Cavs Claim NBA Title
June 20, 2016
Yesterday, June 19, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors 93-89 to win the National Basketball Association (NBA) Finals. Cleveland‘s thrilling victory completed the first-ever comeback from a 3-games-to-1 deficit in the best-of-7 NBA championship series. It was the first title for the Cavs, and the first major sports championship in Cleveland since the Browns topped the National Football League in 1964. The win was also sweet revenge for Cleveland against Golden State, who had downed the Cavaliers in the 2015 NBA Finals.
LeBron James, a native of Akron, Ohio, just south of Cleveland, led the way for the Cavaliers, earning the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award. James and teammates Kyrie Irving, Tristan Thompson, Kevin Love, and J.R. Smith outlasted a flashy, often scintillating Warriors team that had passed and swished its way to a best-ever NBA season record of 73-9, surpassing the 72-10 mark set by the 1995-1996 Chicago Bulls. The Warriors built a 3-1 series lead behind two-time league MVP Stephen Curry and his backcourt mate Klay Thompson—standout guards nicknamed the “Splash Brothers” for their uncanny accuracy sinking long-range three-point shots. A year earlier, Warriors do-everything swingman Andre Iguodala contained James and the Cavaliers en route to his own Finals MVP Award. This year, however, no Warrior could match James’s will to win as the Cavalier forward amassed a Game 7 “triple-double” with 27 points, 11 rebounds, and 11 assists.
In leading his team to the comeback win—the Cavs trailed 49-42 at halftime—James completed a storybook turnaround for his team, his reputation, and his own place in league history. The Cavaliers drafted “King James” straight out of high school in 2003. He led the team to a Finals appearance in 2007, but the Cavs couldn’t get by the more broadly talented San Antonio Spurs.
Many championship-starved Cleveland fans burned their James jerseys in 2010 after he spurned the Cavs to seek titles with the Miami Heat. The Heat played in the next four consecutive Finals, winning titles in 2012 and 2013. Following the 2013-14 season, a sentimental James returned to Cleveland, where he joined young point guard Kyrie Irving and the embattled Kevin Love, a crafty rebounder who, despite a sweet shooting touch, had never led his prior Minnesota teams to a playoff appearance.
The dynamic Irving—a 2011 first overall draft pick—had something of a national coming-out party in the 2016 Finals’ crucial Game 5, when he converted numerous spinning, off-balance baskets, making 17-of-24 shots en route to a 41-point performance. James matched Irving’s point total and added 16 rebounds in the game, which proved a turning point in the series. Warriors hero/goat Draymond Green watched Game 5 from outside the arena while serving an automatic one-game suspension for his fourth flagrant foul of the playoffs. Green proved rusty in his return in Game 6, but he brought his team close to a second consecutive title with a 32-point, 15-rebound, 9-assist performance in the deciding Game 7.