Pundits: ‘Golden State does not need to be ideal to beat Cavs’

After posting the best single-season record in NBA history and being one game away from a championship, Golden State added arguably the second-best player in basketball.

Not that anyone expected any different.

Now that they are a year wiser and a Kevin Durant better, Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors are favored against the Cleveland Cavaliers in their NBA Finals rubber match.

Durant played well in his first Finals trip but didn’t have the help he has now with a two-time MVP in Curry, one of the league’s best two-way players in Thompson and a do-it-all demon like Green.

All I can say to Cavs fans as we get closer to game time is: Enjoy this. Barnes was a key reserve on the “We Believe” team in 2007 that made it to the second round of the playoffs and said his heart never left the East Bay. If there is a basketball God — and there may not be, considering how bad the playoffs have been — this feud will continue in Game 2 Sunday night. The Cavs’ will have essentially the same team that they had previous year.

“I’m not in the “prove people wrong, silence critics” department no more”, James said. “I think the world has been waiting for this to finally get here”. “My only motivation is to be able to compete for a championship every single year”. The Warriors have assisted on 70 percent of their shots this season, which is the highest rate in 13 years. Green said he has moved on from the suspension, but has taken lessons with him. So I know we can play better.

“This is the Finals, and we don’t care about making mistakes, just play as hard as you can and follow the game plan, have your mind in it”.

It sucks, but this is how the reaction will go if Kevin Durant and the Warriors lose the NBA Finals: Durant is a chemistry killer! James won his first title in 2012 with Miami in a five-game series over Durant and the Thunder.

Cleveland shot just 34.9 percent from the field as a team and managed just 39 second-half points as an eight-point deficit at intermission swelled to a 22-point loss. This time around, we will look at how Love is playing his best basketball since joining the Cavaliers two summers ago. Golden State had 11 first-half dunks in all, the most of any team in any Finals half in 20 years.

The ease with which the Warriors and Cavs glided through the National Basketball Association playoffs gave us way too much time to parse the meaning of this series.

“It’s just a little bit of swelling but has nothing to do with my performance”, he said. “I mean, no other team has done this, right?” The Cavs cut that to 12 when they took advantage of Pachulia’s defense vs. a small lineup, but the Warriors were 6-of-10 from three in the third, were getting stops at the rim (Cavs 5-of-14 in the restricted area in the third), and the Warriors led 93-72 after three.

Capt. Patricia Sandoval, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department, tells The Associated Press that James wasn’t home at the time.

All seem to agree on the Golden State Warriors winning. Kyrie Irving outplayed Curry in the finals and hit the biggest shot of the series down the stretch in Game 7.

“I’ve had a week off”, Thompson said. I don’t feel like we’re underdogs. Obviously shots are falling.

James also managed 15 rebounds for the Cavs while teammate Kyrie Irving added 24 points and Kevin Love grabbed 21 rebounds and scored 15 points, while Tristan Thompson was held scoreless and to four boards. In all, 11 players in the series have been All-Stars in their careers, tying the 1983 Finals between Philadelphia and the Lakers for the most in National Basketball Association history.