Game 2 is Sunday in Oakland. Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 104-89. This was as close as the Warriors would come to regular-season distress, and scrutiny was amplified by a sound bite from Curry, delivered as the Dubs returned to the site of their championship bash in Cleveland: “Hopefully”, Steph told reporters, “it still smells a little bit like champagne”.
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– One season ago in the NBA Finals, a shorthanded Cleveland Cavaliers team managed to make a series out of it with the mighty Golden State Warriors, pushing the Warriors to six games before Golden State eventually won. On the other, it’s hard to imagine Stephen Curry (11 points on 4-for-15 shooting) and Klay Thompson (nine points on 4-for-12 shooting) being so pedestrian again. “Steph gets a lot of headlines and deservedly so, but we have so many great players that always show up on the biggest stage”. “Even the best players in the world have bad nights. They really changed the game, and it allowed us to win”.
“It isn’t just words”, said Andre Iguodala, last year’s Finals MVP.
An off night by Curry didn’t matter this time.
Relegated to also-ran status at times during the team’s 1-3 start to the Western Conference finals, Golden State’s bench unit was limited in its matchups against the Thunder and hardly made a dent even in winning.
In a series with so much star power on both sides, this was a night for Livingston and fellow reserves Leandro Barbosa and Andre Iguodala. “Their bench played well”.
“Obviously the game ball goes to Shaun Livingston”. We knew he’d be a key for the Warriors in this series and the only surprising thing he did tonight was come off the bench behind Harrison Barnes. “We didn’t finish around the basket, so we’ve just got to keep playing the game we were playing”.
The overwhelming bench advantage negated LeBron James’ 23-point, 12-rebound, nine-assist performance as well as the 26 points the Cavaliers got from Kyrie Irving. The vet was a game-high +22, scoring 12 points, grabbing 7 rebounds, and dishing out 6 assists while playing incredible defense.
In fact, the fascinating thing about the incident is not yet one more groining in a sport that has become increasingly tolerant of the tactic, or Iguodala’s angry reaction to Dellavedova, but the fact that Green of all people is the one who corralled Iguodala and moved him from his initial inclination to precipitate a bench-emptying brawl and to a place of disciplinary safety. But that’s when Curry and Thompson finally made their mark, burying back-to-back three-pointers that caused Cavaliers Coach Tyronn Lue to call a timeout and remove his starters from the game. The Warriors, a historically good home team this year, were absolutely supposed to win Game 1. He shook his head in delight after a two-handed slam off a pass from Curry with 5:44 left.
Kevin Love remained active offensively, but he was chased off of the 3-point line and needed 17 shots to get his 17 points.
The Cavaliers were second in the league in 3-point shooting this season, behind only the Warriors. Shaun Livingston scored 20 points.
James has scored 20 or more points in a career-best 25 straight playoff games, topping his previous mark of 24 in a row from May 12, 2008, to April 25, 2010.
Steve Kerr, furious at how his team was surrounding the lead in the third quarter, broke another clipboard in the huddle after calling a timeout. “Destruction tends to ease some of the anger”, Kerr joked later.
“Nothing I haven’t seen”, Curry explained of the pesky defense the Cavaliers threw at him, which included more isolated matchups than usual against James. “So it’s better that way”. Cleveland had held opponents below 100 points in 11 of its first 14 games this postseason….
“It’s a flawless spot for Cleveland in Game 2”, said Micah Roberts, a handicapper for “The Linemakers” on SportingNews.com and VegasInsider.com.
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The Warriors went on decisive 15-0 run that began late in the third quarter and was sparked by the Golden State bench. Andrew Bogut scored 10 points, his entire total from last year’s finals….
