NO one team in National Basketball Association playoff history has reached the championship round with an unblemished record of 12 consecutive victories, let alone both qualifiers to the Finals.
The Golden State Warriors, the 2015 NBA titlists, have an opportunity to enter the Finals at 12-0 if they defeat the injury-riddled San Antonio Spurs today, May 23 (Manila time, 9 a.m.), in Game 4 of the best-of-seven West finals at the AT&T Center for their third consecutive series sweep (4-4-4).
In contrast, the Cleveland Cavaliers, the reigning league champions who opened the postseason with 10 consecutive victories, blew their chance at perfection after dropping a stunning 111-108 home decision to a gritty Boston team that played without its injured meal ticket Isaiah Thomas in Game 3 of the East final series at the Quicken Loans Arena.
The Celtics’ miraculous win, which came on Avery Bradley’s up-and-down, trickling triple with 0.1 second left in the game clock that broke a 108-108 deadlock, sliced Cleveland’ series advantage to 2-1 with the fourth game still to be hosted by the Cavs on May 24 (MT, 8:30 a.m.).
Boston was trounced badly in the first two games of the series at home, losing 117-104 and 130-86 at the TD Garden.
In yesterday’s Game Three where all the odds were stacked against them, the Celtics’ gallant starting backcourt of Marcus Smart and Bradley combined for 47 points to offset the season-ending injury to 5-foot-9 meal ticket Isaiah Thomas, who led the Celts with 23.3 points and 6.7 assists in 15 postseason appearances but was declared out of the playoffs following a re-aggravation of a torn right hip in the first half of Game 2, a 44-point debacle in which Boston trailed, 72-31, at intermission for the largest halftime deficit in NBA playoff history.
Smart contributed 27 points, five rebounds and seven assists and made seven of his 10 attempts from beyond the arc and 8-of-14 from the field overall. Bradley, the game hero, had 20 scores and four dimes. In the frontline, forward Jae Crowder had a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds and center Al Horford got 16 points and half-a-dozen assists. Bruising forward Kelly Olynyk shamed the King LeBron James – at least for one game – with 15 points and even his fellow substitute, 6-foot-8 forward Jonas Jerebko out of Sweden, got into the act, tallying 10 points on 4-for-4 field shooting (including a pair of threes) and grabbing five boards off the unsuspecting eyes of LeBron.
A listless and fatigued James had a bad day in the office for the first time in 11 playoff appearances. Coming into the game, the do-everything star was shooting .569 from the field, including .458 from the three-point area. In this one, he was just 4-of-13 from the field (including 0-for-4 from the three-point area) and 3-of-6 from the charity stripes for a measly 11 points after registering eight straight playoff games with at least 30 points – the longest since a gangling center by the name of Lew Alcindor (now known as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) accomplished the feat with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1970.
The King, who won’t finish in the top three in this year’s NBA Most Valuable Player race for the first time since 2008 after the league announced just before Game 2 of the Cleveland-Boston series that Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook, Houston’s James Harden and San Antonio’s Kawhi Leonard were the three finalists in the derby for the Maurice Podoloff Trophy, grabbed six rebounds and dished out six assists in 45 minutes but also coughed up the rock six times.
Kyrie Irving topscored for the Cavs with 29 points along with seven assists, Kevin Love posted his third straight double-double with 28 points and 10 rebounds for the Wine and Gold, which also got a D-D from Olynyk’s Canadian compatriot Tristan Thompson, who chalked up 18 points and 13 reebies.
After enjoying a 77-56 lead midway through the third quarter, the Cavaliers looked complacent and eventually saw their NBA record-tying 13-game playoff winning streak (including the final three games in 2016 when Cleveland overcame a 3-1 Finals deficit against Golden State to snare its first-ever NBA crown) over two years come to a shocking halt with the Game 3 loss. (The Los Angeles Lakers previously won 13 straight playoff contests in 1988 – becoming the first NBA team to successfully defend its title with a 4-3 win over Detroit after trailing 3-2 in the Finals – and 1989 when they opened the playoffs with 11 consecutive victories but were swept, 4-0, by the Pistons in the Finals.)
Boston took Game Three but the series odds remain tilted in favor of Cleveland. LeBron’s teams (Cleveland, Miami and then Cleveland again since 2015), are 20-0 all time in playoff series in which they have owned a 2-0 lead.
Expect James, who’s averaging 32.2 points, 8.3 rebounds, 7.0 assists, 2.18 steals and 1.45 shot blocks a game in the playoffs, to bounce back mightily in Game 4.
Cleveland remains a heavy favorite to advance to the Finals against presumptive West champion Golden State for an unprecedented third straight year.
The Warriors, who registered the NBA’s best record during the regular wars at 67-15 to gain homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs, zoomed to a 3-0 lead over the injury-depleted San Antonio Spurs in the best-of-seven West final series to push their overall postseason ledger to 11-0.
No team in NBA annals has overcome a 0-3 hole to secure a best-of-seven duel. Worse, head coach Gregg Popovich’s gallant but outfought troops will head into the fourth contest without meal ticket Leonard (aggravated his left ankle sprain in the series opener), playmaker de luxe Tony Parker (out since the West semifinal series vs. Houston) and reserve frontline David Lee, the latest sick-bay victim who suffered a partially torn patellar tendon in his left knee in the opening quarter of the Warriors’ 120-108 Game 3 victory in San Antonio.
In the past, the Spurs often prioritized a player’s long-term health and willingly shut down an injured top-level player even if it would cost them potential playoff victories. In 2000, while trying to defend its NBA crown, Popovich kept all-time great Tim Duncan in the freezer during the entire first-round playoffs (where the Spurs lost, 3-1, to Phoenix) after the one-year-retired Hall of Fame-bound frontliner tore the lateral meniscus in his left knee and missed the final four games of the regulars.
The Spurs are not likely to risk the future of Leonard, their new cornerstone, by playing him in Game 4.
With the Cavaliers and Warriors potentially slugging it out in the championship round for the third year in a row, history again will be made as no two teams have ever faced each other in three straight Finals in the past.
And the grandest record to pull off in NBA playoff history: The first team ever to capture the title without tasting a single defeat in the postseason. The Lakers came closest at 15-1 in 2001.
Can the Warriors produce a perfect postseason? To do so, they will have to beat the Cavaliers four straight times in the Finals en route to the mountain top.
The mission looks impossible and the Cavaliers may yet end up frustrating the Warriors for the second consecutive year and successfully defending their crown.
Barring any major injuries to key players from both sides, my fearful Finals forecast: Cleveland over Golden State in six games.
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