How will the NBA Finals play out?

Irving has played at this level since he entered the league and just because Lebron James is on the team doesn’t mean Irving is the sidekick.

James, though, can’t run or hide.

August 1949 – National Basketball League (NBL) teams join the BAA, to become the National Basketball Association (NBA). After all, he has slayed behemoths before.

Kevin Love was reminded that Warriors forward Draymond Green said earlier this season that he wants to “destroy and annihilate” the Cavs in the Finals.

Is this the biggest challenge of his career?

And then, nearly as if he was trying to remind himself that he’s got three championship rings and is frightful in his own right, James recalled other fearsome postseason opponents – San Antonio and Boston.

“Anytime I’m linked to any of the greats, even the greatest, in Mike, it’s an honor”, James said at Cavaliers shootaround on Thursday. “And if you add Pop (coach Gregg Popovich) in there, that’s five Hall of Famers”.

“I’ve played against Ray (Allen), KG (Kevin Garnett), Paul (Pierce), (Rajon) Rondo and Doc (Rivers)”. “We want to go take back a championship, that’s just the nature of a competitor and I think that’s the mindset of everyone in this organization to go take back what they took from us”. Cleveland won the 2016 title after Golden State prevailed in 2015.

The Celtics made some noise near the end of the first half, but Irving scored Cleveland’s first 11 points in the first 3:18 of the second half before two baskets by James ballooned the lead to 25 with 6:39 left in the third quarter.

Sure, you can call the Warriors the Evil Empire and Photoshop the Death Star into their roundel in their logo but keep in mind that Cavaliers are closer to the First Order than the Rebel Alliance.

After winning a measly 67 games in the regular season, Golden State is undefeated in the playoffs, sweeping all their series and treating the Western Conference like the once mighty left part of the league was free bread before the main course. This year even more so because current interim Warriors coach Mike Brown used to coach the Cavs. “A lot more words to say, but that’s the gist of it”. When you listen to the nonsense, then you start to really let it take control of your thoughts, that’s [not good], you know what I’m saying? The team Durant chose to jump to had just set the record for most wins in a season and were well on their way to beating James’ Cavaliers in the Finals before James pulled off arguably the greatest three-game stretch in the history of the sport. He’s one of the most risky guys we have in the world already. There was nearly too much historical context to dissect, and so James did what his instincts told him to do.

On the topic of age, the fact that James entered the National Basketball Association right out of high school, and played at an All-Star level nearly right away, is his biggest advantage over his historical competition.

This matchup has looked preordained since the playoffs began; the Cavaliers won their first 10 games of the postseason, and the Warriors have yet to drop a game (12-0).