After ordinary shooting performances in the first three games, the Warriors’ best shooters, NBA MVP Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, bounced back with 38 and 25 points respectively.
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In the four Finals games, James has gone to the foul line just 17 times in all despite continually driving to the basket and the versatile forward, who is appearing in his sixth successive NBA Finals, sounded frustrated.
“Draymond said something that I don’t agree with”, said James, who won the NBA Finals in 2012 and 2013 with Miami but has lost the last two, including last year’s defeat by Golden State.
The Warriors took a 3-1 series lead Friday night with the win in Cleveland, ending the Cavs’ momentum from their blowout win Wednesday night in Game 3.
It’s unclear if the Warriors even noticed.
Finally looking more wondrous than tired, Stephen Curry bounced back with his biggest performance of the NBA Finals on Friday night. Barkley: Oh I’m sorry, you missed them a couple times. Surprisingly, one of Kerr’s first substitutions was James Michael McAdoo, who had not played a single minute in the first three games. Curry and Thompson have enjoyed plenty of open looks throughout this series, they just weren’t falling until Friday.
Up until the fourth quarter, the Cavaliers kept pace with the Warriors.
After a 16-minute first half in which he grabbed five offensive rebounds and scored 10 points, Tristan Thompson played just 13 second-half minutes and didn’t score while grabbing just two rebounds and missing two free throws. They scored a combined 63 points after scoring a total of 84 points in Games 1-3. Weird, but it was good enough. The Larry O’Brien Trophy will be flying cross-country to Oakland on Saturday, and Golden State will have a chance to mussy it up with joyous fingerprints and champagne baths on Monday night. There are exceptions to the rule, like when there are particularly bad matchups for certain teams, but more times than not teams don’t get significantly better or worse when they play in a playoff series. I’m going to battle with whoever it is … They’ve only made it look that way.
“He’s Stephen Curry”, coach Steve Kerr said. No team has ever rallied from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals. All the Warriors care about is whether they win. If Green is given a flagrant foul 1 after the review, he will be given an automatic suspension for Game 5.
It didn’t help the Cavs’ case that the Warriors were using their so-called “death” lineup-a fast-paced, small-ball lineup in which every player can handle the ball and shoot from outside-which commonly runs even the most athletic opponents ragged. I don’t disrespect you on the court. “We have to understand that this series is not over”.
James was not pleased with green after game.
It’s a lot of talk about flailing, with the only true type being done by Cleveland.
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Green would be banned for Game 5 for accumulated play-off violations, most notably a kick to the groin of Oklahoma City centre Steven Adams, a New Zealander, in the Western Conference Finals. “Being a confident bunch, we feel like the chips have been stacked up against us all year anyway, so we’ve got to learn from our mistakes tonight, which we made some, and we go out with the mindset, ‘Let’s get one, and then, bring it home'”.
