Cavs top Warriors, bring long-awaited title to Cleveland
By Dave Del Grande, The Sports Xchange
OAKLAND, Calif. -- LeBron James was unanimously selected as the best player in the 2016 NBA Finals.
But when it came time to being the hero of the biggest game of the series, Kyrie Irving seized that moment and wore that crown.
Irving buried a 3-pointer over regular-season Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry to break a tie with 53.0 seconds remaining Sunday night, sending the Cleveland Cavaliers to their first NBA championship, 93-89 over the Golden State Warriors.
The dramatic shot capped a three-game sweep for the Cavaliers, the first-ever in NBA Finals history, after they had fallen behind 3-1 in the best-of-seven series.
"You give me one game, you give me 48 minutes, I'll take my chances," said James, whose consecutive 41-point explosions in Games 5 and 6 helped bring about the winner-take-all finale. "Once we got to a Game 7, I was just confident. I knew what I was capable of doing."
What James did was wrap up the Finals MVP with a 27-point, 11-rebound, 11-assist, three-block performance at a site where the Warriors had lost just four times previously, including Game 5, all season.
The three-game losing streak was Golden State's first in the two-year Steve Kerr coaching era, one that began with a championship last year and continued with a record-setting, 73-win regular season this year.
"We had a goal at the beginning of the year to repeat, and that goal we failed," said Warriors power forward Draymond Green, whose six 3-pointers kept Golden State alive in its quest. "But I think this team accomplished a lot of great things. We just failed at one goal we had, but this whole season isn't a failure to me."
Cleveland became the first team since the Washington Bullets in 1978 to win a Game 7 on the road. The Cavaliers did it with James' all-around brilliance, limiting Golden State to 13 fourth-quarter points and, in the end, Irving's difference-making shot.
"I thought, defensively, those last five games of the series was unbelievable," Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. "That's just a credit to the guys of following the game plan. We made a few adjustments and we stuck to the game plan. Confidence never wavered."
Irving supported James with 26 points as they became just the third and fourth players in NBA history drafted No. 1 overall to win championships for the team that selected them.
"To experience (a championship) with a great player like that, that is a future Hall of Farmer, that deals with so much criticism and a lot of naysayers, and to be able to grow with him is just awesome," Irving said of James. "I'm very thankful that I have a guy like that that's leading our team."
The Cleveland defense was as critical in the win as Irving's winning shot. The Warriors missed their final nine shots, including seven 3-point attempts, and never scored after Klay Thompson tied the score at 89-all with 4:40 to play.
Curry missed four of the 3's, including one with 30.7 seconds to go that could have matched Irving's 3 and tied the score.
"I was searching for a 3 and rushed and didn't take what was there, which was probably better to go around (Kevin Love) and try to get into the pain," he said. "It hurts, man. That's all I'm really kind of marinating on right now."
Each team missed six consecutive shots over a stretch of almost four minutes before Irving got Curry on a switch and went one-on-one.
Unable to get around his counterpart, Irving settled for a 24-footer that swished through the net for Cleveland's first basket since the 4:51 mark.
"I'm just hoping it goes in," Irving said of just his second 3-pointer in five attempts in the game. "I was just thinking the next team that scores has a great chance at winning the championship, and I hope that we can be the team that's on that end."
Added Curry, "It was a tough step-back that he just stepped up and made. Doesn't matter how good or bad defense I played. He made the shot. So credit to him. It was not a good feeling turning around and seeing it go in."
James made the second of two free throws to make it a four-point game with 10.6 seconds remaining. And after Curry missed another 3, the West Coast portion of Cleveland's celebration began.
The hometown parade for Cleveland's first professional sports team champion in 52 years is scheduled for Wednesday.
"Just knowing what our city has been through, Northeast Ohio has been through, as far as our sports and everything for the last 50-plus years," James said. "For us to be able to end this, end this drought, our fans deserve it. They deserved it. And it was for them."
The victory made the Cavaliers' Lue just the second coach in NBA history to win a championship in his first season. The Warriors' Kerr had accomplished the feat last season.
J.R. Smith was a third Cavalier scoring in double figures with 12 points, while Love was a surprise contributor to the title-clinching victory, going for nine points and 14 rebounds.
Cleveland won despite shooting just 40.2 percent from the field and 6-for-25 (24.0 percent) from 3-point range.
Green had 32 points, 15 rebounds and nine assists to lead the Warriors, who were held to 38.6-percent shooting and missed 26 of their 41 3-point attempts.
"Draymond was brilliant. He had one of the best Game 7's that I've ever seen," Kerr said. "Draymond did everything he could."
Curry had 17 points and Thompson 14 for the Warriors, but they combined to shoot just 12-for-36 overall and 6-for-24 on 3's.
In a series where no previous game was decided by fewer than 10 points, neither team held a double-digit lead in the finale.
Up 76-75 entering the fourth period but down 83-80 five minutes into it, the Warriors got a 3-pointer from Curry and two-point hoops from Thompson and Green in a 7-0 burst that put them back on top by four, 87-83, with 5:36 left.
But James took advantage of having Warriors center Festus Ezeli switch onto him and countered immediately with three free throws and then a 3-pointer, giving Cleveland the upper hand at 89-87 with 4:51 to go.
The 3 was the Cavaliers last hoop before Irving's game-winner.
"I came back for a reason. I came back to bring a championship to our city," James said. "I knew what I was capable of doing. I knew I had the right ingredients and the right blueprint go help this franchise get back to a place that we've never been. That's what it was all about."
NOTES: The Browns had been the last professional sports team from Cleveland to win a major team championship in 1964. ... The road team won Game 7 of an NBA Finals for just the fourth time in 19 tries. ... Cavaliers PG Kyrie Irving outscored Warriors PG Stephen Curry, the league's regular-season scoring champ, 190-140 in the series. ... Curry set a Finals record with 32 3-point field goals. That also tied the record for most 3's made in any round of the playoffs, equalling the 32 he made in the Western Finals against Oklahoma City. ... The Warriors made a change in their starting lineup in the wake of their Game 6 loss without C Andrew Bogut (bruised knee). C Festus Ezeli started in place of F Andre Iguodala, who battled a bad back in Game 6.
