TRIPLE THE PLEASURE
Stakes, drama high in Act 3 of Cavs-Warriors
The third installment of a trilogy guarantees no epic conclusion. Creators might promise one, and consumers might crave one. But in art and sports, as in life, there are no guarantees.
The event plays out, and judgment follows.
But this unprecedented Cleveland Cavaliers- Golden State Warriors matchup in the NBA Finals for the third consecutive time could — should? — be a classic.
“We had the regular season, we had the playoffs, been tested — both teams — and now we just meet at the top of the mountain,” Cavs guard Kyrie Irving said.
The same teams have never played in three consecutive Finals — not the 1960s Celtics-Lakers, not the 1980s Celtics-Lakers or ’80s Lakers-Pistons or ’80s Sixers-Lakers.
This is just the fourth time in any major U.S. pro sports league that the same teams have met in the championship series three consecutive times, and it hasn’t happened since the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings played for the Stanley Cup in 1954, ’55 and ’56.
“It’s history,” Hall of Famer Julius Erving said.
The star power illuminates the NBA universe. Future Hall of Famers. Seven MVP awards. Eleven current or former All- Stars. Eight All-NBA performers. The biggest names in the league. LeBron James. Stephen Curry. Kyrie Irving. Klay Thompson. Kevin Love. Kevin Durant. Draymond Green.
“When the best players have to face each other to prove who is better, there are a lot of intense emotions as well as calculations going on,” Hall of Famer and former Lakers great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told USA TODAY Sports via email. “Rivalries engage the whole player, demanding that he or she rise to their best level — maybe even a little beyond.”
The abundant story lines fill the demand for content:
James playing in his seventh consecutive Finals, joining a small group of Celtics from the 1950s and ’60s to accomplish that feat. “I never really talk about my legacy,” James said. “I kind of just live in the moment, and if I’m able to accomplish something, then it
kind of adds to it on its own.”
Durant’s quest for his first title. “Just approach basketball like I always have, which is with love and care and hard work, and we’ll see what happens,” he said.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr’s health-related absence. “At the end of the day, this is his team,” said Warriors acting head coach Mike Brown, who had two previous stints as the coach of the Cavs and knows James well.
Curry’s chance to rebound from last season’s crushing Finals loss. “I don’t want to feel what I felt last year,” he said.
Green trying to make amends for his Game 5 suspension in 2016. “The thing that it taught me is it’s put me in the position of where I am today,” he said.
The Warriors are 12-0 and the Cavaliers 12-1 in this postseason, entering the Finals with the best combined winning percentage since the NBA expanded the playoffs to 16 teams in 1984.
It is the matchup most NBA experts predicted, and the one many fans — despite allegiance to other teams — are eager to watch. As many as 30 million people in the USA and millions more around the world will tune in to the series, based on last season’s Finals ratings.
“We also understand that this is just as exciting a matchup for everyone else as it is for us,” Irving said. “You’ve got to take it as that. You’ve got to relish in the competition and the players that we’re going against. This is what everyone wants to see, and this is what we all want to be a part of. So I’ve been waiting.”
The familiarity, the competition, the moments, the great plays, the success, the failing short, the meaning and significance add to the intrigue of a third series between the teams.
Abdul-Jabbar played the Sixers and Celtics in consecutive Finals in the 1980s. He wanted a third consecutive matchup, especially against the Celtics, but that never happened.
“Before we beat them in 1985, the Lakers were 0-8 against the Celtics in the Finals,” Abdul-Jabbar wrote in his email. “That year we beat them handily 4-2 and I felt we were playing so well, so smoothly that we could have just kept beating them. We owed them a lot of payback, and I wanted to be a part of that payback.”
Given the players under contract for both teams for the next few seasons, it’s possible that Cleveland and Golden State will play in the Finals a couple of more times.
But for now, they enter the Finals with different pressures.
The Warriors are at a fascinating fork in the road, with a potential dynasty awaiting them down one path and another year of infamy down the other.
A win would serve two purposes, not only avenging the 2016 loss in which they became the first team in NBA history to collapse after leading 3-1 in the Finals but also completing the goal they talked about last July when they met inside a mansion in the Hamptons in New York to recruit Durant.
Durant wasn’t sure at first, concerned about the prospect of being deemed the NBA’s top villain and also of the question of whether he would fit.
The Warriors had made history without him by winning 73 regular-season games. So why, he thought, would they have any desire to share this spotlight? The answer, then and now, had everything to do with this Finals moment that awaits them.
The Cavs aren’t exactly playing with house money, but they erased 52 years of sporting misery by delivering Cleveland and Northeast Ohio its first title in a major pro sports league since the 1964 Browns. If Cleveland loses this series, it won’t be as devastating.