Stars collide: Long-range barrage by Curry enough to beat best King can offer
Now that was some great basketball.
After seven games of boring isolation offense and rugged defense in the Western Conference finals, the Warriors and Cavs showed us the best this sport has to offer Thursday night in Oakland.
Game 1 of the NBA Finals was an absolute classic, with the Warriors prevailing 124-114 in overtime.
“It was a crazy game,” said Warriors guard Stephen Curry. “In the Finals, anything is liable to happen.”
And most everything did. These two teams put on a show. It was LeBron James playing some of the best basketball we’ve ever seen. It was Curry leading his team to victory with the long ball and pluck.
It was a white-knuckle finish, with the Warriors teetering on the brink of collapse at the end of regulation. There was a boneheaded play by Cleveland that might have saved Golden State a humbling
defeat, followed by an overtime scoring flurry that cinched the win for the Warriors.
Want more? A controversial call was overturned late in the regulation, giving the Warriors a huge break. There was even a game-ending shoving match that ended with the Warriors’ Draymond Green walking across the court, hands raised as the crowd roared. Cleveland’s Tristan Thompson, a key player, was ejected and may miss the next game.
Oh ... the first and second halves both ended in a tie score.
What more could you possibly want? Game 2, coming Sunday.
If it looks anything like Game 1, we’ll see some aesthetically beautiful basketball. No more rugby in high-tops.
James directed his team like a maestro, running the point most of the time, finding the open man, hitting the open shot. Curry countered with his own fluid style of basketball, flowing to the open spot, whipping nifty passes around the court and hitting impossibly deep three-pointers, like the 35-footer that tied the game 56-56 to close the first half.
The other stars on the court delivered on both sides, from Kevin Durant to Kevin Love. Secondary role players Shaun Livingston and Larry Nance, Jr. influenced the result. Everyone was involved, it seemed. Even JaVale McGee!
This is what top-shelf basketball should look like. The very best in the game punching and counterpunching, taking measure and duking it out.
James became only the sixth player to score at least 50 points in a Finals game.
“It was great. I mean, it was epic, and he did enough to carry this team to a victory,” Cleveland head coach Tyronn Lue. “But this is LeBron James, that’s who he is. That’s why he’s the best player in the world . ... To do what he did tonight and come out robbed, it’s just not right.”
For those who thought Golden State would roll through the Finals, think again.
“We’re playing a great team. It’s the Finals,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said. “I know everybody has been saying and writing that it’s going to be easy . ... They have a guy who is playing basketball at a level that I’m not sure anybody’s ever seen before, when you consider everything he’s doing.”
What did we learn from Game 1? Let me give you five things to think about before these two heavyweights lace ’em up again Sunday:
1. The Warriors have no answer for James. Without Andre Iguodala, Golden State’s top defender who’s still out with a knee contusion, James thrived. To say James was dominant would be an understatement. The world’s best player was transcendent: 51 points, eight rebounds and eight assists. Cleveland’s All-World forward
barged into Golden State’s party in Oakland and almost stole the cake. If J.R. Smith didn’t commit one of the alltime biggest blunders in Finals history at the end of regulation — dribbling out the clock because he thought his team was winning a tie game — James might have taken all the cookies, too. What do the Warriors do in Game 2? Don’t ask me.
“It’s tough to stop him,” Durant said. “That’s what he does. He’s been in the league so long, doing the same thing. We’ve just gotta make it tougher on him.” 2. Steve Kerr can play his
centers again. After benching his reserve big men in the Houston series, we saw Kerr put David West and McGee back in the action and each played a few meaningful minutes. The first-half experiment with West guarding James didn’t go so well. But McGee brought some great energy when he started the second half, jump-starting the Warriors on both ends of the court for their signature period. Kerr should have more leeway to use his roster now. Let’s see how he leverages that.
“I thought JaVale was great,” Kerr said. “We just needed a burst. We needed some energy.”
3. This is still Curry’s team.
Durant got his points and might prove to be the difference in this series, but Curry makes this car run. Nothing gets his teammates — or the crowd for that matter — going like a Curry barrage. His longrange shot at the end of the half brought the house down.
He kept it up in the third quarter, as usual, finishing with 29 points and nine assists — a very, very good sign for the Warriors. Is this Curry’s year to win Finals MVP?
4. This won’t be a sweep. If the Cavs can keep it this close on the road, against a hyped-up crowd in Oakland, they very well could win one or two here, or win a couple at home. Count on this thing going six or seven.
5. Kevin Love (and rebounding) could be the key for Cleveland. The Cavs’ only other star returned from concussion protocol and gave his team everything they could’ve wanted, with 21 points and 13 rebounds. If he can keep his play at a high level — and he was fierce at times Thursday — the Cavs have a real chance. As for rebounding, the Cavs outboarded the Warriors 53-38. That’s not a good equation for Golden State, or any team.
The one other thing we learned is that Cleveland’s Smith will never live this down. Having grabbed a rebound with less than five seconds left in regulation, and the game tied, the Cavs’ guard dribbled nearly to midcourt, thinking his team was ahead.
“He thought we were up one,” said Lue, barely audible, postgame.
It will be remembered as an epic blunder ... in an epic game.