You can be a hero now in the NBA Finals in 2016 and in 2021 you will be sucking food through a straw.
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Green scored six points on 2-of-8 shooting in Game 3 while grabbing seven rebounds and passing for seven assists.
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ 120-90 victory Wednesday night over the Golden State Warriors to pull within 2-1 in the series averaged almost 16.5 million viewers on ABC. The Warriors will be looking for some get back. The Golden State bench outscored Cleveland’s 33-15 in Game 3, but with Curry getting 19 points and Thompson only 10, the Cavs won easily.
Curry’s take on Game 4: “I like our chances of being able to figure it out”.
Heading into a Game 4 that will drastically change the narrative of the series no matter what happens, the Warriors have reason to be confident.
ESPN sports writer Brian Windhorst predicted that, while Love might start Game 4, he would not remain in the line-up for long.
Stephen Curry and LeBron James drew more TV viewers previous year through three games than they have in the 2016 NBA Finals. The Cavaliers’ game plan wasn’t really working.
Again, try to make sense of that.
Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue said Thursday that Handy’s message to the team was one that needed to be delivered.
While Lue wasn’t sharing, the Cavaliers – even with Love in the locker room – might have figured something out Wednesday night. We’ve got him. This is what a team is all about – for them to pick their brother up in a time of need. “This was about one team being emotionally fired up and angry about being down 2-0, and another team being comfortable”.
“I think we were extremely soft”, Green said before the Warriors’ practice at Quicken Loans Arena. They would have brought it with Kevin, too. “So I don’t think it made a difference”. Draymond Green leads the Warriors in scoring through three games of this series, which is probably more than Cleveland could have hoped for coming into the matchup. The number of games left to play depends exclusively upon the performance of James and the Cavaliers. He was hurt in Game 2 of the series on Sunday and had to complete a number of steps mandated by the National Basketball Association concussion protocol before he could be cleared to play again.
But if you isolate just the first quarter, there’s a more significant jump, from 85.5 in Game 2 to 87.3 in Game 3.
Cleveland’s performance in Game 3 was impressive, but it could all be for naught if the Warriors bounce back and win Game 4. The Warriors struggled to a meagre 42 per cent from the field, 27 per cent from the three-point line and 32 rebounds.
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The Cavs have privately been concerned for months how Love would match up defensively in a Finals rematch against the Warriors, with one team executive offering during the regular season that Love may have to become the Cavs’ version of David Lee – the high-priced, high-scoring forward who came off the bench a year ago to help spark the Warriors to a championship.
