So in Game 3, with starting forward Kevin Love limited to watching in the locker room while he continues recovering from a concussion, the Cavaliers won by 30.
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CLEVELAND – Rich Paul – LeBron James’ agent, confidant and longtime friend – couldn’t fully appreciate what he just saw out of James in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 120-90 throttling of the Golden State Warriors on Wednesday.
“We weren’t tough enough”, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “He’s eager to play”.
But then came Game 3 Wednesday: The Warriors weren’t clicking, while the Cleveland Cavaliers were playing with appropriate desperation at home, and Chef Curry still wasn’t cookin’.
If Kyrie can keep a similar level of play in Game 4, then this will spell trouble for Golden State Warriors who strong in FG% in the first two games.
The 63-point swing from the Warriors 110-77 mauling of the Cavaliers on Sunday was the biggest in National Basketball Association history and it was inspired by James’ 32 point, 11 rebound, 6 assists haul as the greatest player of his generation continued his bid to prove his place alongside the greats of the sport.
It’s safe to say, we have a series now. “What are we going to do?'”
Game 3, a 30-point win to answer their 33-point Game 2 loss, was (obviously) a reversal.
“We just lost one game”, Kerr said.
Without their enigmatic big man, the Cavs were able to rely on a smaller, more defense-oriented lineup that included starting Richard Jefferson.
J.R. Smith broke out of a shooting slump to score 20 points on 7-of-13 shooting, including 5-of-10 on 3-pointers.
“Just in the first half I had a couple lapses where I didn’t follow the game plan, and Kyrie (Irving) gets an easy lay-up, gets his confidence going, a couple of switches where I didn’t hear the guy behind me talking and being quicker with my reads in that situation”, Curry said. “They should be coaches”.
“I missed a ton of hippies”, James said.
When they did move the ball, it was often without as much intent. Steph Curry is a ticking time bomb who will go off eventually.
Smith said he didn’t have to forget poor efforts from the first two games.
But in Game 3, they were better without him.
Cavaliers’ back-up point guard Matthew Dellavedova appears to have fallen out of favour with Lue, with just two points in seven minutes on the court.
The Warriors didn’t look anything like the team that won a record 73 games during the regular season or the one that overcame a 3-1 deficit in the Western Conference finals. Sure, past the first quarter or two, it hasn’t been the most entertaining start to an NBA Finals, but the first two games were nothing short of a jab-right cross combination to the head of a dominant Cleveland monster. “There is no moral victory”.
With his championship hopes on the line, LeBron James reminded everyone ready to crown the Golden State Warriors NBA champions for a second consecutive year that there is plenty of basketball left in the NBA Finals.
“A large percentage of defense is trust and communication”, Iguodala said.
Due to his usual raw play and value as a defender, Green’s middling night didn’t quite stand out as much as the Warriors’ backcourt. “Their fans really bring it”, Green had added.
“It’s a very hostile environment”. If a player is not symptom free after a step, he stops until he is symptom free and begins again at the previous step of the protocol (i.e., the last step he passed without any symptoms). A game the team needed to have in front of its home crowd.
“It’s not coach. It’s us”, Bogut said. “I haven’t made a decision yet”.
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So it was in Game 3 of the NBA Finals last night, when he called in an air strike on the fast break after deflecting a Steph Curry pass to force a turnover. He also holds the top spot with 12 against San Antonio in 2007. Meanwhile, Golden State has looked like a pillow fort, somehow both meticulous and organic, a hand-built structure at once flexible and intricate and above all, just a shit-ton more fun.
