After the Cavaliers took a five-point lead at the half, Golden State outscored Cleveland 48-34 in the second half, thanks to the efforts of Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.
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And James Michael McAdoo, who hadn’t played since Game 3 of the Warriors’ second-round series against Portland, entered in the first quarter and played eight minutes.
Warriors: Recorded their 88th overall win this season, breaking the league record they shared with the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls…
It’s unclear if the Warriors even noticed. Because one 60-yard bomb here and 70-yard connection here and now they’re right back in the game.
“Just because we’re going home, that doesn’t mean we can relax or take things for granted”, Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said.
“Staying confident in myself, my teammates staying confident in me, staying with it”, Curry said of how he managed to turn things around. The back and forth game was basketball at its finest where fans got to witness two incredible teams trade punches over four quarters. While Cleveland again had the energy edge, this time it wasn’t almost as overwhelming and eventually, it disappeared altogether, just like Cleveland’s title chances.
The Warriors seemed to have grown exhausted of questions about their star backcourt’s ineffectiveness.
Curry, the NBA’s two-time reigning most valuable player and regular season scoring champion, was averaging just 16 points a game against the Cavs and Thompson 12.
If Green is retroactively assessed a flagrant foul, he’ll be suspended for Game 5 because of too many other postseason flagrant fouls. They made a Finals-record 17 three-pointers on 47 per cent long-range shooting, while the Cavs managed only six three-pointers on 24 per cent shooting. Weird, but it was good enough.
The Larry O’Brien Trophy was flown cross-country to Oakland on Saturday to be handed out if the Warriors win.
“You’ll never get it from me”. “But we’ve got to get one”.
Thompson said: “We’ve got another game Monday”.
Warriors forward and UA alum Andre Iguodala won last year’s NBA Finals MVP, and he was once again a defensive force Friday. They’ve only made it look that way.
Here is the position the Cavs find themselves in today: No team has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win the NBA Finals. He hit 3 of 10 shots, including 2 of 8 from beyond the arc, for just 10 points on Friday. Sunday’s decision proved that to be the case, and now the Warriors will be without him when they try to finish this series Monday night.
Green would be banned for game five for accumulated playoff violations, most notably a kick to the groin of Oklahoma City center Steven Adams, a New Zealander, in the Western Conference finals.
Given the way they blew a brilliant opportunity to make the finals a competitive series, the Cavs’ anger could be understood. “It made me laugh sitting back from a distance”.
True, for a lot of reasons.
“As a competitor, I love going against Draymond, and I’m all about going out there and leaving it out on the floor”, James said. “And because of our versatility, I feel like we’ll be able to do that”.
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Either way, the ending of this series will be historic. Golden State shot well but winning the rebound battle kept Cleveland right on their tail. “It’s going to be our biggest game of the year”, Curry said.
