“Cavs In 7” ?
It was going to be a historic night at Quicken Loans Arena for Game 4 of the NBA Finals no matter what happened. If the Golden State Warriors won, they would have become the first team in NBA history to go 16-0 in the playoffs. But since the Cleveland Cavaliers did, they snapped the longest postseason win stream ever.
Not to mention the fact LeBron James got his ninth triple double of his NBA Finals career, passing up Magic Johnson into first place on the all-time list.
Congratulations to Lebron James for becoming the King of Triple Doubles for the NBA Finals with 9 and breaking my record.
— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) June 10, 2017
The Cavs also broke the record for most points in a half and a Finals record 24 three’s in a game. It was an offensive explosion from Cleveland that nobody really expected.
Although the officiating was very inconsistent and outright horrible, it was the role players from The Land that helped them get going, especially in the first half. JR Smith had 15 points, Tristan Thompson only had 5 points, but pulled down 10 rebounds and was a physical presence in the paint for the first time in this series. Kevin Love also played a solid game and dropped 23 points on the night.
And we don’t have to tell you about what King James had to do. He had another triple double in the win, scoring 31 points, dishing out 11 assists and grabbing 10 rebounds. Kyrie Irving also had a monster 40 points and 7 rebounds, playing with that magic that we’ve been wanting to see more of.
Golden State has not lost since April 10 of this year and it took a subpar game from Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, who only had 14 points and 13 points, respectively. Kevin Durant still got his, dropping 35 points, while Draymond Green had a double double with 16 points and 14 rebounds.
We’ve been in this 3-1 series lead before, but will the Warriors collapse for a second year in a row? Obviously, it would have been bad for the league for this NBA Finals to end in a sweep, so it makes sense why it has been extended at least one more game.
But it took a lights out performance from the Cavs to make it happen.
Can they even keep up that pace in Oakland at Oracle Arena to try to concoct another historic comeback for Game 5? Every shot would have to go down for them on the road.
Kyrie was quoted as saying that Draymond’s chatter before the game about winning on their home court and silencing their crowd really motivated the Cavs to come out firing on the night and prove them wrong. But where was that desperation and mentality in previous games?
Game 5 between the Cavs and Warriors is going down on Monday at 9pm EST.
FINAL: CLE 137 | GS 116
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