Warriors are Champions!!

The Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 105-97 in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, and take the series 4-2, and are 2015 NBA Champions. It's the first championship in 40 years for the Bay Area basketball team. It's quite an end to Stephen Curry's MVP season and add a ring to his soon to be crowded mantle.

The Warriors were lead by Finals MVP, Andre Iguodala, who tied for the team lead in scoring with 25 points to go with 5 boards and assists. Curry also had 25 points, 6 rebounds and 8 assists. Draymond Green goes into the record books as one of only a few players in history to have a triple double in a closeout game, 16 points, 11 rebounds & 10 assists. 

Cleveland put up a decent fight but never really got the game close enough to scare the Warriors, who put up a run of threes to break the Cavs back every time they thought they had a chance to close the gap. LeBron James had 32 points, 18 rebounds and 9 assists in the losing effort. He got more contributions from his teammates but it wasn't enough. Timofey Mosgov added 17 points and 12 rebounds, J.R. Smith had 19 points with 5 rebounds and Tristan Thompson grabbed 13 rebounds and had 15 points.

Steve Kerr's adjust to start Iguodala over Andrew Bogut was the turning point of the Finals and shows how tactful Kerr was with his decision always seemingly to out coached David Platt at every turn. Now the focus turns to, can the Warriors repeat. I guess we will have to wait until next year. Once again, this was an amazing NBA playoffs with many exciting games and shots. can't wait til next year.

Game 6 Recap

Can the Warriors Finish off LeBron?!

photo via espn.com

Tonight all eyes are back in Cleveland to see if Lebron James' unbelievable run in the Finals can continue. He is averaging 36.6 points, 12.4 rebounds and 8.8 assists a game. Doing everything he can to bring a title to his hometown of Cleveland, we all are expecting him to do everything he can to force a game 7 in Oakland.

Now on the other side of the ball the Warriors are tying to do everything they can to win tonight and give Golden State its first title since 1978. Stephen Curry finally had a breakout performance in Game 5 with 37 huge points which helped offset Lebron's 40 point game. If the Warriors managed to pull off the win, many believe his performance in Game 5 may have sealed his chance to win Finals MVP. 

I'm looking for another close battle and maybe even overtime. The stars will shine tonight, I'm going out on a limb and saying James will score 50+ points tonight and Curry will have over 35. James will have a few less assists tonight because he is going to want the ball in his hands tonight after seeing some of his teammates struggling to hit shots. I guess what we all hope for is another classic game and maybe even a Game 7, we will see tonight.

Coverage begins at 8et on ABC

Preview of Game 6

Game 4 goes to Golden State

photo via espn.com

After many questions were raised about the way the Warriors were playing Lebron James, coach Steve Kerr made some adjustments. It began with his starting lineup, he decided to go smaller by replacing Andrew Bogut with Andre Igudala, who had a monster game with 22 points and 8 rebounds. He was the primary defender on LeBron, 20 points, 12 rebounds and 8 assists. He held his own with the assistance of lots of double teams, which was another Kerr adjustment. Timofey Mosgov had a career high 28 points with 10 boards, Tristen Thompson chipped in 12 points and 13 rebounds. In the previous 3 games they only double teamed James 15 times on the 270+ touches. It worked, James was "held" 20 points, 12 boards, and 8 assists. 

photo via espn.com

Kerr adjustments were pretty telling. Only playing Bogut for 3 mins, but he got his money's worth in those 3 minutes, with 3 fouls and had a hard foul on James, which lead the whole city of Cleveland to collectively held their breathe for a few minutes after he launched himself into a courtside camera. The resulting damaged was quite a gash, that was eventually glued, on the side of his head. Another key adjustment of Kerr's was just playing 7 guys in this game, minus the subs during garbage time. The key player I thought was David Lee who brings even more offense to a talented Warrior team. He's not the best defender but he held his own. Stephen Curry had a decent game with 22 points and 6 assists, Draymond Green added 17 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists.

It now becomes a 3 game series with games 5 & 7 in Oakland. I think everyone has been entertained with this matchup, since this is one of the most watched finals ever, with crazy rating numbers for all the games up to this point. 

Game 4 Highlights

Game 5 is Sunday night at 7pm on ABC.

Upcoming Game 4's

Courtesy of NHL.com

NHL: Lightning up 2-1

Tonight the Blackhawks attempt to tie up the series at 2. After a stadium deflating loss in Game 3 in the closing minutes, you would expect the stars of Chicago to finally shine and score. So far zero goals from Kane, Toews and Sharp. An injury to Johnny Oduya could mean even more ice time for Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook and Niklas Hjalmarsson. Coach Quinnville has said that Oduya will play Game 4, but we shall see how productive he is on the ice. Speaking of Coach Q, his Blackhawks teams in the playoffs, in Games 4-7 are a remarkable 40-14. Look for the Hawks to jump out to an early lead to keep the Madhouse on Madison rocking all night.

