Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry celebrates a basket against the Cleveland Cavaliers during the second half of Game 4 of basketball’s NBA Finals in Cleveland, Friday, June 10, 2016.
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LeBron James scored 32 points, Kyrie Irving added 30 and the Cleveland Cavaliers, pushed for 48 minutes by a delirious, championship-starved crowd, hammered the Golden State Warriors 120-90 in Game 3 on Wednesday night to pull within 2-1 in the NBA Finals. Just 10 teams have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win, and the Warriors know how hard that is.
Game 5 of the series is on Tuesday (Manila time), back in Oakland, California.
Stephen Curry finally broke through for the Warriors, scoring 38 points on 11-of-25 shooting, 7 of 13 from 3-point range.
James had 25 points, 13 rebounds, nine assists and seven turnovers, falling an assist shy of his 16th postseason triple-double and seventh in his Finals career. Iguodala, arguably the most critical component of the Warriors’ small-ball lineups, was a game-high plus-15 in Game 4 and has the best plus-minus in The Finals (plus-54) for the second straight year.
Golden State Warriors edged Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 4 of NBA Finals, 108-97, to erect a commanding 3-1 lead.
The Warriors set an NBA Finals record with 17 3-pointers.
In the first tense game of this Finals series, the lead changed hands nearly 20 times throughout as neither side could hold a long period of dominance. Green appeared to hit James between the legs on his way up.
But the story of the game was Golden State’s offense. We were 10 feet off of them the entire possession, they ran it underneath the free throw line. They’ve come to expect it. Cleveland’s superstar, LeBron James, again showed why he doesn’t have that fourth-quarter killer instinct that guys like Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson had.
“I think it can only help us because Kevin’s an unbelievable player”, shooting guard J.R. Smith said after Thursday’s practice.
Golden state Warriors beat Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday. But Curry had 38 Friday and Thompson finished with 25.
“He’s one guy I don’t ever worry about bouncing back from a bad game”.
Love had started every game he’s played for the games over the last two years which includes 152 regular season games and 20 playoff games. Green and LeBron had an intense smack talking moment late in the fourth quarter, where a double-foul was called. However, after the early part of the third quarter, Love was removed from the game, walked to the locker room and did not return.
An incredibly wild and not always well-played or officiated third quarter ended with the Warriors up 79-77 thanks to a combined 21 points in the period by Curry and Klay Thompson, who had 19 points and five 3-pointers in the first eight minutes.
“Which seems insane given what it looked like in the first half”, coach Steve Kerr said.
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“If you want to look to that side, then you put too much pressure on yourself”, James said. Golden State shot well but winning the rebound battle kept Cleveland right on their tail.
