Warriors rally for OT win in Finals
Golden State prevails despite LeBron’s Finals career-best 44
OAKLAND, Calif. — LeBron James was isolated just above the foul line, probing, looking around for the play to unfold. Stephen Curry, however, was lurking and lunged at the most opportune moment, batting the ball away from James, making it clear that the Golden State Warriors weren’t simply serving as pawns for his one-man coronation.
The turnover secured the Warriors’ 108-100 overtime victory Thursday over the Cleveland Cavaliers that gave them a 1-0 lead in the franchise’s first NBA Finals in 40 years.
As fans in the arena erupted, Curry pumped his fists, urging them to make more noise — and they obliged.
Relying upon the timely plays of the league’s Most Valuable Player and the superior depth that allowed them to steamroll through the regular season and the postseason, the Warriors were able to withstand their own early nerves and the highest-scoring Finals effort of James’ career.
Curry scored a team-high 26 points, calming dribbling out the clock as hysteria unfolded around him. James scored a game-high 44, a career best in the Finals, but needed 38 shots, continuing a trend of inefficient playoff performances.
“At the end of the day, we gave ourselves a chance, man,” James said.
A two-time Finals MVP, James wasn’t going to be able to do it alone, though his play throughout this postseason without Kevin Love and with Kyrie Irving hobbled suggested that he was capable.
Irving was able to put aside the pain in his left knee and contributed 23 points in his duel with Curry and even helped send the game into overtime by catching Curry
from behind for a late blocked shot. But the final two minutes of the game couldn’t have been more disastrous for the Cavaliers as they not only wilted under a 10-0 run, but Irving grimaced and limped off the floor after aggravating a left knee injury that has kept him limited throughout the playoffs. He will undergo an MRI today.
“I never like to see anybody get injured on either team,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I hope he can play. I mean that.”
Regulation ended with the teams deadlocked at 98. Curry made four free throws to start the overtime, but Irving drove inside, slipped to the ground and lost the ball, leading to a fast break that concluded with Harrison Barnes nailing a 3-pointer from the left corner that put the Warriors ahead 105-98.
Irving limped to his feet and was unable to finish the game, leaving James to take on more responsibility. But all that James could do was provide a meaningless dunk late in the game.
“I thought we came out of the regulation flat and without the kind of energy that we had displayed throughout the game,” Cavaliers coach David Blatt said. “It seemed like once they got a basket or two, we kind of dropped and they took the momentum.”
The Warriors and Cavaliers took the floor after the longest layoff in advance of the NBA Finals, and it was hard to determine if jitters or rust contributed to the sloppy play from the outset. Once both sides settled down, the two teams took turns fumbling leads until they delivered a classic finish, with stars trading baskets until James eventually faded.
James returned home last July in an impassioned letter with one goal in mind — to bring a championship to the Cleveland, the city he once abandoned for Miami, to bring hope to a region that hasn’t won a title in 51 years. And for most of the night, James seemed undeterred by the burden.
The Cavaliers fed James in the post, along the elbow, at the top of the key — anywhere he wanted it and anywhere he felt comfortable, which was everywhere. James’s previous Finals high was 37, but he 42 at the end of regulation. His late layup was Cleveland’s only basket of the extra period, and it came with the outcome long since decided.
The Warriors had five players score in double figures, with AllStar guard Klay Thompson adding 21 points. Thompson sustained a concussion in the series finale against Houston but was cleared after passing the necessary protocol for a return.
Andre Iguodala (15 points) came off the bench and provided a nice surge late in the third period, when he forced James into a turnover and threw down a dunk to send the Warriors into the fourth period tied at 73. Iguodala later hit a 3-pointer to give the Warriors a lead and found fellow reserve Shaun Livingston for a dunk that forced Blatt to quickly call back on James.
James decided that he would simply abuse every defender that the Warriors put on him, with a string of fadeaway jumpers and overpowering layups. He drove around Thompson and hit a difficult floater as Draymond Green came to double-team him to put the Cavaliers ahead 91-89. The Warriors then sandwiched Andrew Bogut’s only two field goals around a Timofey Mosgov dunk.
Curry went nearly 10 minutes without a field goal before he came stumbling into the lane, causing James to backpedal, then stepped back to nail a foul-line jumper to put the Warriors ahead 94-93 with 3:35 remaining. Thompson added two free throws, but James pulled up for 3-pointer to tie the game at 96.
Having already played in intense Finals environments in San Antonio and Oklahoma City, James was unmoved by the notoriously rowdy fans at Oracle Arena, where he has two game-winners.
After Irving’s block, there was no denying where the ball was going to go, but James was long on his jumper, and Iman Shumpert scraped the rim on a desperation potential game-winner.
“I thought Iman’s shot was going in. It looked good the whole way,” Kerr said. “It was right on line. I thought the whole bench thought it was going in. “We were lucky.” The Warriors didn’t have any player on its roster with Finals experience and the nerves were obvious as they fell into a double-digit hole in the first quarter.
With a sold-out arena filled with anxious, yellow-clad fans ready to explode at any positive occurrence, the Warriors provided groans with rushed, errant shots. Curry and Barnes were the only starters to convert field goals in the period, and the Cavaliers were able to take an early 14-point lead. The Sports Xchange contributed to this story.