National Basketball Association

Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Champions 2016

8 years ago in NBA

The Cleveland Cavaliers have completed a historic comeback from trailing 1-3 in the series and climbing back and winning the Championship game on the road to end the city of Cleveland’s Championship drought in 5 decades. Lebron James finished with a triple double with 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Kyrie added 26 points and most importantly the 3-point shot that buried the Warriors. A Championship could have been the best ending for the Warriors historic 73-win season but as it turns out it just became a larger story for the Cavaliers conquest of the Finals in 2016.

Celebrations and reactions on Cleveland Cavaliers winning the title

Lebron talks to Turner Sports

The Warriors looked like they were coasting for a sweep when they won Games 1 & 2 in blowout scores with an average of 24-point winning margin.

Games 1 saw the Warriors win by 15 points despite Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry only scored a combined 20 points on 8-27 shooting. Shaun Livingston was the hero for that game scoring a personal playoff record of 20 points while Green added a double double 16 points and 11 rebounds. Steve Kerr put it this way —

 “We play a lot of people, and we feel like we have a lot of talent on the bench that can come in and score when we need it. So it’s a great sign, obviously, that we can win in the finals without those two guys having big games, but it’s not really that surprising to us. This has been our team the last couple of years.”

The bench of Golden State scored 45 points against the 10 points from Lebron James’ supporting cast.

Game 2 and the Warriors continued with their dominance by winning on a 33-point margin and most of Cleveland starters put up the white flag early in the 4th quarter by watching the Warriors run away with a victory. Stephen and Curry did not score to their full potential by just having 18 & 17 points respectively. The Warriors bench scored the points with Draymond Green leading the charge with 28 points 7 rebounds and 5 assists. As Steph says about their teamwork —

“What we’ve done the last few years, everybody, every night has an impact. You don’t know where it’s going to come from any given night. We’ve got to keep our focus and our edge and hopefully get two more.”

Game 3 as Lebron summed it up —

“We can’t afford to go down 3-1 and go into their building and give them confidence going back. So it’s a do-or-die game for us still.”

The Cavaliers were able to bounce back huge with a 30-point winning margin and brought the Cavs back to life and in contention closing the series gap 2-1. In this game, the Cavaliers showed why they haven’t lost at home in the playoffs — they hustled, rebounded and put on an offensive show with Lebron and Kyrie leading the team.

Tristan Thompson showed strength and defense that helped limit the Warriors offense

Game 4 was supposed to be the equalizer and for most part the Cavaliers controlled the tempo and the game until the third quarter when the Splash Brothers came back to life and began hitting those 3-point shots. The Warriors won by 11 points and made a historic 17-3 pointers in the Finals. Stephen Curry had 38 points and Klay Thompson hitting 25. On Curry’s comeback Green has this to say —

“All the slander. He’s a competitor. He’s been under a heavy microscope, and rightfully so. Two-time MVP, you’re expected to have a great game in the finals. He struggled the first three, tonight he was our guy.”

 

The Cavaliers are now down 3-1 in the series and no team has ever been able to comeback from this deficit.

Most importantly, this is the game that the Splash Brothers have risen from slumber hitting 3-pointers, layups, making small runs to close the gap, take the lead and eventually win the game.

Game 5 is when Lebron James and Irving each scored 41 points a historic finals milestone that saw them push the series to Game 6 in their home court.

Lebron James wouldn’t let his team go down, the half ended tied at 61 all.

Game 6 and the Cavaliers became the third team to push the series to Game 7 after being down by 3-1 games. Lebron had a back-to-back 40++ point game and major milestone unheard of for a very long time.

Lebron’s monster game saw him scoring 41-points contributing 11 assists, eight rebounds and most notably have outshined Stephen Curry in the game.

Game 7 and Lebron just managed to closeout the series on an incredible performance.

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Game Highlights Warriors vs Cavaliers NBA Finals 2016

8 years ago in NBA

This video shows the game highlights from pre-game, to all four quarters. It was an intense and exciting game up until the middle part of the 4th quarter when the Cavaliers doesn’t look like they will mount a comeback.

