Welcome in to the full recap of game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers where the Cavaliers take a 2-1 lead, staving off another improbable Warriors rally with a 91-96 victory.
I was waiting for this to go to yet a third straight OT. It almost did, but still nonetheless another exciting finish for these finals. For the most part the Cavs looked like they had complete control of this game, especially in the third quarter when they were up 55-72, but the Warriors were never out as they continued to battle, they just came up a little short. None of these games finished with the winning team winning by double digits and only one game finished in the 100's range scoring-wise.
Golden State Warriors
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Stephen Curry, 27 points, 10-20 shooting. It's not about how you start, but how you finish and Curry found his struggles again early on in the game. In the first quarter, he just only scored 3 points and he was never heard from again. In the 2nd half, he found the range and started playing like the league MVP, draining a lot ridiculous three pointers to will his team back in it. The 4th quarter was the type of quarter Curry needed and hopefully for the Warriors, this pays off and Curry goes "Human Torch" in the next set of games.
Andre Iguodala, 15 points, 6-12 shooting. Iguodala comes close for the Warriors to have a player that has been on this stage before. Well, we know that Andre Iguodala has not been to the finals, but he has over a decade of playoff experience. Early on in the game, he looked like the only guy on the Warriors that wanted to win this game, pushing the ball up the court, breaking away for a dunk, creating opportunities for other players. If there's one constant for this deep Warriors team it's Iguodala continually putting up solid double-figure points off the bench.
David Lee, 11 points, 4-4 shooting. Well hello David Lee and welcome to the NBA Finals! I called it in the last full recap that the Warriors need some big man scoring as Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli are doing all they can against Thompson and Mozgov. Lee got off to a solid start in his first NBA Finals game like he hasn't missed a beat at all. When Lee is on the floor, the Warriors get more ball movement and their pick and roll game becomes more effective. Hopefully this serves as a flyer for Steve Kerr for the next few games.
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Klay Thompson, 14 points, 6-16 shooting. Klay Thompson scored 20 less points than he did in game 2. If the Warriors want to have a chance, both Splash Bros. have to go off, it's not one Splash brother goes off and then the other takes a night off, they both have to score at least in the 20+ range like they did in game 1. You can give some of the credit to Cavaliers defense as they know they can contain Stephen Curry by getting a body in front of him and that leads them to also account for Thompson as well.
Cleveland Cavaliers
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LeBron James, 40 points, 12 rebounds, 8 assists, 14-34 shooting. I said it before and I'll say it again, LeBron is going to be on this positive list as long as he's putting up numbers like this. You can't stop him, you can only hope to contain him, but it's very hard to defend a player as complete as LeBron James with his scoring, rebounding, and facilitating. For three straight games, the guy has put the Cavs on his shoulders with 30+ point performances while playing 40+ minutes in all three games. For this game in particular, I thought he was going at the Warriors' defense hard, setting the tone that this Warriors defense will clamp down once he gets to the hoop. He was rarely settling for jump shots until the final minutes of the quarter and it was just attack, attack, and attack.
Matthew Dellavedova, 20 points, 7-17 shooting. Like I said before, Matthew Dellavedova is writing a fairy tale in this NBA Finals series. He started it off, filling in for Kyrie Irving and just shutting down Stephen Curry. In this game, now his stat sheet is worth looking at! Two three pointers during the third quarter to start blowing this game open, making an off balance and 1 to give the Cavs some air when the Warriors were making a run, and leaping, crashing, diving for loose ball after loose ball. You can tell, his energy was being spent, but it is well worth it and you can't not like his effort and drive to sacrifice his body to give his team a win.
Tristan Thompson, 10 points, 13 rebounds. It's just another day in the rebounding office for Tristan Thompson. The numbers just speak for itself. He's still crashing the boards and giving the Cavs 2nd chance opportunities while allowing almost none for the Warriors.
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There were not a lot of negatives to point out for the Cavaliers other than the fact that the defense started loosening up in the fourth quarter when they were just absolutely crushing the Warriors' offense in the third quarter. Both teams held each other to under 100, but the Cavs had a large lead with their defense, they just couldn't keep up the intensity heading into the 4th.
Conclusion
I find it hard to believe that a team as stacked as the Warriors with their depth is really struggling against a short-handed Cavaliers team. You gotta hand it to the Cavaliers even though there are two more games for them to clinch the championship for not laying down without a fight and the experience of LeBron James is helping erase some finals inexperience with a majority of the Cavs' rotational lineup. The Warriors, they've been down 2-1 in the playoffs this game against Memphis and they have responded with three straight wins, but they're facing a different cat with the pressure of the finals. Game 3 may be considered a moral victory for the team considering they came back. Hopefully for them, they build some of that to get a better start in game 4 if they want to avoid going back to Oracle down 3-1. I'll see you guys for game 4 on Thursday.
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