Golden State, which made history with a 73-win regular season, can become the seventh franchise to win consecutive titles with a victory in Game 5 on Monday night at rip-roaring Oracle Arena, where they won the first two games by a combined 48 points. They went almost seven minutes between baskets in the fourth, while the Warriors countered with Harrison Barnes’ fourth 3-pointer of the game to stretch the lead to 93-84 – their largest of the night – with 5:56 to play.
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No team has ever come back to win an NBA Finals series after being 3-1 down. Stephen Curry finished with 38 points and six assists with seven made three-pointers, while Klay Thompson added 25 points and four made three-pointers.
Despite the loss, the Cavs had five players in double figures, led by Irving, with LeBron James almost logging a triple-double as he put up 25 points, 13 rebounds, and nine assists. Love suffered a head concussion after getting hit by an elbow of Harrison Barnes at the back of the head in Game 2. With Jefferson replacing Love, Cleveland opened up Game 3 by scoring nine straight points.
“After winning [Game 2] by 30 points, I thought it was the right thing to do”, said Lue.
But Irving noted how an emotional James told his teammates in a pre-game huddle to “Follow my lead”, and that motivated the Cavaliers, who scored the first nine points, jumped ahead 19-4 and 33-14 and never trailed in the romp. The Thunder led the Warriors 3-1 before the defending champs rallied and won three straight games.
Winning one game on Golden State’s home floor was always going to be hard for the Cavaliers, winning two might be impossible.
Emotions would also boil over in separate instances, as James would have words with both Curry and Draymond Green.
LeBron James and company looked solid in every aspect of Game 3.
Conversely the Cavaliers wanted to remain ideal on their home floor – as they were 7-an-oh at Quicken Loans Arena during the post-season, and another win would even the series at 2-all. The Warriors had a number of key offensive rebounds in the fourth quarter. You can’t keep guys like that down forever.
“He trusts his shot and he just kept firing and they went in”. “I just think we’ve got to come back anyway, so we might as well come back and play”. After the score by James, the Cleveland shooting then went ice cold, missing 11 of their next 12 shot attempts.
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All eyes will be on Curry to lead a bounce-back performance. He was 9-fo-13 from the field but just 1-of-5 on threes. Yes, Kyrie Irving was hitting some great shots but he is not the unstoppable force James is when he wants to be, he let his side down in this aspect.
