CLEVELAND – It’s over.
That’s the state of the NBA Finals about now, after the Golden State Warriors restored order on Friday night with a determined 108-97 victory in Game 4 that all but assured that they will soon cap arguably the greatest season in league history with a repeat championship.
Sure, it’s not done yet.
But with the return of the Splash Brothers as we’ve known them – MVP Steph Curry exploded for 37 points and Klay Thompson scored 25 – and a trip home for Game 5 the Warriors did the next best thing to celebrating another crown at Quicken Loans Arena.
"We can't wait to get to Oracle on Monday. I've been fortunate to play there for five years and we really do have the best fans in the league," Thompson said. "They probably won't have ever seemed as excited before as when we get to Monday.
"But we've just got to stay in the moment though. We can't relax just because we're going home and we’ve got a two-game cushion. That team's hungry over there, and they've got some all-time great players. So, like I said before, it's no time to relax. Realize that it could be the end, so everyone give it their all and just trust each other and do it with nine, 10 guys like we do every night. If we do that, we'll be successful."
No team in NBA Finals history has ever come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a title.
No way that the Cavaliers, as gritty as they are, led by arguably the NBA’s best-around player in LeBron James, are going to become the first.
The Cavs had their chance. If only they could have had some sort of repeat performance of the 30-point knockout punch they landed on the Warriors in Game 3.
Yet it was clear from the onset that this was a different game on a different night.
Just look at Curry’s night. He finally played like the back-to-back MVP, with the “breakout” that had been missing as he averaged 15.5 points -- roughly half of his regular-season average – in the first three games of the series.
“The way that they were defending and have been for most of the series, they’re trying to take away our perimeter shot," Curry said. "We found it a little bit tonight, but like you said, early in the game there were driving lanes, and instead of settling, just tried to attack and be on the downhill as opposed to allowing them to get into us."
Another marker was Richard Jefferson, who brought so much energy as a fill-in starter on Wednesday. He was hardly the same guy as Cavs coach Tyronn Lue put him back in the starting lineup despite the return of Kevin Love from a concussion. Jefferson fouled out with three points and six rebounds.
Then there was the start of the game. Real big difference. Instead of jumping to a huge lead from the start, the Cavs found themselves playing catch-up early against a Warriors team that insisted since the gut-check on Wednesday night that it would be with more energy and aggressiveness.
Through it all, the Warriors hit the shots that wouldn’t fall in Game 3. Curry and Thompson were merely the most prolific in that sense. It was contagious. Harrison Barnes provided the early spark, matching Curry with eight points in the first quarter, when Golden State connected on 71.4% on its three-point attempts (5 of 7).
That same rhythm was evident much later, too, when the Warriors seized the momentum in a tight game early in the fourth quarter as Curry, Thompson and Andre Iguadola all hit big three-point shots.
Such was the vibe that resulted in the Cavaliers’ first loss at home during the playoffs.
It’s so Cleveland. The long-suffering fans were teased with the prospect that the Cavs could hold serve on their home court...and take control of the series.
Instead, it’s pretty evident that the drought – no Cleveland professional sports team has won a championship since the 1964 Browns – will continue.
And sometime soon in the Bay Area, there will be another parade.
