The Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, to win their first championship in 40 years. Andre Iguodala won the Finals MVP, scoring 16.3 points per game, as well as doing by far the best job of defending against LeBron James. Iguodala hadn’t been in the starting rotation the entire playoffs, until head coach Steve Kerr started him in Game 4, with the Warriors down 2 games to 1.
The Warriors responded by winning 3 games in a row to win the title. Reigning league MVP Stephen Curry scored 25 points in Game 6, and became the 6th player ever to win his first MVP and first championship in the same year. The last player do accomplish this feat was Shaquille O’Neal in 2000.
Kerr became the first rookie head coach to win a title since Pat Riley back in 1982. The Warriors didn’t come out of nowhere to win the NBA Finals. they achieved the 3rd best record ever, regular season and playoffs combined, at 83-20. Only the Chicago Bulls in 1996 and 1997 had better records, and they had that guy named Michael Jordan on those teams.
I’m actually surprised that Cleveland even won 2 games in the Finals. After losing Kevin Love early in the playoffs, and Kyrie Irving at the end of Game 1 of the Finals, LeBron James was basically a 1-man gang. He did get enough help from guard Matthew Dellavedova and center Timofey Mosgov to win Games 2 and 3, but Dellavedova especially was largely ineffective after that.
When the Warriors changed their lineup, taking out Andrew Bogut, and starting Iguodala instead, their team was smaller and faster. Cleveland didn’t have an answer for this change. While James kept putting up big numbers, he didn’t get much help from the rest of the team. It might have been a different story if Irving and Love played the whole series, but I think Golden State still would have won.
The Warriors have a very bright future, with such a young team. Their oldest player is 32-year old David Lee, and he doesn’t even start anymore. Curry is 27 and Klay Thompson is 25. They will be strong competitors for the championship for many years to come, as long as they keep their core intact.
The Cavaliers will be back, assuming that James doesn’t opt-out of his contract. I don’t think he will, this year. But if they don’t win a title next year, he will move on to try to build a team somewhere else I’m sure. Loyalty to the Cleveland area be damned. He should stay in Cleveland, but that’s not the way he’s been in the past.
It’s nice to have a team like the Warriors win the championship that hasn’t done it in 40 years. Although the Cavaliers has never won one. In fact, the last title by any Cleveland team was the Browns in 1964, and that was before they joined the NFL. That streak will extend for at least one more year.
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