Even with their superior physical conditioning, players at this level of play are simply human and do get tuckered out when they have to play defense as well on the other end. Sunday’s decision proved that to be the case, and now the Warriors will be without him when they try to finish this series Monday night.
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It was his first game scoring at least 20 points in this series on a night the Warriors set an NBA Finals record with 17 3-pointers. But something tell us no one will remember that. In his two years with the Cavaliers, he’s averaged 16.2 points per game, nearly 10 points fewer than what he averaged during his final year in Minnesota.
Irving finished with 34 points but was 3 of 10 in the fourth quarter.
His fellow splash brother Klay Thompson would also start to get hot – as he hits from outside the arc – and the Warriors are chipping into the lead. They’ve only made it look that way.
“It didn’t happen, so whatever”, Kerr said.
His second ring in 2013 with Miami came when the Heat needed to win two elimination games in the finals to oust the San Antonio Spurs in what became a dramatic seven-game matchup, highlighted by Ray Allen’s overtime-forcing 3-pointer with 5.2 seconds left in Game 6. The play could be reviewed by the league. “Draymond just said something that I don’t agree with”, James said. They brought their bench in, so I thought if we could keep our starters in for a few minutes, we could kind of make a run and then get guys out slowly.
In Game 4, Smith disappeared once again.
Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue chose to stick with starting unit that defeated the Golden State Warriors by 30 in Game 3 which means Richard Jefferson remains in the starting lineup while Love, recovering from a concussion, moves to the bench.
“Just because we’re going home, that doesn’t mean we can relax or take things for granted”, Warriors point guard Stephen Curry said. Replays showed Green punching James in the groin, but the officials didn’t see it. Andre Igoudala and Green are so good, and they are making James’ life miserable.
There’s a valid argument that Barnes is the leader in the clubhouse on a Warriors team that has truly used everyone in its locker room to take a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven NBA Finals against Cleveland. So we hope to have a great night, take care of the details of the game.
Curry had his MVP moment with 3:22 remaining, when he answered Irving’s layup with a three-pointer from the top of the key to push Golden State’s lead to 96-86.
The tightly-contested first half, easily the most intense 24 minutes of the series so far, included 15 lead changes, which was more than the previous three games combined. It came after James knocked down Green and stepped over him, considered a faux pas itself in National Basketball Association circles.
Fatigue was a big problem in the second half, and that’s on Cleveland coach Tyronn Lue.
Unlike in Game 3, when they fell into an early hole and never recovered, the Warriors came out strong and stayed step for step with the Cavaliers.
Cleveland’s Kevin Love had 11 points in his first reserve role since 2010 after being cleared by doctors to return to the lineup following a concussion barely an hour before tipoff. “We’ve just got to ball out”.
“It’ll be a fun 48 hours to wrap our minds around the opportunity we have in front of us”. We had just won a game by 30 points.
Lue made the gutsy call to bench Love, his $110 million power forward, and stick with the starting lineup that worked so well together in a 120-90 win in Game 3 on Wednesday.
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Whether you think they have a chance or not, you can bet the Cavs will be on that plane.
