Countdown To The 2018 NBA Finals - No. 2: 2016 Cleveland Cavaliers vs Golden State Warriors
As of May 22, 2018 – the start of this countdown – we’re officially 10 days away from the NBA Finals. So with that in mind I started thinking about the best Finals since I really remember started watching the games. I was born in 1987, which basically goes in line of remembering Jordan’s first trip to Finals in 1991. So we’ll use that as our starting point. What were the 10 best NBA Finals since 1991. Each day we’ll reveal one as we countdown to No. 1 on the start of the NBA Finals.
No. 10 – 2008
No. 9 – 2004
No. 8 – 2005
No. 7 – 2011
No. 6 – 2010
No. 5 – 1993
No. 4- 1994
No. 3 – 1998
No. 2 – 2016 NBA Finals – Cleveland Cavaliers 4, Golden State Warriors 3
MVP: LeBron James (Cleveland Cavaliers)
Notable players: LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, Kevin Love, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson
Head coaches: Ty Lue (Cleveland Cavaliers), Steve Kerr (Golden State Warriors)
Best game: Game 7 (Cavs won 93-89)
Best moment: It can only be the last two minutes or so of Game 7, right? Maybe Draymond getting suspended for kicking dudes in the nuts, but I’m going with the final 2 minutes of Game 7. It started with LeBron getting the chase down block on Andre Iguodala with the game tied at 89. From there, Kyrie hit the three with Steph in his face with about 50 seconds remaining. The next defensive possession was Kevin Love getting the stop. It was the culmination of Cleveland’s big three all coming up in final two minutes against the 73-win Warriors. Even the final possession of the game had Iman Shumpert bothering Steph enough on a three to make him miss with about 5 seconds left and down just four.
Background: This was the second of the matchups between the Warriors and Cavs, with the year before having the Cavs not at full strength. Both teams were the No. 1 seeds coming out of their respective conferences, with the Warriors having the best record of all time. They went 73-9 in the regular season before winning 4-1 in the first round and conference semifinals. In the Western Conference Finals, the Thunder pushed the Warriors to 7 games and probably should have won in 6 before Klay Thompson started going nuts in the second half. The Cavs got through the Eastern Conference playoffs fairly easy, sweeping the Pistons and Hawks in the first two rounds before beating the Raptors in six.
Historical standpoint: For Cleveland it was finally winning a title. The Cavs were the first Cleveland team to bring home a title since the Browns did it before the Super Bowl era. LeBron promised a title for his hometown when he came back to Cleveland and delivered on that. For the Warriors, it ultimately led to Kevin Durant joining them. After losing in 7 games to the Warriors in the Western Conference Finals, Durant joined up with them to make up for the title loss as well. By losing the NBA Finals, the Warriors regular season record sort of gets lost when discussing them because the 72-win Bulls won the NBA Finals. LeBron became the fifth person to win NBA Finals MVP three different times as he won twice with Miami. The Cavs also became the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals. Draymond got suspended for game 5 after receiving a flagrant foul in game 4, which is now one of the more notorious suspensions in NBA playoff history. LeBron also became just the third person to record a triple double in game 7 of the NBA Finals. Due to Cleveland finally winning a title, beating the 73-win Warriors and the final 2 minutes of game 7, this is the second most memorable NBA Finals for me.
Video highlights from the series: