The moment you have all been waiting for. The rematch of the 2015 NBA Finals. The 57-25 Cleveland Cavaliers will try to avenge their loss from last season as they meet the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the grand finale of the 2015-2016 season.
After uncertainty arose during the Conference Finals, the basketball Gods have delivered. The best regular season team in NBA history fell down three games to one to the Oklahoma City Thunder and became just the tenth team to come back and win the series under those circumstances. The Warriors now have a chance to truly prove themselves and begin to etch their names in as one of the greatest teams of all time.
The Cavaliers will once again attempt to bring Cleveland its first championship since 1964 and their first ever NBA championship. It is the Cavs' third appearance to the NBA Finals in team history. It is also the second straight year in which the Cavs have represented the Eastern Conference in The Finals under a rookie head coach. Unlike the Warriors, who were steady for the majority of the season, the Cavaliers decided to fire David Blatt halfway into the season. They hired Tyronn Lue - an assistant under Blatt - who not only preserved the Cavs' top spot in the conference, but proceeded to win his first 10 playoff games as a head coach - a new NBA record. Lue got a ring with the 2001 Los Angeles Lakers, who lost just one game in the entire postseason.
The Cavaliers, led by a divided effort that was lacking in the 2015 postseason, appear revamped and hungry for redemption. LeBron James leads the team with averages of 24.6 points, seven assists, and 2.2 steals in the playoffs. But Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, both of whom were injured for last year's Finals, have been near-equal factors. Irving is scoring 24.3 points-per-game in the postseason, while Love leads the rebounding charge (9.6 per-game).
The addition of Channing Frye has proved to be a beneficial addition. Frye leads the team with a 57.8 three-point shooting percentage in the playoffs. The emergence of J.R. Smith has been an underrated factor throughout the season. Smith averaged 12.4 points-per-game on 40 percent shooting from long distance during the regular season. He has continued that success in the playoffs, leading the Cavs in three-point attempts-per-game while making 46.2 percent.
As for those 73-9 Warriors, they have lived and died by the Splash Brothers. Stephen Curry led the NBA with 30.1 points-per-game during the regular season. He also led the league in steals on his way to becoming the first ever unanimous NBA MVP. In the playoffs, the commander has been Klay Thompson, averaging 26.2 points-per-game this postseason. He has made 45 percent of his three-pointers and put the Warriors on his shoulders at times in the Western Conference Finals. His 11 three-pointers made in Game 6 is a new NBA record.
Keys to the Series
The X-Factors in this series lie down low. Draymond Green was a piston driving the Warriors' engine in the Conference Finals. The Warriors lost all the three games in which Green was held to single digits during these playoffs and he had nearly as many turnovers as he had points in those games. Green will be relied upon to guard Love, which will be a great matchup. Both forwards can spread the floor and allow their teams to go small at any time. Green's defense will be crucial and, if he can score and spread the floor on offense, the Warriors are almost impossible to beat.
We saw in the Conference Finals how the Thunder were able to match the Warriors' three-point shooting at times. The Cavs are an even stronger three-point shooting team and lead all playoff teams with a 43.4 shooting percentage from long range. But the biggest key for them will be rebounding and defense. They rank second in the postseason with a plus-5.9 rebounding differential. Tristan Thompson will need to be as big a presence in the post as he was in last year's Finals. As the saying goes; defense wins championships. Should the Cavaliers win their first NBA title, that will justifiably be the reason.
The NBA presents: David and Goliath, NBA Finals edition. LeBron vs Steph, round two. The outcome will either involve the undersized David celebrating a closed book on the best season in history or it will be a giant upset achieved by putting an asterisk in the history books. Only time will tell.