Truly a test of the best
The Warriors versus Cavaliers, part 3, should top the others.
Inevitability won. A presumed sure thing was.
We’ve never had the same teams in three consecutive NBA Finals, but Warriors-Cavaliers III was the only way this season could end, the only way it could satisfy.
So, we wait the final four days of 347 since it seemed certain that there would be a Game 8, a likelihood cemented when Kevin Durant signed on with the team that had defeated his, creating a Finals LeBron James on Thursday called “a beast of a matchup.”
As much as the playoffs have been devoid of suspense, save the undercard series between the Celtics and Wizards, this is the payoff. The NBA needs this. In many ways, the Cavaliers and Warriors need this.
From James’ chase of the “ghost” of the GOAT to Durant’s can’t-beat-’em-join-’em jump to the sublime Warriors, it takes the three-match showdown Finals to elevate the winner not just to the top of the league, but to a place in sports history.
Had the Finals brought a Warriors stomp of the Celtics or Wizards or a Cavaliers roll past the Spurs or Rockets, the victor would have been celebrated, its fans thrilled. But only by measuring themselves against one another can the winner deserve a place with the greatest teams and players in league history.
Making case to join legends
James’ worthiness to be compared with Michael Jordan, or the other greatest-ever players before the title was assumed to belong to Jordan, can be dramatically strengthened by a triumph over a super team.
The Warriors’ place among the greatest teams in league history can only be assured by beating another great team.
The nearly uninterrupted marches to the showdown — with the Warriors 12-0 and Cavaliers 12-1 in a postseason filled with blowouts — might have made the playoffs forgettable. But they also fortify this matchup with a sense that this is a clash of teams not just the best of the season, but transcendent.
“I think it’s a great thing for the league, contrary to popular belief where everyone says it’s boring,” Warriors forward and frequent spokesman Draymond Green told media Friday in Oakland, Calif. “I think maybe people are starting to realize you have two great teams. You usually don’t appreciate something until you don’t have it anymore. I think maybe it’s a lack of appreciation for greatness. Maybe there’s not an understanding of what you’re watching.
“Maybe people don’t appreciate it because of a blowout or the sweep. I think right now, you are witnessing greatness, two great teams, great players. It probably won’t be appreciated until it’s over. I think right now, we found two great teams.”
More than great, they are compelling, with story lines that go beyond who gets the rings.
James reaches the Finals for a seventh consecutive season, but the triumphs in Miami always seemed to come with a sense that he shortcutted his way to his championship destiny. The victory last season might have defeated that argument, but the series turned with Green suspended for Game 5, Andrew Bogut out and Stephen Curry battered and diminished.
The Warriors’ defeat from a 3-1 lead prevented their claim to a place as the greatest team ever, an assertion they could have made with consecutive titles and a 73-win season. But they also only took their title by beating a Cavaliers team lacking two members — Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love — of their Big Three. Both playing at their peak
The teams arrive in the first rubber match Finals at full strength, with seven All-Stars between them (the most since the Sixers of Moses Malone and Julius Erving swept the Lakers of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1983).
They are at full health and full flight, having won a greater percentage of postseason games between them than NBA Finals teams ever have.
Since the Warriors stepped on the accelerator, they have won 27 of 28 games, with Durant back from his late-season injury, Curry returning to his championship-run magnificence and the pair meshing as they had not when they first joined forces.
Since the Cavaliers flipped the switch, they have won all seven of their postseason road games. Irving’s brilliance in closing out the Celtics reminded of his spectacular Finals culminating with his championship-clinching 3-pointer.
Green has been a stat-stuffing monster. The Cavs’ Tristan Thompson has been a beast on the boards. If the Warriors’ Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala find their shooting touch and the Cavs’ Kyle Korver can lock in his after his Game 5 showing, the league’s best will be at their best.
Those are but ingredients. The story lines cook the stew.
This one matters most
Rightfully or not, the series will serve as a referendum of Durant’s move to the Warriors and James’ climb toward the top of the NBA’s historical hierarchy with both the sort of debates that have long filled barbershops and barrooms before there were chat rooms and fan forums.
It will define the winner not just for this season but for the past three, as if the previous championships were the opening acts of a three-act play, with everything from the shorthanded defeats to the ghost of 3-1 lurking beneath the surface.
It will bring the potential to grow into the sort of rivalry that it could not with just two regular-season meetings a year and a lack of cultural divide or provincial pride that helped inform the animus of CelticsLakers or Yankees-Red Sox.
Even if it fails to live up to its billing, it will feel more meaningful than the prior title runs.
This feels more significant, more special. And inevitable. At a time of great uncertainty, when even facts are open for debate, the Finals pit the best vs. the best as we always knew they would and, with the exception of more specific rooting interests, probably always wanted.
“I’m happy we’ve been able to steamroll people, and I love that they’ve been able to steamroll people,” Green said, “because I just appreciate greatness.”
Starting Thursday, we all do.