Golden State Warriors forward Kevin Durant (35) dunks over Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (23) during the first half of Game 3 of basketball's NBA Finals in Cleveland, Wednesday, June 7, 2017.
"When they have their three main guys eclipsing nearly the 30-point mark, it's going to be a tough game", said Cavs point guard Kyrie Irving, who finished with 38 points. Now Cleveland, which previous year became the first team to recover from a 3-1 Finals deficit, faces historically long odds again.
Going in its favor, Cleveland is 5-1 at Quicken Loans Arena in the 2017 postseason and 14-2 it its past 16 playoff games at The Q overall.
Cleveland leads 80-79 and Green's foul trouble has to be a little unnerving for the Warriors in their first road game of the Finals. "It's probably the most firepower I've played in my career". Stephen Curry also had a Double Double with 26 Points and 13 Rebounds. The difference likely isn't as pronounced as it appeared to be over the first two games in Oakland, but Golden State does have the more cohesive, consistent group.
Trailing 67-61 at the half, the Cavaliers won the third quarter, 33-22. but they were outscored 29-19 in the final 12 minutes.
The Warriors enter with a 2-0 lead and people are starting to wonder if they'll sweep after their dominant start to the series given that it seems like the Cavs are out of answers. It was a great win because Cleveland got more confident in their match up with the Warriors. "He's been an awesome player in this league for a long time, and he senses this is his time, his moment, his team", Warriors head coach Steve Kerr told reporters during the post-game press conference.
"We just kept telling the guys, they're going to get exhausted", Kerr said.
This is why there was so much angst last July when Durant made a decision to sign with the Warriors.
James has had to put the Cleveland Cavilers on his back as his all-star duo of Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving - especially Irving - have not been playing their best basketball.
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Steph Curry has 20 points and has hit 5 of 7 3s for Golden State.
The Cavaliers gave everything they had in Game 3 on Wednesday night at The Q - so much so that they simply didn't have enough gas in the tank to finish off the white-hot Warriors.
Durant picked his spots on the offensive end, then tried his best to slow James (39 points, 11 rebounds, nine assists) on the other.
"He took over", Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Durant. Point guard Kyrie Irving added 38 points, though he missed all seven of his three-point shots.
Cavaliers: James (1,175) passed Sam Jones (1,143), Bill Russell (1,151) and Elgin Baylor (1,161) to move into fourth place on the NBA Finals scoring list.
READ: Will LeBron James And Cavaliers Lose?
"So even when you're playing well, you got to play like A-plus-plus, because they're going to make runs and they're going to make shots and they got guys that's going to make plays".
The flexibility of prop bets is a great way to remain invested in this year's series, so go out and have some fun on game nights.
Love's 3-pointer at the 8:59 mark of the third quarter gave the Cavaliers their first second-half lead, but it is the only shot he hit all night. He played most of the game and was instrumental in the 7 point Cavalier lead in the 2nd Half. And when he's tired from picking up the slack for his team, he's just a shell of himself.
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