Star-studded Warriors are force of nature
CLEVELAND — The big news this week did not come from Washington but rather from the Hubble Space Telescope. According to the journal Science, researchers have managed to measure the mass of a white dwarf (dead star) by using background starlight. I know, I know. It’s crazy.
The measurement was made using light that was “bent” by the gravity of the white dwarf. This is something Albert Einstein predicted but thought would be impossible to observe. It is another sign that Einstein’s theory of relativity, published in 1905, is holding up well.
The speed of light is the gift that keeps on giving, and wicked fast, too.
I am regurgitating details from online sources. I understand little to nothing of them, but I bring them up for a couple of reasons. First, Einstein! I don’t know who you’ve got, but if we’re choosing teams of all-time physicists, I’m taking the kid from the Kingdom of Wurttemberg with the first overall pick, and I don’t care if he was a one-and-done. Second, if you watched Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, you saw starlight bend and you didn’t need the Hubble to see it.
Kevin Durant grabbed a rebound, dribbled up the court and did not think twice about rising and drilling a 26-foot jumper in LeBron James’ face. Splash. This threepointer gave the Golden State Warriors a 114-113 lead with 45 seconds remaining.
It was the highlight of an 11-0 run to close the game. It was the starlight that bent and made it possible to measure the white dwarf that is now the Cleveland Cavaliers. The final was 118-113.
The Warriors are 15-0 in these playoffs. They have a 3-0 lead over the Cavs. Tonight, they can become the first NBA team to complete a postseason sweep, which is something Moses Malone once predicted but never thought he’d see.
Game 4 tips off at Quicken Loans Arena at 9:05 p.m. If the Warriors are thinking about how they blew a 3-1 lead in last year’s Finals, it is only within the framework of making another kind of history. Everything is relative, after all.
I thought the Cavs would win Game 3 and, by gum, they came close. James (39 points) and Kyrie Irving (38) were unstoppable, yet, neither was the best player on the floor. Durant was, in part because he had more help. Put it this way: In the Cavaliers' win in Game 3 of last season's Finals, J.R. Smith scored 20 and Tristan Thompson had 14 points and 13 rebounds; Wednesday night, Klay Thompson dropped 30 on the Cavs and point guard Stephen Curry had as many rebounds (13) as Kevin Love.
This year, everything is easier for the Warriors.
“We’re a better team, partly for the obvious reasons — we have Kevin Durant on our team,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said Thursday. “But I think we’re better for our experiences. You win a championship, then you lose onE in heartbreaking fashion (and) you’ve pretty much seen everything at that point. You get down five points with 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter, you say, ‘There’s a ton of time left and let’s execute.’ ”
It’s like this: Durant had 14 points in the fourth quarter, he hit that jumper that bent the starlight, and what did he say? He said, “More importantly, we got two stops after that.”
Cleveland was grumbling Thursday. Cavs fans were secondguessing the three-point attempts by Irving and Kyle Korver down the stretch. They were trying to find fault in the Cavs’ strategy, to find a reason why Cleveland did not score during the final 3-plus minutes. But that was not, and is not, the problem. The problem is the Warriors, who are a force of nature, coming to light.