ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Cleveland Cavaliers were in Oakland to face the Golden State Warriors in Game 1 of the 2015 NBA Finals. The Cavs were without Kevin Love and Anderson Varejao due to injuries. The Warriors had Marreese Speights available, coming off a calf strain.
1ST QUARTER: LeBron’s Deliberation
The game started out with a slow, deliberate tempo that is the hallmark of the Cavs this year, but the Warriors managed to keep things close, despite not being able to seize the momentum.
Cleveland got off to an early 3-0 start with Tristan Thompson opening the game with an inside hook over Draymond Green, and LeBron James attacking Harrison Barnes left to right into the lane, drawing a foul on Klay Thompson‘s help.
After Stephen Curry finally got the Warriors on the board with a jumper, James posted up Barnes on the left block, but on the spin, Andrew Bogut came over and swatted the bank attempt. The Warriors were off to the races, but Thompson got slapped on the wrist on the fastbreak layup attempt over Kyrie Irving, a good foul because Barnes had trailed the play and slammed home the putback, negated by the whistle, with two hands.
The Warriors couldn’t light the torch and the deliberate style continued onward, as James on more than one occasion, tried to impose his will on the game. It was as if he sensed sloppiness and wanted to clean the plate up. A pull-up two over Barnes while dribbling up was the first instance.
He was far from flawless, but the pace still favored the Cavs. After a turnover on a bad entry pass to Timofey Mozgoz, Curry’s early offense lefty banker down the lane went too hard.
James missed a bad fall-away jumper from the right baseline, but Klay missed the transition layup. Then after misses by Iman Shumpert and Green, sure enough, James ended the sequence of misses with a strong reverse layup in traffic.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called timeout, with Cleveland holding a slim 9-8 lead with 6:44 to go.
Out of the timeout, Green found Barnes in the right corner for a triple, but after another non-James Cavs miss, Curry tried to force his way past Irving on the left side and Irving swatted the runner, leading to James drawing an early offense foul on Barnes.
The Cavs gained some separation after a Mozgov two-handed dunk inside on a cut past Bogut, assisted by LeBron. Bogut got blocked on the next sequence by Tristan, and on the inbound from the baseline, Andre Iguodala was left wide open cutting to the hoop, but he passed up the shot and dished it to Bogut on the short wing.
Of course, Bogut wasn’t going to take the shot even though there were no Cavs within two yards, and he passed off to Curry, who launched from the deep right corner. The ball bounced off the rim and Iguodala was charged with a foul for holding James as LeBron got the ball and swung his arms emphatically, catching Andre in the face, which got the Oracle crowd riled up. Irving then made a three-pointer on a broken play after Tristan tapped out a miss, putting the Cavs up 16-11.
The problems compounded for the Warriors. Green’s swing pass almost sailed out of bounds, luckily tipped by a Cleveland player, a play designed for Curry moving across the baseline ended up with JR Smith reading the play and chucking Steph at the point where he was supposed to catch the ball, and Green threw a bad pass that Kyrie ended with an easy run-out lefty layup.
After a timeout charged to Cleveland, Smith drilled a left corner triple, Curry turned the ball over in the backcourt, but the Cavs couldn’t capitalize. Curry then pulled up from beyond the arc early but it was short, and James ended the string of misses once again with a trey on a catch on the left wing after getting a screen, the pass made from the top by Matthew Dellavedova.
That gave Cleveland a 26-13 lead with under two minutes remaining.
The bench unit closed the quarter with LeBron still in the game, and the Warriors managed to salvage the quarter down 29-19 after Smith got a step-back trey from the left wing answered by a long Leandro Barbosa catch-and-launch, and Iguodala ending the quarter with a nice isolation cross-over against James, who leaned too far one way with Andre blowing past and finishing with a resounding dunk.
The Warriors shot a woeful 6-for-21 in the opening frame. LeBron scored 12 points on 4-for-9 field and Tristan collected 7 boards.
2ND QUARTER: MVP Helps Warriors Climb Back
It was up to the bench unit to cut into the Cavs’ lead. Iguodala took advantage of his height over Shumpert, getting a jumper to fall, but Mozgov went down the lane again for a dunk as Irving squeaked by Shaun Livingston on a lefty dribble.
Enter Marreese Speights.
The Warriors’ troubles from the field continued as Livingston got blocked on a jumper by the lunging arm of Shumpert, but after yet another Cavs’ miss, Speights got the ball on a catch from Livingston at the free throw line, made a dribble and a spin, and got the jumper easily over Shumpert.
Speights got another catch-and-shoot to go on a pick-and-roll with Steph, who had checked back in with Klay with under 8 minutes to go, and Golden State cut the lead down to 31-27 with 7:25 to go in the half.
Later, Speights added another catch jumper playing pick-and-roll with Curry, and the Warriors gained momentum as Green got position inside against James and “Mo” made the entry pass.
Then after LeBron shot an airball fade-away jumper, to the delight of Oracle fans, Curry got past the Cavs’ perimeter, dribbled to the right baseline, found Green on the left wing, who passed it right back to Steph, who turned and drilled the corner trey with Mozgov closing too late.
The Warriors evened the game up at 36-36 as Cavs head coach David Blatt called timeout with 4:13 remaining.
Shumpert then turned the ball over to Curry and Steph led the break, almost rolled his ankle while stopping, but still managed to get the pull-up trey for a swish.
After an Irving runner missed going in the lane from right to left, Steph got the ball again, froze LeBron at the elbow at the free throw line, got by him, got met at the rim by Mozgoz, and threw his body into the Cavs’ big man, converting the left scoop off the glass.
Oracle chanted, “MVP!” as the Warriors pulled ahead 41-36, but Shumpert made two threes, one from each corner, even as Draymond got a dunk down the lane.
In a crazy sequence epitomizing the chaos of the Dubs, Green turned the ball over after getting inside, sending his bounce pass to LeBron, but on the outlet, Tristan Thompson clumsily dove for the ball and lost it, with Curry retrieving the ball.
Steph then sent a long lob to Bogut, who turned the two-hand dunk, which probably was a little short of the rim, into a pass to Klay in the right corner. Thompson missed it, but Bogut tapped the offensive rebound to himself as the ball bounced over Irving.
Bogut then found Klay near the top and Klay re-launched and made the second try.
Of course, it was James who settled the Cavs down, finding Shumpert for that second triple, then stutter-stepping Barnes and taking him hard down the lane, spinning to finish off the bucket at the rim, leaving Harrison virtually helpless.
The teams punched and counter-punched once more, with Draymond getting left side dunk running down the lane after another timeout by Kerr, but Blatt answering back with a timeout, and finding Smith for his patented step-back triple with 0.7 seconds remaining in the half.
And with that, the Cavs took a 51-48 lead into halftime.
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