Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Champions 2016

8 years ago in NBA

The Cleveland Cavaliers have completed a historic comeback from trailing 1-3 in the series and climbing back and winning the Championship game on the road to end the city of Cleveland’s Championship drought in 5 decades. Lebron James finished with a triple double with 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. Kyrie added 26 points and most importantly the 3-point shot that buried the Warriors. A Championship could have been the best ending for the Warriors historic 73-win season but as it turns out it just became a larger story for the Cavaliers conquest of the Finals in 2016.

Celebrations and reactions on Cleveland Cavaliers winning the title

Lebron talks to Turner Sports

The Warriors looked like they were coasting for a sweep when they won Games 1 & 2 in blowout scores with an average of 24-point winning margin.

Games 1 saw the Warriors win by 15 points despite Klay Thompson and Stephen Curry only scored a combined 20 points on 8-27 shooting. Shaun Livingston was the hero for that game scoring a personal playoff record of 20 points while Green added a double double 16 points and 11 rebounds. Steve Kerr put it this way —

 “We play a lot of people, and we feel like we have a lot of talent on the bench that can come in and score when we need it. So it’s a great sign, obviously, that we can win in the finals without those two guys having big games, but it’s not really that surprising to us. This has been our team the last couple of years.”

The bench of Golden State scored 45 points against the 10 points from Lebron James’ supporting cast.

Game 2 and the Warriors continued with their dominance by winning on a 33-point margin and most of Cleveland starters put up the white flag early in the 4th quarter by watching the Warriors run away with a victory. Stephen and Curry did not score to their full potential by just having 18 & 17 points respectively. The Warriors bench scored the points with Draymond Green leading the charge with 28 points 7 rebounds and 5 assists. As Steph says about their teamwork —

“What we’ve done the last few years, everybody, every night has an impact. You don’t know where it’s going to come from any given night. We’ve got to keep our focus and our edge and hopefully get two more.”

Game 3 as Lebron summed it up —

“We can’t afford to go down 3-1 and go into their building and give them confidence going back. So it’s a do-or-die game for us still.”

The Cavaliers were able to bounce back huge with a 30-point winning margin and brought the Cavs back to life and in contention closing the series gap 2-1. In this game, the Cavaliers showed why they haven’t lost at home in the playoffs — they hustled, rebounded and put on an offensive show with Lebron and Kyrie leading the team.

Tristan Thompson showed strength and defense that helped limit the Warriors offense

Game 4 was supposed to be the equalizer and for most part the Cavaliers controlled the tempo and the game until the third quarter when the Splash Brothers came back to life and began hitting those 3-point shots. The Warriors won by 11 points and made a historic 17-3 pointers in the Finals. Stephen Curry had 38 points and Klay Thompson hitting 25. On Curry’s comeback Green has this to say —

“All the slander. He’s a competitor. He’s been under a heavy microscope, and rightfully so. Two-time MVP, you’re expected to have a great game in the finals. He struggled the first three, tonight he was our guy.”

 

The Cavaliers are now down 3-1 in the series and no team has ever been able to comeback from this deficit.

Most importantly, this is the game that the Splash Brothers have risen from slumber hitting 3-pointers, layups, making small runs to close the gap, take the lead and eventually win the game.

Game 5 is when Lebron James and Irving each scored 41 points a historic finals milestone that saw them push the series to Game 6 in their home court.

Lebron James wouldn’t let his team go down, the half ended tied at 61 all.

Game 6 and the Cavaliers became the third team to push the series to Game 7 after being down by 3-1 games. Lebron had a back-to-back 40++ point game and major milestone unheard of for a very long time.

Lebron’s monster game saw him scoring 41-points contributing 11 assists, eight rebounds and most notably have outshined Stephen Curry in the game.

Game 7 and Lebron just managed to closeout the series on an incredible performance.

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