Golden State Warriors Versus LeBron James
The world’s best basketball player against the world’s best team. That is what the this year’s NBA Finals have boiled down to: The Golden State Warriors vs LeBron James.
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There is the king. LeBron James, the four-time MVP, 11-time All Star, trying to prove he truly is one of the best of all time. He plans on winning his third championship with all of the odds against him to put the perfect cherry on top for his dramatic homecoming season.
Then, you have the Golden State Warriors. The powerhouse team who has quite the special story working and can see it going no other way but their own. They have this year’s most valuable player in Stephen Curry, but he isn’t as dominant as James — and Curry has a lot more to work with.
He has Andre Iguodala who has looks as if he is back in Philadelphia and playing in his prime. There is Klay Thompson, who has been just as critical to the Warriors’ success as anyone. There is Draymond Green who finished as the runner up for defensive player of the year honors and has been dubbed the “heartbeat” of the team.
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There is a reason why this team set a franchise record for games won, and a reason why no other team has won 67 games within the last decade. This team isn’t just good, they are in fact the best team in the league as a whole.
When the Warriors barely scraped by with a Game One victory, and then went on to lose the next two, many people across the nation thought that was it. It looked as if James’ greatness was going to trump all and nothing was going to get in the way of him finishing this season with a title.
Although James was magnificent through the first three games, scoring the most through the first three games of a Finals series of anybody in league history, there was something lacking from the opposition. The team he was playing wasn’t the same team that had won 67 games and averaged 110 points a game during the regular season.
Through Game Two and Game Three, the Warriors were held below 60 points through three quarters — something that hadn’t happened all season.
Golden State Warriors
The Warriors simply looked flat. Their shots that had been going down all season were now not going in. They weren’t able to control the pace, they weren’t getting out into the fast break, and they weren’t moving the ball on offense as they normally did.
Obviously some credit should be given to the Cleveland Cavaliers and David Blatt for the defense that they were playing, but the Warriors had found ways to torch good defenses all year long. They played a type of basketball that was very difficult to stop for one game, let alone three.
In Game Four, they looked a lot more like the team that everyone knows. Although Curry didn’t exactly go off, he did lead the offensive barrage that ended up handing the Cavaliers their biggest loss this postseason.
Head coach Steve Kerr needed to bring his team back from the dead and he made a significant but risky move that led to a change in offensive pace. He benched Andrew Bogut and started Igoudala for the first time this season.
Whether the change was just a change in mentality for the players on the court, or whether the physical aspect of it actually changed, it worked. The Warriors were much more active, played faster and had their best scoring output in regulation this series.
Game Four was a very critical game in the series, and many believe whoever won the game would go on to win the series. The Warriors finally were able to get their offense back on track and regain home court advantage when it mattered most. Now they have to continue doing what they’ve done all season or they might just end up as another page in James’ storybook finish.