After another blowout, now Warriors need to respond

Overall, the team was much much more physical.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because Golden State had a similar catalytic event last season. The 2015 finals had a Game 2 overnight rating of 12.9. “I’m fine. Not the way we wanted the night to go”. Later, he airballed a three-pointer from beyond the arc.

His unreliable jumper has hurt the Cavs in the Finals.

With a full statline of 32 points, 11 rebounds, and 6 assists, James did a lot of things well last night, but such a line is quite conventional for James. “He can do that, but we’ve got to get easy ways to get him going”. James’s athleticism poses great problems for Green, who noticeably had problems keeping James in front of him compared to the way Iguodala is able to handle James.

Lack of scoring was a big problem in the first two games. Suppressing Green is huge for the Cavs, as he is not only the emotional leader of the Warriors, but as the team’s distributor and playmaker, he is arguably the most pivotal player on the team.

Thompson got set and fired.

The Cavs also had success running James in the pick and roll. “Defense dictates your offense, but sometimes offense dictates your defense as well”.

Basically, with Kerr, it’s about maintaining a successful status quo until it’s not successful any more, and it’s about feel once he’s ready to start switching things up.

The Eastern Conference champions were one loss away from being one loss away from being one of the very few teams to ever be swept in the NBA Finals, the ultimate insult for the losers in what is supposed to be a series contested between the two best teams in the league. A first-time coach like Kerr probably couldn’t have benched a veteran as accomplished as Lee without evidence to back it up, but he got all the evidence he needed. “N– spent all that money on them f- tickets … come holla at me!”

Scrambling on his hands and knees while for a ball near midcourt, James got to his feet and whipped a pass to Irving on the left side. J.R. Smith added 20, while Tristan Thompson posted 14 with 13 rebounds.

The Cavaliers came back to wallop the Warriors in Game 3, beating Steph Curry and the Warriors 120-90. Jefferson provides a veteran’s presence and maturity on the court in getting done the things that need to be done, similar to Shane Battier’s role with the Heat championship teams. “How are they meant to compete?” said one member of the U.S. media. Jefferson finished with 9 points and 8 rebounds. After Game 2, in which the Cleveland Cavaliers were dismantled 110-77 to go down 2-0 in the series.

What made Game 3 unique was how the Cavs started it – with Richard Jefferson in for the concussed Kevin Love.

This same stance was repeated by multiple Warriors players following the 30-point blowout loss.

The Warriors looked flustered in the game’s opening minutes.

Suddenly a deficit of one was a deficit of 10 and the rest of the game – and Game 2 – wasn’t even a competition.

It happened during Game 3 of the NBA Finals after LeBron James forced a turnover by Steph Curry.

But the Warriors have work to do. In a weird move that had nothing to do with the outcome of the game, but may have sent a psychological message to Stephen Curry and the Warriors, Curry grabbed a dead ball and tried to dunk it only to have LeBron James block the shot.

With Curry not looking at all like himself (2 points on 1-for-5 shooting, three fouls in the first half), there was a lot riding on how the Warriors would attack the beginning of the second half, but head coach Steve Kerr made a decision to stick with his usual starting lineup with Bogut at center.

Leading by 20 points in the first quarter, the Cavaliers saw that gap narrow to eight by the half. It will be as if we’ll purposely ignore the context and sample size of an 82-game season, in an attempt to convince ourselves that Game 3 was not the exception to the Golden State is great rule.

As with any big performance by Smith, he was also on top of his celebration game.