SURVIVAL for Cleveland Cavaliers. The crown chase itself for Golden State.
That is the scenario in tomorrow’s Game Three of the National Basketball Association Finals.
A win for the Cavs will merely allow them to live another day.
Down 0-2, Cleveland cannot afford to lose or its one foot would practically be on the grave already.
For a team to be in a 0-3 hole is a virtual death sentence. No squad has ever climbed out of that pit in NBA history.
On that note, the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) is a bit better—if only in an oblique way.
San Miguel Beer has made history when it battled back from 0-3 to defeat Alaska by 4-3 in a PBA conference only a while back.
The Warriors would be virtual champs with another win tomorrow.
Thus, don’t be surprised if they’d try their utmost to xerox their back-to-back flawless performances in Games One and Two when they won by 22 and 19 points, respectively.
Emerging the biggest hero two games in a row—a rarity, indeed—is Kevin Durant, the 6-foot-9 scoring machine plucked out for the season from Oklahoma City.
After unloading 38 game-high points in his Finals debut with Golden State that sparked a 113-91 rout of Cleveland, Durant proved that his Game 1 brilliance was no fluke.
He unleashed 33 points in leading Golden State anew to a 132-113 massacre of Cleveland, aside from grabbing 13 boards, and recording five blocks, six assists and three steals.
More than complementing Durant’s show of magnificence was Stephen Curry, the resident wrecker of every Warrior enemy.
Curry, almost unstoppable as ever with his booming threes, recorded a rare triple double with 32 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds.
The duo’s destructive combination—not to mention Klay Thompson’s sudden surge of 22 points from a mere 6-point effort in Game One—gave Golden State a record 207th victory, the most by any NBA team in a three-year span. That mark was anchored on the Warriors’ unprecedented 73-win finish in the 2016 season.
Thus, with Curry and Thompson already the perennial headaches for Cleveland for the longest time, Durant added himself to the mix—relentlessly wreaking havoc on Cleveland’s title-retention dreams.
James had even looked pathetic in Game 2 as he couldn’t contain Durant two straight games, rendering to waste his second straight triple double of 29 points. 14 assists and 11 rebounds to go with 3 steals.
Still, I will watch with the same zeal tomorrow’s Game 3, if only to witness either a Cleveland reprieve or a third straight Golden State win to all but seal the deal.
I swear my interest in the series will be greatly diminished if the Warriors make it 3-0.
The French Open beckons, anyways.
THAT’S IT After Monday’s Game 2, LeBron James has tied Magic Johnson in the NBA record of the most number of triple doubles recorded in the playoffs with eight apiece…. Should Golden State proceed to reclaim its 2015 NBA title, the Finals MVP would be a toss-up between Durant and Curry. In my tally sheet, Durant is ahead, albeit slightly…. Did you know that Foton volleyball coach Moro Branislav and tennis great Novak Djokovic are neighbors in Serbia?