 

Exciting game that saw Cavaliers controlling the earlier part before the Splash Brothers hit consecutive shots to give the Warriors a 3-1 lead.

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Kevin Love out for Game 3 in NBA Finals 2016

8 years ago in NBA

Kevin Love was injured in Game 2 of the NBA finals when Harrison Barnes accidentally elbowed him when scrambling for a rebound of a free-throw attempt.

The Cleveland Cavaliers is in a must-win situation against the Golden State Warriors as another lose would put them 0-3 in the NBA Finals 2016. The Cavaliers are hoping the home-court advantage together with huge contributions from Irving and Love would help them secure Game 3.

Kevin Love remained on the floor after the incident with Barnes while play continued. He eventually stood, finished the second quarter and appeared at the start of the third. He appeared fine in the game but requested to be taken out after he felt dizzy.

Doctors determined to place Love on concussion protocol. With two days rest the Cavaliers were hoping to get Kevin Love back in the game and help them climb back in the series. It doesn’t look Love is healthy and would have to sit this one out.

Channing Frye will put in the workload tonight and hopefully he can have the same impact as Delladova. It would be remembered that the Cavaliers went down 0-2 last year against the Warriors before winning two straight games. Without Love and Irving, Delladova stepped up offensively and defensively that helped them event he series at 2 games apiece.

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Golden State Warriors Wins and Makes Historic 73-9 Regular Season Record

8 years ago in NBA

The Golden State Warriors made a Historic run tonight that saw them winning 73 regular season games, breaking the Chicago Bulls Record of 72 wins.

The Warriors came blazing in the 1st Quarter as Stephen Curry started the game strong and refusing for the Warriors to fall behind by hitting two three pointers in the first 4 minutes of the game — the first one giving the Warriors the lead 6-4, and the second 12-9. And with still 4:21 minutes remaining in the first quarter, Curry shot three consecutive three pointers from the top of the key with one of them over 5 feet away from the arc. Curry added another 3 point short with less than a minute to go. By the end of the first quarter the Warriors were leading by 14 points 37-23, on the Warriors’ 9 3 pointers with Barnes and Green adding to Curry’s six.

The 2nd Quarter the Warriors remained in control of the game as Steve Kerr decided to rest Curry until the 5:47 mark with Klay Thompson hitting beyond the arc pushing the lead to 16 points. It was a well balanced offense with Ezeli, Livingston, Barbosa, Barnes, Speights scoring while Thompson adding 4 3 pointers. The Warriors pushed the lead to 22 points with 2:48 remaining on consecutive 3 point shots from Thompson and Curry. The second quarter saw the Warriors with 14 3 pointers ending the first half on the score of 50-70.

3rd Quarter came and Curry conquered as Stephen made another milestone making 400 3 pointers in a season in the first 43 seconds of the third quarter. The quarter saw Curry dishing out 6 assist but the Warriors had a lot of turnovers that allowed the Grizzlies to cut down the lead to 14 via a Farmer floating jump shot with 4:12 remaining. As the Memphis trying to make a comeback, the Warriors answered with Iguodola, Green and Curry with a barrage of points giving the Warriors a 21 point lead ending the 3rd quarter 102-81.

The 4th quarter it was already evident that there is no comeback run and the Memphis traded basket with the Warriors who mostly fielded their second unit with only Thompson in the starting five. The fans gave the Warriors a standing ovation with 4:18 remaining as Speights pushes the lead to 22 on a driving layup with the score of 120-98. The game finishes on the score of with Stephen Curry leading the game with 46 points, 6 assists and 10 3 pointers.

Congratulations to the Golden State Warriors for this historic night.

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Warriors Becomes the 2nd 70 win team in NBA History

8 years ago in NBA

The Golden State Warriors joined the 70-win club making them the only team alongside the Chicago Bulls for this milestone.

