3. How gutting is it for things to go right and still come out with a loss?
From the 6:18 mark in the fourth quarter until the 3:00 mark, there were six lead changes. Ultimately though, the Warriors made just enough plays down the stretch.
By all accounts, the Cavs were playing a good game, other than for lapses in the third quarter and KD having a career night. Hood put up 15 points and grabbed six rebounds in his first meaningful minutes this Finals. James had his 10th career Finals triple-double. The Cavs once again won the rebounding battle, 47-37.
But in the end, the Warriors were the Warriors. They eventually found their groove from the floor after a rough start, and finished with a better field goal percentage (51.9) and 3-point percentage (34.6) than the Cavs. They had the right guys make plays at the right times. They got stops when they needed to on the defensive end, and took the Cavs out of their rhythm in the second half. Now, they are now one game away from their third championship in the last four years.
“The margin of error is very low,” James said. “You can’t– I mean, it’s almost like playing the Patriots, you can’t have mistakes. They’re not going to beat themselves. You know, so when you’re able to force a miscue on them, you have to be able to capitalize and you have to be so in tuned and razor sharp and focused every single possession. You can’t have miscommunication, you can’t have flaws, you can’t have “my faults” or “my bads” or things like that, because they’re going to make you pay. When they make you pay, it’s a 3-0 or 6-0 or 9-0 run, and it comes in bunches.
“It’s definitely a tough loss, and we had our chances. But we have another opportunity on Friday to win on our home floor. We’ve been pretty good throughout the postseason. So that’s a good thing for us that we have an opportunity to extend the series, but we’ve got to come out and play 48 minutes. We know this team that we’re going against are the best.”
Teams that have won the first three games in the NBA Finals are 13-0 all time. At this point, it’s the Cavs playing for pride. Game 4 tips off from The Q on Friday at 9 p.m. as the Cavs will try to avoid another sweep.
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