After being embarrassed by the Warriors in the first two games of the series, the Cavaliers looked like a desperate team in Game 3, and they had to be.
Advertisement
“Me and Steph haven’t really shot the ball as well as we want to”, Thompson said.
But one thing that stuck out for me in the game was the resurgence of LeBron James’ jump shot, and a reminder that when his jumper is falling, he’s just about unguardable.
“It’s a tough grind to win a championship”, Curry said.
“We’ve got to have the same effort on Friday”, James said.
“We’ve been in situations like these before where you have a night that just doesn’t go your way from start to finish, and for us, we’ve been able to bounce back pretty quick because we can turn the page and understand”.
Golden State’s 110-77 game two blowout of Cleveland marked their seventh straight victory over the LeBron James-led team dating back to last year’s NBA Finals, but the streak ended with a crash at Quicken Loans Arena. The Cavaliers have the next game on their home floor, but, perhaps even more importantly than that, they now have a sense of belief in their ability to take the fight to Golden State and come out of it victorious. “Told him, don’t worry about it. We’ve got him tonight”, Cleveland’s LeBron James told reporters after practice on Thursday.
After game three of the NBA Finals, US expert Alex Ferguson assesses whether the Cleveland Cavaliers can continue their comeback against the Golden State Warriors.
“It’s going to take more than an effort like that to win a Finals game against a great team, obviously”. “They just punched us right in the mouth”. “We weren’t strong enough with the ball”. “Neither one of them had huge games when we were up 2-0, but it didn’t matter because we won”. Just a terrible way to start. The starting power forward missed Game 3 after being placed in the NBA’s concussion protocol during the second half of Game 2 after he received an incidental elbow to the head from Warriors forward Harrison Barnes.
Coach Steve Kerr say’s it was Cleveland’s aggressiveness that won them the game.
“This was about one team being emotionally fired up and angry about being down 0-2 and another team being comfortable”. They would have brought it with Kevin, too. “Their aggressiveness was important”. “They might be mad for a second, but they can always get back to understanding and realize that’s the right thing”.
“I’m not sure what goes into it”, Lue said. Tristan Thompson contributed 14 points and 13 rebounds Wednesday in a 120-90 rout of defending champion Golden State.
NBA Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry had a night to forget with 19 points on 6-for-13 shooting for the Warriors. “For me to do what I need to do to help my team, I have to play 100 times better than that, especially in the first quarter”. He merely gave the “I haven’t thought about it” answer. That’s when James and Irving rallied around the other member of Cleveland’s Big 3.
Advertisement
Curry averaged 30 points per game in the regular season, but it’s been a flawless storm in the finals for struggle: He missed shots he ordinarily makes in Game 1, got himself into foul trouble in Game 2, and endured a combination of more foul trouble and smothering, grabby, invasive Cleveland defense in Game 3.
