Wednesday night’s Game 3 victory at The Q was one the Wine and Gold absolutely had to have. And now they have to do it again on Friday.
After dropping the first two games of the NBA Finals in convincing fashion, the Cavaliers resoundingly turned the tables – dominating the Warriors from wire-to-wire, 120-90, to cut Golden State’s series lead to 2-1 with Game 4 set for Friday night in Cleveland.
Playing without starting forward Kevin Love – who was forced to miss the matchup after taking an elbow to the head in Game 2 and failed to clear the NBA’s concussion protocol on Wednesday afternoon – the Cavaliers were in high-gear from the opening tip and didn’t take their foot off the gas until Tyronn Lue emptied his bench late in the fourth quarter.
The Cavaliers team that dropped the previous two games by a combined 48 points was nowhere in sight on Wednesday – running out to a 19-4 lead and bumping their edge to 20 points before the end of one quarter.
With Love sidelined, the other two-thirds of the Big Three were outstanding – with LeBron James notching his second 30-point game of the season and Kyrie Irving tallying number four. Tristan Thompson had his best game of the postseason and J.R. Smith snapped out of a funk that spanned two Finals.
LeBron led everyone with 32 points – going 14-of-26 from the floor to go with 11 boards, six assists, two blocked shots and a steal. James was in attack mode from the moment he broke the pregame huddle, imploring his squad to follow his lead.
They did.
Irving was just as good – especially in the early-going, netting 16 of his 30 points in the first period, going 7-of-9 from the floor and 2-of-2 from long-range to help stake the Cavs to a big early lead. On the night, the three-time All-Star went 12-of-25 from the field, adding a game-high eight assists in the win.
Tristan Thompson brought big energy to Game 2 but was sidelined by early foul trouble and never got on track. The fifth-year big didn’t have that problem on Wednesday night – registering his second double-double of the postseason with 14 points and 13 boards, snagging seven of those off the offensive glass.
”We wanted to be physical,” said Thompson. “We wanted to press on them and make them feel us, tag them and let them know we’ll be on their body all night. And that’s what we did.”
No player on the Cavaliers had struggled more against the Warriors than J.R. Smith, who shot 33 percent from the floor and 29 percent from deep against the Warriors in the 2015 Finals and whose numbers were almost identical through two games this June.
But Swish bounced back in style in Game 3 – finishing with 20 points, four boards and a game-high three steals, going 5-for-10 from long-range and 7-of-13 from the floor overall.
With his five triples on Wednesday night, Smith broke his own Cavaliers record, having now canned 56 three-pointers in 17 postseason contests.
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