THE defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors routed the Oklahoma City Thunder, 118-91, to even their Western Conference final series at 1-1.
Back-to-back league MVP Stephen Curry topscored for the Warriors with 28 points, including 15 consecutive during one stretch in the third quarter, and Splash Brothers mate Klay Thompson added 15 points.
OKC was bannered by Kevin Durant’s 29 points (26 of them in the first half) and Russell Westbrook’s 16 markers and 12 assists. For the first time in their five head-to-head duels this season, including a 3-0 sweep of the Thunder during the regulars, the Dubs outrebounded OKC, 45-36.
The West final series shifts to Oklahoma City for Games Three (May 23, PH time) and Four (May 25).
Meanwhile, the Cleveland Cavaliers remain unblemished in this year’s playoffs with a 9-0 start following a 115-84 shellacking of the mismatched Toronto Raptors in Game One of the best-of-seven Eastern final series at the Quicken Loans Arena.
The Cavs’ Big Three of Kyrie Irving (27 points, 5 assists), LeBron James (24 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists) and Kevin Love (14 points, 4 rebounds) again led the way.
DeMar DeRozan topscored for Toronto with 18 points but the Raps’ other All-Star, guard Kyle Lowry, who scored 36 and 35 points, respectively, in the final two games of his team’s 4-3 second-round series win over Miami, struggled with eight scores on 4-for-14 field shooting.
Game Two of the East finals will be held today, also on the Cavs’ home floor.
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Although they annexed the 1999 championship in a lockout-shortened NBA regular season (50 games instead of the traditional 82), the San Antonio Spurs also were able to accomplish something that year for hoop fans to remember them by.
The 1999 Spurs, bannered by the Twin Towers combination of Tim Duncan (Finals MVP as a sophomore pro) and David Robinson and valuable substitute guard Steve Kerr (now the Golden State Warriors’ second-year NBA head coach) set an all-time NBA record for most consecutive victories in a single playoff season.
San Antonio won 12 straight postseason games en route to the NBA title that year.
The Spurs captured the last two games of a 3-1 decision over the Minnesota Timberwolves in the best-of-five first round. The Alamo City squad subsequently registered 4-0 sweeps of the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers to snare the Western Conference diadem and arrange a titular showdown with the New York Knicks.
In the 1999 NBA Finals, Spurs bench boss Gregg Popovich jumped to a 2-0 advantage before finishing off the Knicks in five games to romp away with the first of their five Larry O’Brien (championship) hardware so far.
There were two cases of 11-game winning streaks in NBA playoff history. Both were registered by the LA Lakers albeit with different results in the Finals.
The 2001 Lakers took care of the first three rounds of the playoffs that year for an 11-0 start. Then they dropped the Finals opener against the Philadelphia 76ers at the Staples Center before winning four straight over the 76ers for the NBA crown.
The Lakers’ 1989 edition, featuring Earvin (Magic) Johnson, then-set-to-retire Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy, Byron Scott (the team’s head coach from 2014 to 2016) and A.C. Green (now a pastor), came into the playoffs seeking a third consecutive NBA championship.
Coach Pat Riley’s troops steamrolled to series sweeps against the Portland Trail Blazers (3-0, best-of-five), Seattle SuperSonics (4-0, the predecessors of the Oklahoma City Thunder) and Phoenix Suns (4-0) in the first three rounds.
However, the roof caved in for the Lakers in the best-of-seven NBA Finals against the Detroit Pistons.
The “Bad Boys” from Motor City, who were powered by the potent backcourt tandem of cat-quick Isiah Thomas and Finals MVP Joe Dumars, roughhousing center Bill Laimbeer and hard-driving forwards Mark Aguirre and Dennis Rodman, swept the Lakers in a minimum four games.
Player injuries are no excuses but the Lakers were decimated by the loss of their starting backcourt pair of Scott and Johnson. Scott went down with a season-ending injury before the series opener and Magic joined him on the sidelines after Game One also due to an injury.
San Antonio won its first 10 playoff assignments in 2012 and set an NBA record for the longest winning streak bridging the regular season and the playoffs with 20 straight victories, having been triumphant in its final 10 games to end the regular wars.
That year’s Spurs, though, lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 4-2, in the West finals following a 2-0 lead. The Miami Heat, led by their Big Three of LeBron James (now back to his original NBA employer Cleveland), Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, defeated the Thunder (powered by Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and now-Houston Rocket James Harden), 4-1, despite homecourt advantage and a 1-0 lead by OKC.