Warriors-Cavs Game 7

FTs right now in a Game 7 home game for the Warriors:

Cavs 18

Warriors 6

What a fukking joke. 

Game was getting too far ahead for the Cavs, let's give Green 3 FTs. 

Still a big FT disparity late in the 3rd 

Green is singlehandedly keeping GS in this game 

Fouls at start of 4th

Cavs 12 

Warriors 18

Ezeli in? WTF? Is Kerr trying to make sure this stays close? 

Now GS starting to choke. Curry with a terrible turnover and Lebron goes for 6 in a row. 

Curry not looking like an MVP right now. 

Still, why was Kerr playing Ezeli. He was terrible. 

Coming down to the wire 

Wonder if John Elway or Mike Jordan or Earnest Byner will make an appearance 

Cleveland may never have a better chance than this 

Steph Curry finding it hard to play with his hands around his own neck. He's been terrible the last few minutes. So much for being the unanimous MVP.

Harrison Barnes also losing himself a lot of money. He wants no part of taking any shots right now. 

Wow what was Irving doing 

Busted wrist 

Game over. 

Lebron James >>>>>>>> Steph Curry. 

Yup....that's it...broken, and they're gonna win this thing.   

Guess his wrist is ok.

The Cavs abused Curry in the 4th quarter. They exposed him as a one trick pony. He's a sub-par defensive player and choked down the stretch on offense. 

Cavs celebrating running onto the court before the buzzer sounds?  Wow.  That's Minnesota Vikings like bush league BS.  

Let the slurpfest begin 

Where's Tim Donaghy when you need him 

Hardest road??   

God I hope the Bucks improve and eventually unseat those guys.  

The least gracious winners I can think of 

Curry in the last 5 minutes was 0-5 with a turnover and game up the game winning 3 point shot to Irving when he got isolated. 

Golden State scoreless the last 4:39 of the game. They went from being potentially a two time champion to a one time, Detroit Pistons/2004 type winner. I'd love to have to Bucks come close to a championship but this is the game that will define Curry/Thompson if they never win another title. 

Steve Kerr also was completely out coached. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to keep playing Ezeli? The game turned when LeBron got Ezeli to commit an idiotic foul with the Warriors up 4 and the shot clock running down with about 5 minutes left. 

Man how old is Richard Jefferson? 

Happy for him - class act and put a lot of years in 

Tschmack posted:

Cavs celebrating running onto the court before the buzzer sounds?  Wow.  That's Minnesota Vikings like bush league BS.  

Let the slurpfest begin 

Where's Tim Donaghy when you need him 

I think the officiating sucked too, but GS just flat out choked at the end of this one. Missed wide open shots from Curry, Thompson, and Green. Barnes played like he was about to **** his pants in the 4th quarter. Ezeli was put into a Game 7 in crunch time for reasons that only Steve Kerr knows. Iguodala bricks two FTs, Curry shows he can't defend one on one. The Cavs didn't need the help at the end. GS just came up small. Scoreless for the last 4:39? 

There is no question in this game- as in Game 6- the Cavs played harder and simply wanted it more.  Curry, and to a lesser degree Thompson- did nothing in this game.   They totally wilted under the pressure. 

Still wonder about the Green suspension though.  Was a big event in the grand scheme of things to keep the series going.  If he doesn't sit that game out I'm not sure Cleveland wins game 5. 

Oh shuddup Dan Gilbert.  You sound like a Red Sox fan pre 2004 or a Cubs fan now. 

F*** Cleveland...

The last professional sports Championship won in Milwaukee was 1971. Are the fans in Milwaukee "suffering" and it's all about "all the people in this city have gone through"? Heartbreak in '82? Heartbreak in 2011? Having our hearts ripped out by Philly or Boston every year? And decades of subsequent ineptitude???

F'n horsesh*t. F*** Cleveland...

I don't get it either.  The Indians and Cavs in particular have been on the cusp of a championship many more times than the Brewers or the Bucks over the last 40 years. That's a fact.  

And the way this Cavs team won makes it hard to cheer or celebrate their success.  

