This series is still going because James had his second consecutive 41-point game in Cleveland’s 115-101 victory Thursday night with the Cavaliers facing elimination again.
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But the Cavaliers, who got a game-high 41 points from James, managed to hang on for the win and keep alive their hopes at a maiden National Basketball Association championship.
“They totally outplayed us”, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
Cavaliers: Seldom-used reserve G Dahntay Jones came off the bench in the last two minutes of the first and scored 5 points. Jefferson said. “I can’t think of too many players who have put that type of pressure on themselves and then have delivered more times than not”.
“He had every right to be upset”, Kerr said of Curry throwing his mouthpiece and getting ejected. “I mean, they outrebounded us, they made us uncomfortable in those first eight minutes, but you just have to give them credit for coming out and playing with great energy”.
Curry led the Warriors with 30 points in Game 6, but his poor defense was one of the reasons why Golden State lost the game. “It’s been great, and 103 on Sunday, and hopefully out of all those games he’s played, we want that one to be the best one he’s played”. “I like our chances in game seven to have everything click at the right time and win this thing”.
“It was obviously frustrating fouling out in the fourth quarter of a clinching game”, Curry said. “I’m going to give everything I’ve got in game seven”. “But three of the six fouls were incredibly inappropriate calls for anybody, much less the MVP of the league”.
But win or lose, James deserves to be the Finals MVP.
The one consolation for Golden State is home advantage in the finale, after dominating the regular season with a 73-9 record.
“I was just kind of debriefed on what the security thought happened with some guy that poses with fake credentials and gets backstage at a lot of events, the NBA Finals and all that stuff”, Curry told The Undefeated as he departed from the arena.
On Wednesday, James called Game 7, “the two best words ever”.
He was laughing a bit then, but this is no joke: The legacy of this season for the Warriors hinges entirely on the Game 7 that awaits on Sunday night.
At the conclusion of the Warriors’ Thursday loss in Cleveland, Ayesha Curry watched her husband get ejected in the fourth quarter and became the latest person to believe in the National Basketball Association grand conspiracy that everything is fixed.
“We know what kind of team we are, what we’re capable of, what we’ve accomplished so far, and how together we are”, said Curry.
Only twice before in NBA Finals history has a team down 3-1 even forced a seventh game, the most recent half a century ago by the Los Angeles Lakers and the first by the 1951 New York Knicks.
Tristan Thompson added 15 points and 16 rebounds for Cleveland and J.R. Smith scored 15 and threw a lob pass to LeBron for an incredible alley-oop dunk in the third quarter.
LeBron seems to take delight in bringing the Cavs back against the Warriors, but even more against Curry. “He’s one of the greatest of all-time”. Cleveland increased that lead to 31-11 by the close of that quarter – giving the Cavs an 83.6 percent win probability.
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LeBron himself should be beyond any shade at this point, after the way he kept the injury-riddled team competitive in last year’s Finals, and the way he has tilted this series.
