Monster mash: LeBron James undaunted by beastly Warriors

For that reason, the Cavaliers need to win as much as they can while they have the best player in the world.

He joked: “I told the team the good news is the team is really healthy, the bad news is the coaching staff is dropping like flies”. A seventh game is the one true thing that makes being a human being worthwhile, and better still, a seventh game that ends in overtime elevates us all as a species.

With this being the third installment of the Cleveland-Golden State finals saga, basketball bettors do have some history to weigh these totals trend against.

James knows he will have his hands full when the series opens on Thursday in Oakland but said he likes his team’s chances of pulling off what Las Vegas would consider an upset. After averaging 30.1 points per game in the regular season on 50.4/45.4/90.8 shooting splits (field goal/3-point/free throw percentages), the 2015 and 2016 MVP award victor averaged 22.6 points per game on 40.3/40.0/92.9 splits in the NBA Finals. Adding a player of Kevin Durant’s caliber makes an already risky team terrifying.

Jeff Zillgitt: Underdogs in the Finals once again, the Cavaliers face an even more hard challenge against the Warriors.

“I’m just at peace with myself; I’m at peace with myself as a basketball player, most importantly”, Durant said. I started to slash more and move more without the ball, shoot more standstill 3s and figure out ways I could be more productive than just having the ball in isolation. “I made the 100 percent correct decision”, Durant told ESPN’s The Undefeated last week.

“(With that said, ) I came out in preseason this year and threw a behind-the-back pass because I have confidence that I can do it and it won’t change that”. “It’s a tribute to what I’ve been able to do with this game”. The Cavs-Warriors rivalry existed before Durant’s arrival, and these will be very much LeBron’s Finals (win or lose, because it always is), Steph Curry’s Finals or even Draymond Green’s Finals, but no player will be in the spotlight more than Durant.

And you can’t get a better deal than that. It couldn’t have been that LeBron just had the occasional off night, no, he’s way too superhuman for that. You haven’t got anything better to do anyway. Stephen Curry is also set to hit free agency this summer, though reports say he doesn’t want to leave. Why can’t we just appreciate James’ greatness while also remembering Jordan’s? “It’s the way of the league, and I think the prestige of playing 82 is not what it’s used to be, and this is the way it’s going to be”.

So that’s what this needs – especially after all the time the two fan bases have been asked to watch their teams sit idle because of the lack of games. The Thunder found their rhythm and ran past the Spurs in the second round, then dominated the Warriors through the first four games of the conference finals, taking a 3-1 lead.

Getting the better of Lue, who himself has become an underrated in-game tactician with some strong strategic calls these playoffs (e.g. trotting out lineups with LeBron James at the 5, bleeding Channing Frye’s minutes in favor of podcasting partner Richard Jefferson, etc.) will be absolutely imperative, even despite the superstar-driven nature of this series.

If you’ll recall previous year, one of the primary turning points of the Finals series came when Tyronn Lue, his Cavs facing an 0-2 deficit, shifted James onto Draymond Green for Game 3. “It doesn’t matter to me”. I had to get used to that. “I was right there”.