Cavaliers stop History-Win Game Four

The Cleveland Cavaliers zoomed to the lead with 49 point first quarter and never allowed history or the Golden State Warriors to seriously challenge them again as the Cavaliers stayed alive with a 137-116 drubbing in Cleveland in game four of the NBA finals.

LeBron James finished with a triple double (31 pts,10 rebounds,11 assists) with Kyrie Irving supporting James with 40 points and Kevin Love adding 23 more.
Golden State continues to lead the series at 3-1 and the Warriors can end the season Monday in Oakland.


Swashbucklings

1) To say that the Cavaliers were inspired to come out firing early would be a severe understatement.
49 first quarter points-NBA finals record for points in a quarter.
86 first half points-NBA finals record.
That says more than I can type....

2) LeBron James continued to show why he is the best player in the world still-no matter the eventual result of this series,
The overall play of James is what makes him the games top player.
He's not the shooter that Stephen Curry or the pure offensive force of Kevin Durant,but he's good enough at both to dominate on the right night and the other gifts in his game that James possesses far outweighs anything that Curry or Durant does beyond what their strength is.

3) Kyrie Irving's 40 points led the team,but his 15 of 27 was more important (seven three pointers made as well).
Irving is an offensive machine and when he's clicking like he was in this game,few are going to be able to defend him..

4) Loved the ball movement in this game by the Cavaliers.
The ball was kept moving and the Cavaliers didn't fall into the trap of constant isolation of James or Irving going one on five.
Ball movement creates open looks and open looks make complementary players much more likely to contribute..

5) Kevin Love fired in 17 points in the first half and even was a help on defense.
Combine Love with the resurgent games from J.R.Smith and Tristan Thompson and that goes a long way toward a victory.

6) The whole technical foul on Draymond Green/Not on Green thing is the type of thing that makes casual fans,some of which already question NBA basketball being on the level,cringe and wonder.
Put aside whether the technical that was called on Green or not,it looks bad...

7) Nice work by Zaza Pachulia,who will likely miss game five by suspension,for punching Iman Shumpert in the groin.
Add in the resume of Draymond Green and it's no wonder that the Warriors are so disliked.

8) When you are down 3-0 in a series,each game is the most important.
Cleveland came up with a huge effort to avoid the sweep,now they have to have another one in Oakland where they have been blown out twice in the series.
It's unlikely and will take another game of dazzling play to win,but for a second imagine this scenario-If Cleveland wins in Oakland,the series becomes 3-2 and the thoughts of last season has to be on the Warriors mind as they return to Cleveland for game six,where they 'should' have lost both games.
That takes it to game seven and then who knows what happens because then the pressure is all on Golden State,not Cleveland who is playing with house money.
Chances of this happening? Not very good,but there is your road map to a miracle...

Cavaliers dusted in Game One

The Cleveland Cavaliers played a decent enough first half in Oakland in game one of the NBA Finals,yet still were down eight points at the half.
The Cleveland Cavaliers lost their defensive edge in the second half and were dominated in third quarter action,putting themselves out of the game and losing to the Golden State Warriors 113-91.
LeBron James led Cleveland with 28 points with Kyrie Irving adding 24 more.
Game two is Sunday in Oakland.

Swashbucklings

1) It all came down to the boardwork and you'd never know it by the numbers.
The stat sheet had Cleveland outrebounding Golden State 59-50,but it seemed like much of that advantage was accumulated in garbage time.
Cleveland seemed to lose every loose ball and every contested rebound and just seemed to be almost passive with every missed shot.

2) The Warriors are too good to give so many second chances.
Tristan Thompson finished with just four rebounds and zero points,if that is the type of statistics that we can expect from Thompson,it's going to be very tough for Cleveland to win this series.
Fortunately,I don't think that will be the case.

3) Ok,Kevin Durant finished with 38 points.
Kevin Durant will also be tough to stop,but something tells me that we've seen his best game.
Call it a hunch,but I have a feeling he's going to have a clunker or even two over the course of this series.

4) Kyrie Irving did finish with 24 points,but did that on shooting 10 for 24 on the night.
Irving is going to have play better on both sides of the floor in order to close the gap from game one to game two.

5) 20 turnovers for Cleveland and just four for the Warriors.
Contrast that with the 27-9 difference in transition points and you can see how this got ugly early in the third quarter.

6) Next to nothing from the bench,most notably three point gunner Kyle Korver,who did see key minutes before the game got out of hand.
Korver was 0-3 for the evening and had major issues defending.

7) I didn't love the officiating,same as many that watched the game,but the soft defense that allowed so many easy drives to the basket was far more influential in this loss than anything the officials did.
I can live with losing this series with Golden State shooting well from the outside-I cannot live with it allowing them to beat them with dunks and dishing off layups from inside the paint....