Good for Cleveland, but those people are about to find out that a bunch of strangers winning a championship isn't really going to change their lives one iota. If your life was good before last night, it's still going to be good. And vice versa. 

What interesting about the series is the changes to the way the games were played. GS plays this fluid, moving, almost beautiful style of basketball. Cleveland is iso iso iso, one on one. For 3 of 4 games, Cleveland was being crucified for being too hero-ball-y. Too much LeBron and Kyrie going by 1 on 5 and everyone else standing around. 

Then game 5 happened. After that, the Cavs didn't change at all- except suddenly the Warriors couldnt score. It was almost as if they couldn't do what won them 3 of 4 games. And that's because they couldn't. The Officials swallowed their whistles the rest of the series and Cleveland went to work. 

I'm surprised they didn't have Vince McMahon whack Steph Curry with a folding chair at the end just for good measure...

So much of what Golden State does is moving without the basketball which is part of the fun watching them play.  They get up and down the court in transition and take a lot of outside shots. 

It's kind of like watching the Rams greatest show on turf or recent Packers teams where they spread it out and run the no huddle.   When it all starts clicking it's tough to stop.  

The funny thing is the Cavs took a page from Bill Belichek.  As defenders, get your hands on them and get physical and disrupt the flow and timing of the offense.  That's what Cleveland did especially in games 6 and 7. 

What's shocking is the refs allowed the contact and Golden State never adjusted.  Instead of taking the ball to the hoop and drawing contact (fouls) they just settled for outside shots.   As good as Curry and Thompson are they were clearly bothered by the contact. 

If you watched Cleveland toward the end of the series it was like watching the Knicks from 20 years ago - handchecking and all. 

The hand checking was pretty blatant, but in the end the Warriors had them right were they wanted them, up 87-83 with 5:37 to play.

Neither team shot well down the stretch, and the officials are going to swallow their whistles if at all possible. That's a given and GS just didn't execute really on any level except defensively. This involved poor coaching by Kerr and poor decisions and execution on offense. Here's the highlights.

5:24, Cavs down 4. Lebron pump fakes Ezeli in the air at the 3 point line and knocks down 3 FTs to get it back to 1. First, why in the world was Ezeli in? There's 5 minutes left in a Game 7 for your historical legacy and you are playing probably your 9th or 10th player? Get Harrison Barnes back in.

5:16. Curry throws a behind-the-back pass to no one. Just an awful play even in a regular season game, let alone this situation.

4:52 LeBron hits a 3 at the shot clock. Cavs up by 2.

4:39 GS scores for the last time on a Thompson layup. Tied up. The only scoring that happened after this was Irving's 3 and Lebron's FT with 10 seconds left. GS played good defense too, but the sequence was as follows:

James miss, Curry 3 point miss, James miss, Klay T. miss, James blocked (fouled) by Iguodala, Iguodala 3 point miss, Love miss, D. Green 3 point miss, Irving miss, Iguodala missed on an incredible block by James, James miss, Curry 3 point miss, Irving 3 pointer, Curry missed 3 pointer. Lebron FT. Curry missed 3 pointer.

Lost in the win was that James was 0-4 from the field down the stretch. Curry was 0-4 from 3 and had a careless turnover.

Bottom line. The officiating might have been horrible but GS had 6 decent looks at 3 point shots in the last 5 minutes and couldn't hit one. The pressure of the moment got to them and Lebron. Kyrie Irving was the only player on either team to hit a shot in the last 4:39.

One other thought. Which of these stat lines is more impactful.

Lebron James: 9-24 FG, 1-5 3FG, 11 Rebounds, 11 Assists

Draymond Green: 11-15 FG, 6-8 3FG, 15 Rebounds, 9 Assists

James was great in games 5-7, but Green was amazing in Game 7. He was the only GS Warrior that didn't seem overwhelmed by the pressure. It was probably a mistake not to get him more shots.

Curry and Thompson were missing open looks and throwing up an occasional airball (combined 6-24 from 3). Iguodala was bricking FTs and was 2-6. Harrison Barnes looked like he was trying not to crap his pants. Ezeli was awful. Livingston was OK. But Draymond Green was a man among boys.