CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Cavaliers overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to win their NBA title a year ago.
They have an even steeper climb ahead, but regardless of the odds, they head back to Oakland trailing 3-1, the identical margin from which they mounted their comeback then.
Now? All they have to do is run their Finals winning streak to four straight over the Golden State Warriors thanks to their 137-116 win in Game 4.
Do you have them right where you want them, LeBron James was asked?
“No, they have us right where they want us,” said James. “Listen, at the end of the day, we want to just try to put ourself in position to play another game and we did that [Friday] and hopefully we can do it Monday night where we can come back here.”
If it seems impossible — in 126 tries no team has ever come back from down 3-0 in any series in NBA history — the Cavs should like their chances just a little bit better after breaking the Warriors’ record post-season winning streak at 15 with their dramatic, chaotic, roller-coaster win.
There were records. There were near fights. There were near ejections.
But there was no comeback by the Warriors and Cleveland lives to play again. The closest the Warriors got was 11 midway through the fourth quarter but the Cavs never wavered. Kyrie Irving and James combined to spark a quick 9-2 to run to push the lead back to 18 shortly after.
They had the lead in Game 3, too, but didn’t score in the final three minutes. This time they kept their foot on the gas until an Irving three with 2:40 left — his seventh of the night — put Cleveland up by 21 and the game out of reach.
“You look at Game 3 and those last probably four minutes and 30 seconds, there was some opportunities that I didn’t take advantage of for us to just propel us to that win,” said Irving. “That stuck with me and it definitely put a conscious effort to make sure that I stayed aggressive, especially in that fourth quarter down the stretch. And we had that separation in order for to us feel comfortable and then get the win.”
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Once again James and Irving were magnificent. The difference is this time they had help.
James had 31 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists, his third triple-double in four games, while Irving followed up his 38-point explosion in Game 3 with 40 while facing elimination.
“It’s not a surprise,” said James. “He’s that special.”
But they weren’t alone. From Tristan Thompson’s energizing start to 23 points from Kevin Love to contributions from the likes of J.R. Smith (15 points) and Richard Jefferson (eight), the Cavaliers extended the series with their best team effort of the Finals and looked — for the first time — like the offensive machine that mowed through the Eastern Conference as they knocked down a Finals record 24 of their 45 threes after coming into the game shooting just 29.9 per cent.
It makes for a potent combination — high-level attackers, ably supported by role players, some on-fire three-point shooting but perhaps most important, an overall commitment to fight, claw and scratch.
“We played Cavaliers basketball,” said James.
It seems impossibly unlikely that they can do it for three more games or even on the road at Oracle Arena on Monday to guarantee a Game 6 back in Cleveland on Thursday, but the Cavs can at least hope, if not believe.
The Warriors have no choice but to try move on and put their missed chance at history behind them.
“I don’t think there was any concern or thoughts about history,” said Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. “I think it was we played a desperate team on their home floor, a great team, with great players, and they came out and handed it to us. Simple as that.”
The Cavaliers took a 115-96 lead into the fourth quarter, the second time they’d had the edge heading into the homestretch in their two games at Quicken Loans Arena. It was built on a combination of spectacular offence from a wide range of sources and some timely, if inconsistent, defence.
Kerr’s pre-game concern was his team’s penchant for turnovers and they did reasonably well at limiting themselves to 12, but nine were in the first half, which allowed the Cavs to get rolling. But this time it was their turn to struggle from deep, as they shot just 11-of-39 on threes. They were led by Kevin Durant’s 35 but didn’t get the support from Steph Curry (14 points on 13 shots, just 2-of-9 from deep).
They claimed the moment wouldn’t be too big for them, that they wouldn’t be distracted by the opportunity to become the first team in NBA history to sweep the entire post-season, a perfect 16-0.
That moment is gone, but they still need that 16th win. But being on one side of a deep canyon — even if the other side isn’t all that far — still requires crossing over the abyss.
In this analogy the Cavaliers were the raging river below. If their goal was to not go down without a fight, it was taken to almost literal extremes in a game that had more bad blood and heated moments than the previous three combined.
