Last Night In The NBA: The Warriors Are On The Brink Of Yet Another Title
Happy Thursday everybody and welcome back to another edition of Last Night In The NBA where we catch you up on everything that went down from the night before in the Association. With the Finals shifting to CLE, the Cavs were essentially playing for their playoff lives, and that showed right from the start. What we got by the end of the night was one of the more confusing games of the series mixed with an all time Finals performance. Intrigued? Keep reading because here’s what happened.
Golden State Warriors 110 vs Cleveland Cavaliers 102 (GS leads 3-0)
This has been a weird last two finals. The Warriors are something crazy like 7-1 over the last two years against CLE, but for the most part it feels like this has been a competitive matchup. It’s not as if the Cavs are being crushed by 20+ every time these two teams play. So while 3-0 doesn’t look like this might be a close and competitive series, anyone who says they haven’t been entertained is lying. I don’t care if you say you know who’s going to win and that’s what makes it not exciting. You cannot tell me that Games 1 and 3 have not been thrilling to watch. Period. Today we’re talking about Game 3, a win that has GS on the brink of their 3rd title in four years. Not bad. What made this win so improbable was that even though the Warriors had five players in double figures, make no mistake. This was the Kevin Durant show
When it was all said and done not only did he pull out yet another Game 3 dagger from essentially the same spot to end the Cavs season is basically the exact same way as last year, but he finished with 43 on 15-23 shooting and when I say he was money from everywhere I fucking mean it
Look at how deep those threes are. Whether Durant wanted to get to his spot in the paint or he wanted to suck the life out of you with a 30fter, there was no stopping him. On a night when the Warriors DESPERATELY needed someone to step up and provide the scoring, why not go to a guy who is probably the best pure scorer in the NBA right now. Just to put in perspective how ridiculous he was, Durant shot 50% on defended FGs, 50% on contested FGs and 11-15 on open looks. There was honestly nothing a team could do to stop him. You’d have to think Durant has the lead for Finals MVP, which is funny considering his own fans don’t even really like him. I’m sure they had no problem with his isolation last night, or that he was killing ball movement. I guess when you make almost every shot you take that happens. So why was Durant’s performance so important, well, for a sort of skinny guy he had to carry the dead weight of his backcourt, who combined to go just 7-27
It really sucks that Steph Curry had to get hurt in such an important game. I mean how else do you explain his 3-16 performance? What’s crazy is even if the Warriors lost this game, no CHANCE Warriors fans get on Steph for how he played last night. But now that he hit that big three late, all is forgiven. Outside of Curry/Klay, there really wasn’t a Warrior that struggled last night. Draymond and McGee combined to go 9-16, and then when things turned to the GS bench, it was as if they didn’t miss a beat.
To be honest the GS bench has been great all Finals, and last night Iggy/Bell/Livingston combined for 26 points on 11-14 shooting and just 1 TO. Iguodala had the big steal on Love that led to the Curry three which essentially ended the game
and in his 22 minutes he was second on the team with a +14. I’d say he made a pretty big impact in his return to the lineup which is exactly what Warriors fans were hoping for. Another big reason the Warriors were able to pull this out was how locked in they got on the defensive end over the final 24 minutes. The Cavs had scored 58 points on 49/43% splits in the first half and had killed the Warriors on the glass for 10 huge second chance points. I don’t know what Kerr said at halftime, but the second half was a completely different story. CLE scored just 44 points on 35.9/17% shooting and the Warriors actually won the rebounding battle 21-19. Everything about their defensive effort was better, as not one Warriors had a Drtg over 97
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It was as if the Cavs had woken a sleeping defensive giant because absolutely nothing came easy for CLE over the final two quarters, and once they started to go cold they were dead before they even knew what was happening. All their hard work in the first half was gone just a few minutes into the third quarter where we got the usual Warriors run, it ended up being their highest scoring quarter and allowed them to regain and keep control.
For CLE, it’s a wrap. There’s no point in winning Game 4 just to get on a plane and lose in Oakland. I thought they’d win one of these games in CLE but really I meant they had to win Game 3. To go down 3-0 in back to back years isn’t great, and what’s crazy is Lebron had another legit 33/10/11 and it didn’t even feel like he was that dominant
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It felt like for the most part Lebron was settling for his jumper, which who knows maybe is a result of that turned ankle he had earlier in the night, but I feel like I’d seen a more aggressive Lebron at other times this series. To be fair, the dude is probably exhausted. When you look at the box score you see Kevin Love had 20/13 which looks great, but over the course of the second half he had just 5/3 on 0-3 shooting. To put that into perspective JR Smith had twice as many shots as Love and they played basically the same amount of minutes. That’s inexcusable for a guy that had a great first half and was really clicking on the offensive end.
That’s really the difference in this game in my opinion. Lebron matched Durant’s 19 second half points, but sadly it was the Cavs supporting cast that let them down (outside Rodney Hood). The non-Lebrons minus Hood went 4-19 all while playing horrific defense. You remember that graphic above that showed how dominant the Warriors defense was? Here’s what that looks like for CLE
I mean that is some of the worst shit I’ve ever seen, and the blame falls on Lebron as well. Here’s a question, if you have Lebron James on your team and you have a guy like Durant who is going off, shouldn’t Lebron do everything in his power to stop him? Instead, he switched time and time again. I’m sorry but I need my best player to take the personal challenge of stopping the bleeding, I don’t care what it does to his energy level on the offensive end. It was clear his teammates couldn’t hang, and instead of taking it upon himself, he avoided it. I think that’s fair criticism. This team showed us last night basically what we saw all year. They have the offense to hang, but when they need their defense to be somewhat respectable, it bones them. I mean look at those starters numbers!
But as I mentioned, Rodney Hood played pretty well so there’s that
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Who knows, maybe Ty Lue should have been playing him from the jump. How bad does that decision to ride Jordan Clarkson for that long look now that we clearly see Hood isn’t a corpse. Granted role players play well at home, but I think Cavs fans have a right to be a little annoyed with Lue that he waited until he was in this position to see what he had. Especially as Clarkson continued to struggle.
What sucks is that much like Game 1, this was a very winnable game for CLE. If I was a Cavs fan, as hard as Game 1 would have been to stomach, this loss probably would hurt me more. Coming at home, after you had such a great start and a halftime lead, then you keep it close until the last two minutes and you give this up
Woof.
So now here we are, in a position everyone sort of thought we would be in when the season first started. Since I didn’t have a rooting interest all I was hoping for was an entertaining Finals, so personally I’m happy with how things have gone. I don’t really give a shit about that whole “KD ruined the NBA” shit. Stop crying about that and figure out how to beat them. If your favorite team had the ability to build what GS did, you would love it. This Finals has not been a cakewalk by any means for the Warriors despite their 3-0 lead, but as we’ve known all along they’ve shown why they’re the best team on the planet. We’re looking right at one of the more impressive dynasties in NBA history, and now the focus can shift to where the hell Lebron is going to end up this summer. If I was CLE, you have to give him a standing ovation on Friday right? He took this team of junk all the way to the Finals, and nearly had a 2-1 lead. This will probably be the last time the Cavs are ever in a Finals, so I’ll be interested to see how they react in Game 4.
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And that’s it! You’re not caught up on everything that happened last night in the NBA. With one more game to go realistically, I’ll see everyone Saturday morning.