Duncan already had a ring and those Detroit guys were the "nobody believed in us" All-Stars. Dwyane Wade in 2006 is the last young star to lead his team to a championship without having been crushed in the playoffs a number of times. And he had Pat Riley, Shaq, Zo and The Glove along for the ride. That history makes Golden State's task a good bit more daunting. There's value in having direct experience of the spectacle. LeBron certainly has that. The Warriors don't.

FLANNERY: Oh, there's no question he needed some help. One element that's been underplayed quite a bit is the degree to which the mere presence of a large human like Timofey Mozgov helped perk up his spirits. Add Iman Shumpert's wing defense and JR Smith's shooting (a much different kind of gunner than Dion Waiters) and the Cavs were suddenly a much more complete team.

What's brought us back to the LeBron against the world narrative have been the injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, and the degree to which it really was Bron's offensive might that has taken them this far. Get those two guys back healthy and this looks like the team to beat in the East for the next three years. You couldn't say that with the same confidence when the season started.

ZILLER: I think the Warriors can name that tune in five. I'd love to be proven wrong -- I'll always root deep down for the team without a title or with the longest drought -- but I see too many battles tilting heavily in Golden State's direction. Stephen Curry wins Finals MVP and I rue the day in my youth I chose the Kings over the Warriors while growing up midway between Oakland and Sacramento.