“Don’t matter what you do with Steph and Klay, don’t matter what you do with Draymond (Green)”, James said. “That’s why we’re here”.
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In fact, the Cavs needed more scoring in general as their bench was outscored by the Warriors by an astonishing 45-10 which was the difference in the end as the Cavs actually did a great job of holding the Warriors’ backcourt of Curry and Thompson to a combined 20 points. It’s only one game, and the Cavs will make adjustments before Game 2 Sunday. The problem, of course, is that Klay and Steph are due for a regression to the mean the other way. Andre Iguodala had 12 points while Leandro Barbosa added 11.
Golden State’s Andre Iguodala earned the NBA Finals Most Valuable Player award a year ago for coming off the bench and playing smothering defense on LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“But it’s probably going to have to be better in Game Two, because we know the force that they’re going to come with”. But it didn’t matter, because Curry’s backup, Shaun Livingston – the same Shaun Livingston who, it should be mentioned any time he does something like this, almost lost a leg following a gruesome knee injury – put up 20 points in 26 minutes on a series of the mid-range jumpers that have come to define his game the past couple of years. “They are a team that has another year under their belt”.
Livingston gave the Warriors a strong start while surrounded by those thousands of golden yellow “Strength in Numbers” T-shirts worn by the raucous fans throughout sold-out Oracle. We can expect both GSW and Cleveland to be unpredictable for the rest of the finals. “We pick each other up”. “Just being aggressive while we’re out there”.
James had 23 points, 12 rebounds and nine assists for Cleveland, which had lost just twice in its first 14 postseason games. Of course, Golden State’s bench played more than the Thunder bench – 564 competitive minutes for the Warriors, 459 competitive minutes for the Thunder.
Iguodala had a good game with 12 points, seven rebounds and six assists.
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.
With 34.1 seconds left in the third, Iguodala took issue with Dellavedova’s swat into his groin that after review was ruled a personal foul and no flagrant.
Iguodala counterpunched by hitting a 3-pointer, and Golden State took a 74-68 lead into the fourth.
Livingston, on his own, had the same number of points as Curry and Thompson, and also single-handedly doubled the point-production of the entire Cleveland bench (which had 10 points).
However, the Cavaliers, with James sitting most of the time, didn’t score again for the next 4:10, during which the Warriors used their 15-point flurry to break the game open.
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On Friday, Warriors coach Steve Kerr credited his team’s defense. “Destruction tends to ease some of the anger, so I try to take it out on a clipboard instead of a player”, Kerr said. “So it’s better that way”. Cavaliers point guard Kyrie Irving was asked how different it is facing the Warriors after facing nothing like them in the first three rounds. They hit just 7 of 21 from long distance, struggles that often tell the tale of their chances to win.