At times Durant and James were jawing at each other – “nothing malicious, or we didn’t say anything malicious,” said Durant. “Just part of the game.” – James and Kerr had words. There were hard fouls on both sides. It briefly seemed like Warriors lightning rod Draymond Green had been ejected for picking up his second technical foul, only for it to be determined that a tech from the first half was given to Kerr.
Almost as surprising was Warriors centre Zaza Pachulia not getting ejected after being caught on camera taking a swipe at the Cavaliers’ Iman Shumpert’s privates in a loose-ball scramble, the same transgression that got Green suspended for last year’s pivotal Game 5.
Cleveland signalled its intentions early as it came out with more force than perhaps any quarter in the series and then the half. And for once it wasn’t just James pushing the action. Irving was spectacular in Game 4 and Love, who was a dud, came out looking to score and delivered. The Cavs led 29-13, allowed the Warriors to pull back to within six and then surged again.
It was all part of the highest scoring quarter in NBA Finals history and they did it while shooting just 14-of-22 from the free-throw line. But they were 7-of-12 from three, grabbed five offensive rebounds and benefited from five Warriors turnovers.
Front and centre in the barrage was Thompson (five points, 10 rebounds, five assists), who had been miserable so far in the series for Cleveland. With the Warriors’ Pachulia keeping a body on him on every possession, his ability to impact games with his hustle, tap-outs and put-backs seemed to have vanished.
But Thompson played his best basketball of the series, with his high-profile girlfriend Khloe Kardashian, her sister Kourtney, and their mom Kris Jenner all in attendance. Thompson got an offensive rebound that led to a James three-point play, another that led to a triple by Love, had his hand in a couple of turnovers that led to a Cavs score and was an aggressive irritant in battles with the Warriors’ combustible Green.
“You got to leave it all out there,” said Thompson. “ I just tried to be active early and doing that kind of set the tone for the game early.”
As for his jawing with Green? “I don’t respond to kids from the suburbs,” said Thompson.
Thompson was part of a committed effort by James’ supporting staff to show up and be counted. Love had 14 points in the first quarter, Irving had 11 and Smith hit a pair of threes. It meant that James could preserve his energy for once.
It showed late in the first quarter when — after their lead had been cut to six points — James scored a long three, made a steal and finished an alley-oop to help the Cavs to a 49-33 first-quarter lead, an NBA Finals record for most points in a quarter, and more relevantly, the Cavs’ first lead after 12 minutes.
But that was just setting the stage. A cynic might argue that the NBA was capable of anything to make sure the series extended beyond four games given the television ratings that are as high as any since the Chicago Bulls were concluding their second three-peat.
And the Cavs did appear to benefit from some friendly officiating as the Warriors seemed frustrated by calls and non-calls at various points and, more importantly, the officials seemed content to allow the Cavs to be much more aggressive off the ball, disrupt cuts and muscle for position — part of the reason Thompson could thrive.
“They got to the free-throw line 20-something times [in the first quarter] and slowed the pace down,” said Curry. “Granted, I mean, you could nitpick each call, but they were the aggressor to begin with, and usually the aggressor gets the favourable whistle.”
If anything, the second quarter was even more unexpected as the Cavaliers had an answer for every Warriors thrust.
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The Warriors were themselves spectacular. In scoring 68 points in the first half they got 22 points from Durant, shot 54.5 per cent from the floor, chased down seven offensive rebounds, blocked four shots, made six threes and got to the free-throw line 18 times, making 14.
But they were on the verge of being swallowed up by a Cavaliers avalanche as Cleveland scored 86, led by 28 from Irving — giving him 50 points in 45 minutes of play dating back to the halftime of Game 3 — with 22 points, eight rebounds and six assists from James and 17 points from Love.
It was a night of records for the Cavs. They set a Finals record for most points in a quarter and a half and for most threes made. There was a slew of franchise records, too.
That’s what it took to beat the Warriors once. Do it three more times and they’ll be in the record books forever.
