The Warriors barely got back, becoming the 10th team to climb out of a 3-1 hole by beating the Oklahoma City Thunder 96-88 on Monday night in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.
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Stephen Curry hit five second-half 3-pointers and scored 36 points in all for Golden State, who will host the opener of the best-of-seven NBA Finals on Thursday in Oakland. “Our fans deserve it”, James said.
If he does leave the only franchise he has played for in his nine-year career, he will do it having failed to deliver the championship to Oklahoma City. It drew the highest rating for a non-Finals matchup in 16 years, falling just short of Game 7 of thet Lakers-Blazers Western Conference Finals series in 2000. They have dropped at least one game in all three of their playoff series, so far.
Instead of getting home court advantage in the Finals, which they would have had if the Thunder had won, the Cavs flew to California on Tuesday for the start of the series later this week against the team with the greatest regular season-record in league history (73-9).
With Kevin Love hurt coming in and Kyrie Irving breaking his foot in Game 1, the 2015 Finals devolved into LeBron vs. They’re a well-oiled machine, obviously well coached and got so many great players on their team. Russell Westbrook was putting up otherworldly numbers, Serge Ibaka knocked down almost half of his outside shots and Steven Adams bullied Golden State’s centers throughout the entire series. The whole league knows that.
No one truly knows where Durant will end up and I doubt he knows at this point.
As pointed out by ESPN, before this series no player has ever made more than 28 threes in a series. With a healthy Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love in tow, LeBron will have the weapons he didn’t have a year ago, when he single-handedly carried the Cavs in the Finals until they finally succumbed in six games.
The Thunder certainly would have preferred to close out the series at home over traveling back across the country to the Bay Area for the deciding game.
A year later, James repeated as MVP and Durant again was second, but the Thunder went out in the second round.
“I work on my game a lot throughout the offseason”, James said. Both averaging 26 points per game in the playoffs, Curry and Thompson will likely be heavily guarded by the Cavaliers due to their three-point shooting.
I’m not saying that LeBron isn’t going to score, I just don’t believe that he’s going to go for 25 or 30.
All games on ABC; Games 5-7 if necessary. After losing to the Warriors in the Finals last season, the Cavaliers will look to seek revenge.
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Kyrie Irving, who broke his kneecap in Game 1 last year, and Kevin Love, who had already been lost to shoulder surgery, are combining for more than 40 points per game in the postseason, poised to give James the help he didn’t have during his furious but futile one-man show last year.
