Mutual contempt stays on the court
Tensions running high between Cavs, Warriors but haven’t spilled over
LeBron James is friends with Draymond Green, has worked out with Kevin Durant, speaks with great reverence for Stephen Curry and Steve Kerr. Turns out, when the same franchises meet in the NBA final for the fourth consecutive year, familiarity indeed does breed contempt. Tensions have been high at times in the first two games of this series and that trend will likely be continuing until someone hoists the Larry O’Brien Trophy.
“Even with turnover from players, you have a continuity of management, continuity of culture in organizations,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “There’s the institutional memory there of the wins and the losses. And so, I think it is very meaningful and when you have the same teams that are meeting for the fourth time, it’s part of a larger storyline. It’s not just a one-off game or a one-off series.”
There was the dust-up at the end of Game1when Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson was angered by the Warriors’ Shaun Livingston trying a jumper with the outcome already decided. There was Klay Thompson angered by the recklessness of J.R. Smith crashing into his leg early in the series opener. There was Kendrick Perkins jawing at Stephen Curry after the third quarter of Game 2.
The Warriors and the Cavaliers are certainly not lacking for intensity in this final.
“Much ado about nothing,” Curry said Sunday night, likely not the most completely honest statement of his career since it couldn’t have been just a coincidence that he made all five of his 3-pointers in the next 8:33 to turn the game into a blowout.
Game 3 is in Cleveland on Wednesday, with the Warriors up 2-0. Emotions will simmer until then.
“It’s just basketball,” said Tristan Thompson, a Brampton native. “It’s just a competitive sport. Of course we’re going to get irritated with each other, just because we’re both competitors and we both want it all. But it never goes off the court.”
There’s basketball beefs, and then there’s real-world beefs. Someone tried to get Green to draw a parallel between the Warriors-Cavs animus and the recent musical rivalry between Pusha T and Drake. Green didn’t bite. “This is nothing like that, nothing at all like that,” he said.