IT is confirmed: Golden State took us for a ride.
While many believed Cleveland captured a legitimate win in Game Four, not me.
How can I believe the legitimacy of that 137-116 Cleveland victory last Saturday, when Kevin Durant was the lone fighter with a Warrior heart that night?
Ranged against a LeBron James-led crew out to “defend the land” from being buried to a shameful 4-0 loss in the National Basketball Association Finals, Golden State could never lean on Durant’s fourth straight 30-point game to win Game Four and recapture their 2015 crown.
Combining a token offense and a lame defense, the Warriors, supposedly the league’s best team of the season, left the poor Durant minding the store—to no avail.
In essence then, Golden State gifted Cleveland with a solitary, ego-saving victory—the gesture fittingly done on Cav territory.
They can ill-afford it, having zoomed to a 3-0 bulge in the best-of-seven NBA Finals.
Now, who said the world-famed Filipino hospitality happens only in the PBA (Philippine Basketball Association), where sister-teams acting kindly with each other in crucial matches is as common as combing one’s hair?
Look, how many did Steph Curry, GSW’s resident wrecker with his killer bombs from afar, score in Game Four in Cleveland?
Just 14 points; and, he played 37 minutes.
One step backward, two steps forward?
For, go to Game Five. Curry curled up for 34 points in 41 minutes.
Add that to Durant’s team-high 39 points in 40 minutes and the duo’s 73-point total proved too much to handle for the Cavs.
And while Draymond Green (10 points) and Klay Thompson only combined for 21 points, they were more than covered by Andre Iguodala.
The muscle-bound Iguodala, the Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) when the Warriors won in 2015, unloaded 20 points in 38 minutes, recording a sterling nine-of-14 shooting from the field.
In fairness, Cleveland had its moments of glory, posting a 37-33 first-quarter lead anchored on James’s typical hot start.
And once again, Kyrie Irving’s variety of skills had threatened the Warriors—almost consistently.
But when Durant and Curry finally decided to buckle down to business—they wanted to seal the deal on home soil, don’t you get it?—beginning with that 71-60 halftime bubble that was even stretched to a 17-point lead late in the fourth quarter, the Cavs were doomed.
Not even the 25-point explosion of JR Smith to more than make up for Kevin Love’s measly six-point effort could extricate the Cavs out of misery.
In winning, the Warriors scored a double celebration: Durant grabbing the MVP trophy—deservedly over Curry because he fought tooth-and-nail all the way—also made him an NBA champ for the first time in his rookie year with Golden State.
And, if only to reiterate, when the Warriors “lost” Game Four in Cleveland (Durant wasn’t party to that), Golden State was merely sending out a message: There’s no place like having a ball on home sweet home. They traded a first-ever 16-0 romp of the playoffs to one nearer to home:
As I said in another column, even as the Warriors’ defeat in Cleveland last weekend might be by design, still, it merely delayed their coronation.
For, indeed, how sweet it is to celebrate in front of your own people.
THAT’S IT Condolences to the loved ones of Carlos “Bobong” Velez who, not many know, was one of the chief architects in making the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA) what it is today—the No. 1 sports entertainment industry in the country. It was Bobong who convinced me to be a PBA radio analyst in 1987, a job I loved doing for almost two decades. Rest well, my friend.