Cleveland could not stay united in the same way as their opponents as a thrilling Game 1 reached its climax on Thursday night

LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers had every reason to be angry with JR Smith on Thursday night. Their last, best chance at a miraculous upset in Game 1 of the NBA finals disappeared as Smith dribbled what appeared to be victory circles as the final seconds of regulation expired in a tied game. Of course they were furious. Nothing had gone right in the last 48 seconds of a game they should have won.

The series of calamities that included a reversed charge-call against Golden State’s Kevin Durant and George Hill’s missed free throw (the rebound of which, Smith grabbed before his dribble out) were enough to outrage anyone. And James was livid. The photo of him with his arms out, screaming at Smith, may be the lasting image of his time with the Cavaliers.

But here is the difference between James’s Cavs and the Warriors, who went on to win the opening game, in overtime, 124-114. During the break before overtime, James and many of the other Cavaliers seethed on the bench, leaving Smith on his own miserable island. It’s hard to imagine the same thing happening in Golden State’s huddle, where a culture of optimism keeps bad moments from lingering too long. The Cavaliers could not get over the incidents that kept them from stealing a win in regulation – and as a result they were ill-prepared to go on.

The Warriors seized upon Cleveland’s despair. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Golden State built their biggest lead of the game in overtime. Mentally, the Cavs were done. The charge call against Durant that became a block against James, Hill’s missed free-throw and Smith’s failure to shoot doomed the Cavaliers in a way Durant, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson couldn’t for 48 minutes in Game 1. Their inability to get past the bad will probably cost them a series that was already nearly impossible to win.

NBA finals: LeBron's 51 points in vain as Cavaliers blow late chances against Warriors Read more

A lot is made of how the Cavs are a one-man team, riding the greatest run of LeBron’s career to these finals. James has indeed been magnificent. His 51 points in Game 1 were the fifth-best from any player in any finals game ever. He has been jaw-droppingly good these past two months. But he is a superstar now in the old way of superstars – a sun around which the franchise revolves. Hints into his mindset come when he refers to the other Cavaliers as “my players.”

Late on Thursday night he caught himself as he defended Smith by saying: “I don’t give up on any of my players,” quickly changing “any of my players” to “any of my team-mates.”

Play Video 1:17 LeBron James walks out of post-game press conference – video

There is nothing wrong with James’s thinking. This group has been thrown together to win a title and hopefully convince him to stay with the Cavs. Cleveland don’t have the feel of a team being built to conquer the world the way they did when they overcame a 3-1 deficit to win the title two years ago. The current roster is a cast of mercenaries hired to achieve the impossible. They are, in fact, his players.

The price of such a world is the Cavs have become a team of acolytes subject to LeBron’s whims. When one fails him – as Hill and Smith apparently did – the mood darkens. There’s no room for recovery.

Golden State are built differently. While the Warriors are loaded with some of their era’s best players, the stars share the burden evenly. They support each other. Mistakes are not disasters but rather speed bumps. Bad moments are quickly forgotten as the focus turns to moving forward. Much of this comes from Curry, who refuses to make the team about himself even when he has been the best shooter of his time.

“Our best player is also our best person,” Golden State’s general manager Bob Myers told me two years ago.

Curry’s openness allowed Thompson and Green to thrive and gave room for a superstar like Durant to sign as a free agent in the summer of 2016. Yes, the Warriors are loaded but the mass of talent and egos would be toxic in nearly any other environment. Mistakes are shrugged off. Bad breaks are batted away. The Warriors’ attitude can be summed up in the now-famous clip of Kerr telling Curry what his mentor, Gregg Popovich, used to say at tough times: “It’s supposed to be hard.”

Yes, Golden State were lucky to win Game 1. The officials reversing their charge call against Durant was a huge blow to the Cavs who would have controlled the game from that moment. Hill’s missed free-throw was heartbreaking. Smith’s blunder was a disaster. But none of those things lost Thursday’s game for Cleveland. The game was blown not in those frantic 48 seconds at the end of regulation but in the minutes before overtime when the Cavs were not a team but the flunkies who failed LeBron.

From coach Ty Lue’s mumbled explanation about Smith’s decision (“He thought we were up one,”) to James’s (“I don’t know [JR’s] state of mind”) to Smith’s own insistence that he knew the game was tied and was trying to get space to shoot, Cleveland came off as a team that is anything but together.

And when a team isn’t together, beating the Warriors inches closer to the impossible.