The Golden State Warriors have won the NBA championship.
With a 105-97 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena on Tuesday, the Warriors closed out a 4-2 NBA Finals victory, earning their first championship since 1975.
The league's best team throughout the regular season, the Warriors finishing 2014-15 with an 83-20 record puts them in the upper echelon of teams throughout the history of the league. Armed with the MVP in Steph Curry, a fun, exciting, and difficult-to-stop offensive attack, and a smothering, disciplined, amorphous defense, they've seemed both the unstoppable force and the immovable object for months.
They had some breaks, as most championship teams require. Their path to the finals was easier than it could have been with different playoff seeding or better injury luck for opponents, and they played the finals with 15 relatively healthy bodies, a minor miracle. That should not confuse what was a thoroughly impressive, unrelenting, season-long performance from a team that truly exemplifies that word: team.
Highest Net Pt Differential in NBA History (incl. playoffs)
1971 MIL: +1208
1996 CHI: +1194
1972 LAL: +1055
2015 GSW: +992
1992 CHI: +992
— Basketball Reference (@bball_ref) June 17, 2015
The Cavaliers, meanwhile, were down to LeBron James and spare parts after injuries to Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, and the relative ineffectiveness of almost everyone else on the roster.
James turned in one of the most unbelievable finals performances of any player ever. His magnificence and his will would be impossible to overstate, and his playoff resume - now with a 2-4 record in the finals - continues to grow more spectacular by the season. His workload was unfathomable, his effort implacable.
He went down as he played the entire series, trying to put his team on his back. He scored 32 points with 18 rebounds and nine assists, pushing his averages for the series to 35.8, 13.3, and 8.8, respectively. The effort was herculean, a one-man Goliath made into a David against a team full of Davids who became Goliath through synergy.
This is an NBA Finals that won't soon be forgotten. Five games were incredible, it included one of the best individual performances in playoff history, and it ended with one of the best teams in recent memory hoisting the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.
Turning Point
With 10:15 to play, trailing 75-66 following a pair of Timofey Mozgov free throws, James unleashed his extra gear. He poked a bad pass free from Draymond Green and hit the jets, out-sprinting the Warriors the length of the floor for an emphatic jam.
That capped a 7-0 run for Cleveland, one that cut the lead to seven and forced a Warriors timeout. Unlikely as a 14-point comeback seemed with this offense, against this defense, the Cavs had cut their task in half in two minutes. Here, on the precipice of elimination with the season in the balance, James seemed poised to succeed as Sisyphus once more, pushing an enormous load up an impossible hill.
Well, hopefully James is the type to imagine Sisyphus smiling, because Curry put an end to the momentum in a hurry, hitting what felt like a back-breaking triple out of the timeout.
Even then, James refused to quit, and his "grit squad" took on his demeanor to help cut the lead down from 13 to four from the 1:50 mark to the 33-second mark. Alas, the task proved too great, the Warriors hit enough free throws to keep at arm's length, and the Cavs ran out of gas.
Star Performer
With apologies to Green's unexpected triple-double, a terrific performance from Andre Iguodala (25 points, five rebounds, five assists), and another inspiring outing from James, the MVP deserves some love for icing the championship, finishing his quest to vanquish each of his All-NBA First Team compatriots.
Curry finished Game 6 with 25 points on 8-of-19 shooting, helping close the game with dagger threes and clutch free throws. He added six rebounds, eight assists, and three steals, and saved 13 of his points for the fourth quarter.
At times, it didn't seem he was as dominant throughout the series as he has forced us to expect, but he averaged 26 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 6.3 assists, shooting 44.3 percent overall and 38.5 percent on threes. The Patron Saint of Underdogs has made it to the top, even if his own daughter won't show him any love.
Iguodala took home NBA Finals MVP honors, an incredibly well-deserved award given his late-series offensive contributions and the masterful job he did with the unenviable task of containing James.
Highlight Reel
As has been the case all series, Game 6 was flush with highlights. Here's a quick rundown:
- With three early shot-clock turnovers, James and the Cavs finally realized they should at least put something up at the buzzer, to great success in this case.
- Their defense didn't exactly figure things out as quickly, making things far too easy for the Warriors in the first quarter.
- Then again, what can you even do when Curry hits shots like this? Or this?
- Or when there's no wifing in the club, Andre Iguodala?
- The Cavs defense eventually slowed the Warriors down, thanks in large part to Timofey Mozgov's solo-hosted block party.
- And the offense, while plodding, was aided a great deal from some emphatic work on the offensive glass.
- Unsurprisingly, James would not go quietly into that sweet night.
But it wasn't all pretty, with Iman Shumpert made sure of.
J.R. Smith wasn't exactly engaged, either, with the New York Knicks imports standing as swing players the entire series, in the worst way. All those bananas, though.
And as good as Tristan Thompson was for stretches, well, it's hard not to feel for James after this series.
Series at a Glance
Game 1: Warriors 108, Cavaliers 100 (OT) (Warriors lead series 1-0)
Game 2: Cavaliers 95, Warriors 93 (OT) (Series tied 1-1)
Game 3: Cavaliers 96, Warriors 91 (Cavaliers lead series 2-1)
Game 4: Warriors 103, Cavaliers 82 (Series tied 2-2)
Game 5: Warriors 104, Cavaliers 91 (Warriors lead 3-2)
Game 6: Warriors 105, Cavaliers 97 (Warriors win series 4-2)
