What if Cavaliers and Warriors meet again in the final ?
Yesterday Night (MLK Day) Golden State Warriors were able to beat reigning NBA Champions Cleveland Cavaliers by 126–91. At the end of half of this season Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors were at the top of each of their conferences. Most of the sports journalists and fans think these two teams will meet in the 2016–2017 NBA finals for the 3rd consecutive time. If this happens in 2017 June it will be the most consecutive final appearance for both respective teams and 1st time ever the same opponent to meet in finals for this many number of time. This is something which has never happened in the history of NBA.
Last year Cleveland Cavaliers beat Golden state Warriors in the Game 7 of NBA Finals. Year Before that Golden State Warriors beat Cleveland Cavaliers by 4–2 games. So if they ever reach the Finals for the 3rd Consecutive time this will be a great match up between these two teams.
Last off Season Golden State Warriors sign former MVP Kevin Durant (KD) and trade some of their good players like H. Barnes, Andrew Bought and etc. Last week Cavs Sign Sharpe Shooter Kyle Kover from the Atlanta Hawks who are the 4th seed in Eastern Conference right now.
These signs will clearly impact to both the teams. At the moment KD having one of the best season of his whole career with 25.8 ppg (Points per Game), 8.6 rpg (Rebounds per Game) and 1.7 bpg (Blocks per Game) while Kyle Korver has 8.3 ppg, 2.7 rpg and 0.6 apg in Just 4 games with Cavs. Most probably these Scoring numbers will increase at the end of the Regular season because Kover is a one of the Best catch and shoot player ever to play this game. As well as Cavs are the 2nd Team with Height 3PG attempts and 3rd Team Highest made 3PG%.
Compering last 10 match up of these team both have 5 wins each. If we narrow it down to Last 5, Cavs Has a clear advantage with 4 consecutive wins over GSW. These 10 Games includes Last night Game, 2016 Christmas Day Game, 7 Games of 2015–16 NBA Finals and Last Year MLK day Game.
Cavaliers leads by 4x MVP LeBron James (LBJ) who won the last year finals MVP. GSW leads by 2x reigning MVP Stephen Curry. LeBron Has 275 Points in last 10 games against GSW with 27.5 ppg including two 40+ point games. Stephen Curry has 244 points at the same situation against Cavs while averaging 24.4 ppg. In Last 5 Games LBJ has 160 points with 32 ppg while Curry was only able to Score 108 points with 20.8 ppg. Former Rookie of the Year Kyrie Irving has 244 points in last 10 games against GSW with 24.4ppg. As well 104 points in last 5 games with 20.8 ppg. But sign in of the KD gave some Energy to the Warriors offense from the day 01 but defensive impact of KD seems to be increasing from the last two months. Defensive impact of the Draymond green is helping them to average 9.1 spg as a team (1st in the NBA). On the other hand Cavs are struggling with their Defense from last week. Due to that Cavs were Lost 3 games of their last 4 because of that including last night loss.
The other point is People talking about the head to head match up between LeBron James and Kevin Durant might happen in this year’s final. In 2012 NBA Finals Miami Heat beat Oklahoma City Thunders by 4 games to 1. LeBron James won finals MVP. If we look back at the last 4 head to head matchups of these players. LeBron James has won 3 games out of last 4 match up against Kevin Durant. Only game KD won was last night game. Kevin Durant was able to Score 107 points with 26.7ppg. While LeBron James has 110 points with 25 ppg. (These 4 games incudes 2016 Christmas game, 2017 MLK day game, and 2 Games of last season when KD was with OKC)
Warriors has shown some improvement since their loss against Grizzlies. They are 8–0 when their star players Stephen Curry, Klay Thomson and Kevin Durant gets 20+ points at the same time. They are 17–0 when Drymaod green gets a triple double. On the other hand Hopefully Kevin Love will be back with the Cavs in Next Game and Starting SG JR Smith back with the side after fracture of hand. It’s interesting to see how they are going to manage playing time with their three Shooting Guards JR, Korver and Iman Shumpert, and as LeBron Said Cavs are looking for a backup Point guard. They are looking for Rondo or Mario Chalmers to join them. So if these two teams ever get a chance to play against each other in the finals no doubt it will be a record breaking epic series.