The Warriors, who downed Cleveland 104-89 in Thursday’s opener of the best-of-seven series, can move halfway to a championship repeat by beating the Cavaliers in game two on Sunday.
Advertisement
Iguodala scored 12 points, grabbed seven rebounds, passed out six assists, made a steal and blocked a shot while playing 35 minutes off the bench for Golden State in a 104-89 victory over Cleveland in the first game of the National Basketball Association finals.
GOLDEN State’s Andre Iguodala earned the National Basketball Association finals Most Valuable Player award previous year for coming off the bench and playing smothering defense on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
With the Golden State Warriors down 2-1 to LeBron and an injured Cleveland Cavaliers team, it was Iguodala’s two-way play that made all of the difference in that series.
LeBron James had team highs with 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds for the Cavaliers, who were held to 72 points twice in the 2008 playoffs, including in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinals at Boston.
For the game, the Cavaliers shot just 38 percent from the field, while the Warriors, who also got 16 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists from do-it-all forward Draymond Green, made 49 percent of their shot attempts. Curry and Thompson will bounce back.
And so the Cavaliers insisted they are fine, will make adjustments and tweaks and will be prepared for Game 2. “So it’s a great sign, obviously, that we can win in the finals without those two guys having big games, but it’s not really that surprising to us”. “I try to take it out on a clipboard instead of a player”.
“I’m not discouraged at all”, James said Friday after analyzing video of the defeat.
The latest match-up was all but decided midway through the third, when Curry went to the bench due to foul trouble and with the Warriors leading by 10.
Playing in his sixth straight NBA Finals, James delivered with 23 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists. The Warriors still managed to push the lead to 20 points, a shocking development for a team that won a record 73 games in the regular season on the strength of lights-out shooting from its backcourt.
“But there’s also a sense of expectation knowing through each round how to deal with the emotions, the environment of the playoffs themselves, the hoopla around it, especially when you get to the finals”.
Irving is healthy and will start, while Cavaliers head coach Tyronn Lue said he expects Dellavedova to only play between 10 to 12 minutes off the bench. More Kyrie and Love will mean less of 2015 Finals legend Matthew Dellavedova, but that’s just a burden the Cavs will have to bear.
It was enough to overwhelm the visiting Cavaliers, as Golden State won by 15 to take a 1-0 series lead.
Advertisement
If you’re looking to argue that the Mean Tweets Jimmy Kimmel makes celebrities read have an effect on them, last night may just have provided some proof. Now, we wouldn’t want the city of Cleveland to go through that kind of agony now would we?
