The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors opened their best-of-seven series in the 2017 NBA Finals. The match-up is a rubber-match kind of series as the two franchises have met in each of the last two NBA Finals, splitting the results into one series each. Golden State, as the better team from the regular season, hosted game one on Thursday night and they handed the Cavaliers a big loss.
Golden State 113, Cleveland 91
The Warriors remain undefeated in the playoffs, now perfect 13-0 following sweeps of all teams that came before them.
The result from game one on Thursday saw Golden State post a 22-point spread with a 113-91 victory. The top scorer in the game was Kevin Durant as he tallied better than a point per minute, scoring 38 overall in 37 minutes of play. He was also effective on the boards and in finding open teammates as he had eight rebounds and eight assists. Draymond Green led the Warriors in boards with 11 while Steph Curry had a double-double for points and assists with 28 and ten respectively.
For the Cavaliers, Lebron James had a huge game. With 28 points, 15 rebounds, and eight assists he reproved that he is the best player in the 2017 NBA Playoffs. However, he'll certainly be more than disappointed with the overall team showing.
Kevin Love also had a huge game with 15 points and a whopping 21 rebounds. Otherwise, the Cavs were quiet with Kyrie Irving's 24 points the only thing that jumps out in what is otherwise a flat stat sheet for the Cavs.
Smith and Thompson no-showed
JR Smith and Tristan Thompson, in particular, were ineffective despite logging big minutes.
Thompson played 22 minutes in total and had no points in the game. Smith logged 28 minutes and had no rebounds, no assists, and just three points. The two players went a combined 1 for seven on field-goal attempts while only Richard Jefferson was effective for the Cavaliers off of the bench.
The results see Cleveland down 1-0 in the series but with a chance to earn a split from Oakland with the result from game two.
That game will be played on Sunday at 8 pm ET. Last year the Cavaliers were able to come back from a 1-3 deficit in the NBA Finals.
However, they'll be in very tough this year if they fall behind by a two-game margin. That makes game two a very important one for Cleveland to win. At bottom, at some point in the series, they will have to beat Golden State in a game from Oakland. With games to come from Cleveland next week, the Cavs would be in much better shape at 1-1 than 0-2.
However, they'll be in very tough this year if they fall behind by a two-game margin. That makes game two a very important one for Cleveland to win. At bottom, at some point in the series, they will have to beat Golden State in a game from Oakland. With games to come from Cleveland next week, the Cavs would be in much better shape at 1-1 than 0-2.
