#360view: LeBron brilliance backbone to historic Cavaliers win

Jay Asser 08:29 20/06/2016
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  • Delight: LeBron James celebrates.

    What a tense, down-to-the-wire finish in a Game 7 that lived up to everything basketball fans were hoping for.

    LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers did the unthinkable by becoming the first team to overcome a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals, defeat the 73-win defending champion Golden State Warriors and bring home Cleveland’s first title in any sport for 52 years.

    When the buzzer sounded, James immediately burst into tears and poured out his emotions. This is why he returned home, to bring the championship to northeast Ohio and life up to the people of Cleveland who had suffered sporting heartbreak after heartbreak.

    You could feel the weight of the city on his shoulders throughout the series and when James collapsed to the floor after finally accomplishing his mission, you couldn’t help but feel he deserved to win.

    On the court, James didn’t deliver a third straight 41-point performance, but he was at his typical all-around best to record a triple double with 27 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists. After seeing Stephen Curry become the first regular season unanimous MVP in NBA history and come for his ‘best player in the game’ title, James claimed the hardware that matters most: his third Finals MVP to go with the Larry O’Brien trophy.

    It wasn’t just LeBron who outplayed Curry in the series though. Kyrie Irving was phenomenal and again gave James the help he needed by scoring 26 points, including what will go down as one of the biggest shots of all-time on his 3-pointer to put Cleveland ahead for good with less than a minute remaining. Irving went isolation against Curry and fired away a courageous step-back jumper that encapsulated what a tough-shot maker the Cavaliers point guard is.

    After that play, the Warriors had their chance as their MVP had the ball in his hands with a sub-par defender in Kevin Love switching onto him following a screen. Curry looked determined to get off a 3-pointer instead of going past Love to potentially cut the deficit to one.

    However, credit has to go to the Cleveland big man. After being criticised heavily all series and especially for his defence, Love stepped up when it mattered and made a key play.

    Golden State’s offence, which was so deadly throughout this season, went scoreless in the final 4:39 of the game and couldn’t get a bucket in the war of attrition. Game 7s are usually not the most aesthetically-pleasing contests and in the final stretch when nothing came easy, Cleveland just did slightly more.

    For the Warriors, it’s a disappointing finish to what could have been a storybook ending to cap arguably the greatest season in NBA history. The 73 wins will forever be in the history books, but they’ll ring hollow in many ways because the ultimate job wasn’t completed.

    Golden State somehow ended up losing as many games in the playoffs as they did in the regular season: nine. They had three opportunities to close the series out and repeat as champions, but fell inches short.

    Going into Game 7, the consensus was these 48 minutes would be some of the most important in NBA history. With everything that was at stake, the drama couldn’t have been higher and the season couldn’t have ended in a more compelling way.

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