Will Warriors wrap it up on home soil?
With history deflected, Golden State will now go for the main mission: Win the 2017 NBA crown.
Denied a first-ever, 16-0 sweep of the playoffs in Game 4 on Saturday, the Warriors weave their title dreams back to home sweet home that is the Bay Area.
That will be on Tuesday, when the Warriors try again to complete, ummm, unfinished business.
Wasn’t it boisterously ballyhooed before Saturday’s Game 4 that GSW is poised for a sure surge to recapture their throne they lost to Cleveland last year?
That’s after Golden State sped to an imposing 3-0 bulge, punctuating the winning streak by stealing Game 3 in Cav turf after posting back-to-back routs of Cleveland in Oakland.
GSW’s stunning come-frombehind win in the third game has remained a hot topic, with Kevin Durant masterminding the almost improbable heist.
Durant, now virtually outshining Steph Curry in his rookie year with Golden State, nailed a textbook three in front of LeBron James to give his team a 114-113 lead in the 41-second mark.
The triple was the core of Durant’s seven-point explosion that sparked GSW’s sizzling 11-0 finish and erasing a 107113 deficit, producing the Warriors’ 118-113 victory and erecting a 3-0 bubble.
But just as everybody thought the Warriors were to celebrate coronation on foreign soil three days back, the Cavs came back from the grave.
Behind Kyrie Irving’s series-high 40 points and James’ third triple-double opus in four games, Cleveland won—and by an unlikely 137-116 massacre yet. What’s happening? The Warriors, playing rather meekly in Game 4 except Durant (35 points), elected to forego history over the aroma of a victory at home offered by the Game 5 fight in Oakland?
Very possible, especially so that Golden State has proven it deserves the pre-Finals heavy favorite tag with its 41-point total of winning margin in Games 1 & 2.
But GSW’s gambit could prove costly once Cleveland corners Game 5. That’d mean a 3-2 Cavs card going to Cleveland in Game 6—a danger-laden position for the Warriors.
Weren’t the Cavs 1-3 also last year before storming incredibly back to win it at 4-3?
If you ask me, the series should have been tied at 2-2 had the Cavs collapse not happened in Game 3.
Hey, ref, toss that jumpball quick!