For the third year in a row (a first for an NBA Finals), the last two teams standing in the NBA are Cleveland and Golden State with each winning an NBA title. The Warriors could possibly be one of the greatest teams of all time.
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Durant replaces Harrison Barnes, whose offensive struggles played a big role in the Warriors’ failure to repeat as champions in 2016. Can LeBron James slay the dragon once again and cement his legacy? The Cavaliers were up 2-1 in 2015, did not have Kevin Love for the entire series and only had Kyrie Irving for Game 1, yet they lost in six games.
THE Warriors are the first team to win their first 12 games of the postseason, sweeping all three rounds so far.
“When he’s going, he makes their team a lot better”, Green said, “so it is my job to try to take him out of the game”.
For Durant, winning his first title will validate in many ways his decision to join an already loaded Golden State team in addition to taking him off the list of highest scoring National Basketball Association players (Durant has a career 27.2 points per game average) in league history to never win an National Basketball Association title. How do you follow all that up?
Kevin Durant is set to begin his second NBA Finals tonight.
James has played in a total of 40 NBA Finals games during his career, posting a 17-23 record in those games.
The Cavs will need to slow the game down. In the half-court, defense is key.
Add to that mix veterans like Deron Williams, Channing Frye, Kyle Korver and J.R. Smith and the Cavs are one of the few teams in the league that have the firepower to stay with the Warriors.
The Cavs did previous year. Going to do everything in my power to attack every game with that perspective. Then Durant joined them. In all, there are a combined seven All-Stars on the two teams, and that means at any given time or in any given game, any of these guys could step up and take over the moment. The Cavs caught a glimpse of how they’ve done it. In that light, a club can reward one designated veteran player per year with a contract starting at 35 percent of next year’s projected $101 million salary cap. Even though they are underdogs going into this year’s Finals, they should definitely not be overlooked. Nearly an afterthought, which is unsafe, is Klay Thompson, nearly as good a shooter as Curry is.
Durant gives the Warriors a scoring option when Curry’s and Thompson’s 30-footers aren’t swishing. They have destroyed all the teams in the competition with their dominant display. I’ve been a big fan of Kevin Durant; he’s been one of my favorite players in the National Basketball Association.
Can The Cavs Slow Down Golden State’s Offense? “He showed an ability to obviously catch and shoot really well and consistently”. They play to their competition, and we haven’t really seen them challenged like this since last years Finals. The last three seasons he has continued the trend with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Golden State is 12-0 this postseason and viewed as heavy favorites in Finals matchup No. 3, and that doesn’t sit right with Cleveland power forward Kevin Love.
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Both Cavs believers picked them in six. Yes, Golden State will be a challenge and yes, they have four All-Star players; But, the Cavs also have three as well.
