Can LeBron rally Cavs?

THE Golden State Warriors go for the first of three opportunities to retain their National Basketball Association (NBA) crown when they take on the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday, June 14 (Manila time, 9 a.m.), in Game Five of the 2016 Finals at the boisterous Oracle Arena with a commanding 3-1 lead.
The Warriors, who dropped Game Three (120-90) in Cleveland after blowout victories at home in the first two games of the best-of-seven series, grabbed Game Four with a 108-97 win yesterday to pin the Cavaliers with their first defeat in nine home games at the Quicken Loans Arena in these playoffs.
It was the Dubs’ 88th win (against 15 defeats) of the season, the most by any team in NBA annals. The 1995-96 Chicago Bulls of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen posted 87 victories (against 13 losses).
Should the Cavs upset the odds with a Game Five success, the sixth game would be held on June 17 (Manila time, 9 a.m.). A seventh game, if necessary, will be played on June 20 (Manila time, 8 a.m.).
It will take a herculean effort for the Cavs to turn things around as no team in NBA Finals
Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson finally got going offensively as both reached the 20-point plateau for the first time in the series with 38 and 25 points, respectively, in the fourth game.
Curry and Thompson had normed just 16 and 12 points, respectively, after three games.
Kyrie Irving collected his second 30 points-or-more game with 34 for Cleveland and LeBron James again registered a near triple-double (25 points, 13 rebounds and nine assists) but it did not matter.
The end is near. Even Frank Sinatra would have known it if the legendary crooner were only alive today.
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The silhouette of legendary Los Angeles Lakers great Jerry West, who’s now an executive consultant with the reigning titlist Golden State Warriors, appears on the National Basketball Association logo.
The prolific 6-foot-2 combo guard, though, won just one NBA championship in an illustrious pro career from 1960-61 through 1973-74, and only registered a
1-8 record during the NBA Finals.
West’s Lakers lost six consecutive NBA Finals series to their arch nemesis Boston Celtics in 1962, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969. It came at a time when Bill Russell was dominating the league and his Celtics were putting together a dynastic rule, having snared a league record-setting eight straight crowns from 1959 to 1966 and netting two more with Russell as their playing coach in 1968 and 1969.
The Finals record for West fell to 0-7 with a Game Seven defeat to limping center Willis Reed and the New York Knicks in 1970. West and the Lakers finally broke through in 1972 with a 4-1 decision over the Knicks for their first NBA diadem since the franchise moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles in 1960-61 following a 4-1 decision.
A year later (in 1973), the Lakers again owned the homecourt advantage in the Finals but New York exacted revenged with an identical 4-1 victory in the rematch.
The 1969 NBA Finals was a devastating loss to the Lakers and painful for West in particular. The Lakers, with the homecourt advantage, took a 2-0 lead at the Fabulous Forum. The Celtics came roaring back with a pair of successes at the old Boston Garden – including an 89-88 win in Game Four on guard Sam Jones’ buzzer-beating off-balanced jumper – to deadlock the best-of-seven series at 2-2.
LA momentarily seized a 3-2 lead with a 117-104 victory at home but Boston again equalized at 3-all with a 99-90 decision in the sixth game.
Colorful balloons hung in the rafters of the Forum for the deciding Game Seven but they never came down as the Celtics, behind reserve frontliner Don Nelson’s up-and-down jump shot from the 15-foot line in the final seconds of the 48-minute thriller swooshed the nets to propel the Green to a 108-106 win and gift Russell with his record-setting 11th and final ring.
In the seven-game 1969 Finals, West averaged 37.9 points a game, collecting 53 points in the series-opening 120-118 win and 41 in a 118-112 Game Two. In the finale, a limping West, who tallied 39 points but sustained a pulled hamstring in a 117-104 LA win in the fifth game, registered a triple-double with 42 points, 13 rebounds and 12 assists in a losing cause.
West romped away with the 1969 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player honors in the year the league introduced the award based on media balloting.
Until now, West, who hung up his jersey in the summer of 1974, is the only player from a losing finalist to secure the Bill Russell hardware that goes to the Finals MVP.
West’s Finals failures never diminished his lofty stature in NBA history and he subsequently was voted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1980.
Maybe, that’s why West can relate very well to Cleveland star LeBron James’ own disappointing 2-4 Finals record when LeBron’s critics began to question his place on all-time greatness charts.
LeBron is currently seeing action in his sixth consecutive Finals stint – a rematch with the Golden State Warriors – and seventh overall since joining the majors out of high school in 2003 in his first tour of duty with the Wine City unit.
LeBron is the eighth player in NBA history to reach the Finals in six straight seasons – the first player in 50 years to accomplish the feat and the first non-Boston Celtic to turn in the trick. (James’ teammate James Jones for the last six seasons is the ninth player.)
In the summer of 2010, James had declared on national television his circus-like, heavily-criticized “The Decision” to leave Cleveland and relocate to South Beach with the Miami Heat. In four seasons (2010-14) with the Heat, the 6-foot-8 Ohio-born forward made the Finals each time and collected a pair of rings in 2012 and 2013.
Then came his homecoming with Cleveland in the summer of 2014 following a reconciliation with Cavs owner Dan Gilbert after the latter had verbally assaulted “The King” when he left for Miami via free agency six years ago.
A year ago, James powered the Cavaliers to the franchise’s second Finals appearance – the first came in 2007 in a 4-0 shellacking from San Antonio – but the team dropped to 0-2 in a championship round with a six-game loss to the Warriors.
Now, Cleveland is back in the Finals for the second year in a row and the third time in franchise history.
And James looks to fulfill his mission to reward the city with its first title in any of the four U.S. professional team sports leagues (major-league baseball, National Football League, National Hockey League and NBA) since athlete-turned-actor Jim Brown powered the Browns to the NFL crown in 1964.
Can LeBron do it? His Cavaliers are down, 3-1, in the ongoing best-of-seven NBA Finals against Golden State.