Warriors beat Cavs and move to brink of NBA title

Kerr could become the second person in National Basketball Association history, joining only the Minneapolis Lakers’ John Kundla in 1949 and 1950, to win titles in each of his first two seasons as a head coach.

Shaking off days of scrutiny over his subpar play, Curry responded with 38 points to lead a 108-97 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena.

“The way that they were defending and have been for most of the series, they’re trying to take away our perimeter shot”, Curry said.

CLEVELAND-Halfway through Friday night’s Game 4, it seemed as if the Cavaliers were well on their way to tying this NBA Finals series at two games apiece.

With Love out, Lue went with a smaller starting lineup in Game 3, playing Richard Jefferson at small forward and moving LeBron James to power forward.

Teams leading 3-1 in the NBA Finals are 32 for 32 when it comes to winning the whole thing. “That team’s hungry over there, and they’ve got some all-time great players”. “A lot of loose balls we should have got”. They eventually led by 20 in the first quarter of a game they never trailed.

James and Green exchanged words in the fourth quarter after it appeared the Golden State forward hit Cleveland’s star below the belt. They defended better, while the Cavaliers descended into Kyrie Irving and LeBron James taking turns going one-on-one. In a rare moment when James did beat Iguodala off the dribble, Green was right there, rising up to swat James at the rim.

James said: “It’s not my call”. That’s the league office. They’ve only made it look that way. We played well. So I just chose to stick with RJ. Green’s numbers in Game 4 (nine points, 12 rebounds and four assists) aren’t particularly impressive but, as the old saying goes, he did all the little things that allowed the Warriors to outplay the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers led by six at the start of the third quarter and pushed it to eight points at 63-55 before the Warriors clawed back.

Curry totaled only 48 points in his first three games and got pushed around in Game 3. He was diagnosed with a concussion and has been slowly working his way back since. It would move the Warriors one step closer to Michael Jordan’s Bulls and Magic Johnson’s Showtime Lakers in the historical frame of the game of basketball.

“If you don’t think we can win, don’t get on the plane”, Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said, when asked what the approach is now.

The two-time MVP found his long-range touch and scored 38 points, Klay Thompson added 25 and the Warriors rebounded from a big loss by beating the Cleveland Cavaliers 108-97 on Friday night in Game 4.

And that was enough for Thompson to sense that his long-lost Splash Brother was back.

“I mean, it’s business as usual”, Curry said. “So we’re prepared for it, and it’s going to be a fun night”. He was everywhere. He contested 17 shots in the game, by far the most out of any player, and logged five deflections to go with two steals and three blocks. James also went cold when Golden State pulled away in the beginning of the fourth, although he did finish with 25 points and 13 rebounds.

Here are three reasons why the Warriors are now up 3-1. Hit a huge 3. Realize that it could be the end, so everyone give it their all and just trust each other and do it with nine, 10 guys like we do every night.

“We all saw it in the locker room”, James, telling reporters how the team reviewed video of the incident after the game, said. But right now, the Warriors really need Curry to find The Baby Faced Assassin in himself, and be the Warriors’ best player.

“We miss his rebounding. He’s going to impact the game in a thousand different ways and you just try to make his field-goal attempts as hard as possible”.

Now, the scrutiny and skepticism might shift from Curry back to King James in these remarkably fickle Finals.

This is James’ seventh trip to the finals, and barring the most improbable of comebacks this will be his fifth time watching someone else hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy. “So we’ve got to learn from our mistakes tonight….”