The most important thing is that the Warriors were able to bounce back from a crushing defeat against the lowly Minnesota Timberwolves as they suffered on their second home loss in the last three games. The Warriors looked tired the last few games and going up against a streaking San Antonio Spurs who is second in the league and looking more and more confident, could have crushed their hopes to reaching 70 games and possibly breaking the Chicago Bulls record.

Steve Kerr has downplayed the achievement of breaking the record of the Bulls and winning 73 games in the regular season. Most teams making the playoffs are already resting their starters to come fresh in the first round and while Steve insists that the record 73 wins is not their priority, the way they played Minnesota Timberwolves and the Spurs says otherwise.

It would be foolish for the Warriors to let go of this achievement and should go after the 73 wins like it is a Championship Game.

The Warriors will have to remain focus on the last three games against Memphis Grizzlies on Saturday & Wednesday and the Spurs on Sunday. The Warriors need to win the game against the Grizzlies as effortlessly as possible to rest and recharge against the Spurs on Sunday. The Spurs has not lost a home game this season and Popovich said he will be resting his players and be on full attack on Sunday against the Warriors.

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Steve Kerr’s Triple Connection to break 72-win Record

8 years ago in NBA

instagram-kerrgsw72wins

Despite what Steve Kerr says, his boys and the Golden State Warriors are going after the 72 regular win NBA record of the Chicago Bulls. Instagram user thehoopnut has posted the image above which shows the triple connection of Steve Kerr for this record.

“His Teammates have two chances” – Steve Kerr played for the San Antonio Spurs and they are playing against them in two of the last four games of the season.

“To Prevent His Team from” – should I say more?

Breaking his Team’s 72-10 record – it is more like, “breaking his former team’s record”.

If Steve Kerr and the Golden State Warriors beat the Chicago Bulls record, Steve will have his own record that would probably take forever to break.

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Kobe Bryant Will Break Tears on his Last Game even when He says Routine

8 years ago in NBA

On April 13 at the Staples Center against the Utah Jazz will the last game of Kobe Bryant after 20 years in the league.

Counting the number of games left the fans are getting emotional and would like to know what Kobe thinks; however, he seems to stay cool so as not to get affected:

Bryant said on Wednesday night — “I try not to do it too much, and just make yourself emotional.”

Bryant adds: “Just showing up and playing. Showing up and playing and hoping my body feels pretty damn good and I can get up and down the floor and run freely and play this game at the highest level of competition one more time.”

Bryant insists the last game wouldn’t be any different as he is going to do the same routine he has been doing for the past 20 years

“I won’t allow it to be any different,” said Bryant, 37, who is retiring after 20 NBA seasons. “One more time and go through same routine. Same group of people. One more time.”

Is this the ending that Kobe hoped and envisioned?

“Yeah, win a championship,” he said, “[but] that s— ain’t happening, so there you go. That’s done. The dream’s done. Dream’s done. For me, it’s coming out and playing in front of the fans and competing hard and playing against Utah, and them not taking it easy at all. They beat us by like 40 the last few times we played them. So I expect them to come and try to do the same thing.”

“To me, that is the greatest form of competition. That’s best last game you can have — a very competitive one, a physical one. That’s the way basketball should be. In terms of the end, I don’t know, man. I really don’t think about that that much; I just like the game itself.”

It is most likely that Kobe Bryant would break tears once the crowd stands up and chants his name, I am sure even their opponent will be there celebrating and paying respects for Kobe.

“When the time comes, you never know,” Bryant said. “[I] might be sitting here with tears flowing out of my eyes. I doubt it, but it could happen. I don’t know. We’ll see.”

During the second to the last game of the Lakers in their building, the crowd gave Kobe a standing ovation:

“This is the next-to-last game ever in this building. It’s pretty crazy,” Bryant chimed, “So I certainly can feel it. As soon as you run out at the start of the game, I could feel it.”

As Bryant adds: “I can feel it, and it feels pretty damn awesome. Going through the years of losing and not leaving [the Lakers] makes it all worthwhile standing here and taking the good with the bad and the fans embracing that and understanding that we ride together. That’s a love that you can’t break.”

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