Courtesy of NBA.com

Cavaliers up 2-1

If you are a fan of basketball and yet haven't watched any of the NBA Finals, you are missing out on one of the greatest Finals performances ever. LeBron James has imposed his will and has lead his injury-riddled team, with its band of no-names (pre-playoffs), to two games away from his 3rd Championship. In the Finals he is averaging 41 points, 12 rebounds, & 8.3 assists. He has nearly wrapped up the MVP of the Finals, now just needs to get a couple more wins. 

On the other side, what can the Warriors do to help get more open looks or paths to the basket for Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. Neither has looked comfortable until its usually too late.

NHL: Game 4 in Chicago, Wednesday night @7pm

NBA: Game 4 in Cleveland, Thursday @ 8pm 

LeBron wills a Win

Photo via ESPN.com

It was another legacy making night for LeBron James. He racked up another triple-double for his postseason career, as well as getting the 95-93 OT win over the Golden State Warriors. The series is now knotted up at 1-1 and headed to Cleveland, where we are all sure the fans will be rocking the Quicken Loans Arena. 

James had a game high 39 points, to go with 16 rebounds, 11 assists, 1 steal and 1 block. Overall, just an unbelievable artsy of basketball. LeBron has dominated both games and inflicts is will on the Golden State defense and keeps taking what they give him and trying to create the rest with his remaining healthy teammates. The only other players for the Cavs to reach double digits were Timofey Mosgov with 17 points and 11 boards, and J.R. Smith who chipped in 13 points. As most people are saying, if James can carry this team of nobodies to the promised land, it could easily be one of the greatest playoff performances ever!

Photo via ESPN.com

The Warriors live and die by the jump shot. Many could be claiming that Stephen Curry is choking here in the finals, going 5-for-23 in Game 2 with only 19 points to go with 6 rebounds and 5 assists. My gut says he will have much better games on the road without feeling the pressure from his home crowd. On the flip side of that Klay Thompson lead the Warriors with 34 points on 14-for-28 shooting. This team will not go down without a fight, that's for sure. Just look at what Draymond Green did yesterday, 10 points, 10 rebounds, 2 assists, 5 steals, and 4 blocks. He is without questions an defensive star.Luckily for all of us, with both games going to overtime, my wish of a 7 game series is looking more and more realistic!










Read the Game 2 review here

NBA Finals Preview

Courtesy of NBA.com via Instagram

We have quite a match-up for the NBA Finals, Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Golden State Warriors. The best player of the era, LeBron James vs the best player of the year, Stephen Curry. Both players can dominate a game in their own way. LeBron can force double teams and looks to find the open man, while Curry forces you to step a few steps farther away from the basket since you have to respect his deep shot, which then opens up the lane and other alleyways for teammates.

This is also about the coaches. This is the first time in Finals history that 2 first year head coaches are facing each other. As for how the public sees both coaches is about as different as it gets. Steve Kerr was the most wanted coach going into the off-season last year and everyone thought he was going to follow Phil Jackson to New York. Instead he took his 5 championship rings as a player, multiple years of experience in the front office and his exposure to the public as a TNT basketball color commentator. It also helped hitting a few jumpers for MJ, help make it easier to remember. Now going into the Finals, everyone has been singing his praises for molding this team and getting way more out of it then his predecessor, Mark Jackson, did.

As for David Platt on the other hand, has been fighting criticism ever since he was hired. Widely an unknown going into this year, since he coached the 2013-2014 season in Israel. Other than that, the only other way anyone knew him was from coaching the Russian national team in the 2012 London Olympics. After some bonehead coaching moves and dumb sound bites during interviews with the press, many believe he will be fired even if they win the championship.

No matter won eventually wins this series, we all I'm sure are hoping for an exciting challenge for both superstars and teams. I don't think anyone is expecting a quick series like what we got in both conference finals, but at least we all got the match-up, most of us wanted.

My prediction: Cavs in 7 games

Coverage begins at 8pm on ABC

NBA Finals Preview

The LeBron Effect

We were just talking here at work about what ifs. My favorite one from today was, what if Lebron wins the championship with the Cavs, and then decides to opt-out of his contract and becomes a rent-a-player each season for struggling teams with championship droughts. So let's say he plays in Milwaukee in 2016, Minnesota in 2017, New York in 2018, Los Angeles in 2019, come back to Cleveland in 2020, and so on. It would make him easily the all-time greatest if he was able to win at any stop along the way.

It makes sense for teams after the collective bargaining agreement to basically rent LeBron for a season at $30-35 million, with the chance to win the Larry O'Brien trophy. Just a thought i couldn't fit into 160 characters and wanted to share