OAKLAND, CALIF.: There was no dramatic comeback this time, no taunts of 3-1 comebacks and no jabs over blowing a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter.
This time the Golden State Warriors punished the Cavaliers from start to finish with a convincing 126-91 beat-down on Martin Luther King Jr. Day that included another memorable confrontation between LeBron James and Draymond Green.
The Warriors blitzed the Cavs in transition, outscoring them 37-13 in fastbreak points. They built a double-digit lead just eight minutes into the game and piled on the rest of the night, expanding the lead to 39 in the fourth quarter. The Cavs stumbled through a miserable time shooting and continued an ongoing problem of not moving the ball enough and committing too many turnovers. They ended the night with 15 turnovers and only 11 assists.
Kyrie Irving, the hero in last season’s Finals and again on Christmas Day, struggled badly. He scored 17 points while committing six turnovers and shooting just 6-of-19. He sat most of the first quarter with foul trouble and never discovered his rhythm. By the time he returned for the start of the second, the deficit was already 15.
Green and Steph Curry, meanwhile, were terrific. Green scored 11 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and passed for 11 assists. He finished with a plus/minus of plus-42, while James was a minus-32.
The Cavs successfully bottled Curry at times during the Finals and again on Christmas when he took just 11 shots and scored 15 points. Curry scored 20 points Monday, passed for a season-high 11 assists and never let off the throttle. His 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer while falling down allowed him to do a shimmy while lying flat on his back, to the delight of the roaring Oracle crowd. Klay Thompson scored 26 points — 18 in the second half — and Kevin Durant scored 21 points.
It was the final stop on a season-long six-game road trip, but that’s no excuse. The Cavs had two days off since their last game and even got a practice in — their first in nearly three weeks. It did little to stem the slump.
James scored 20 points but shot 6-of-18 and committed six turnovers, Iman Shumpert scored 15 points and Kyle Korver scored 11. Korver started the third quarter in place of Kevin Love, who sat the second half with a tight lower back after scoring three points on 1-of-6 shooting.
While James spent the last couple of days disputing these two teams are rivals, they sure looked like it in the second quarter when Green was whistled for a flagrant-1 after crashing into James at midcourt. James dropped to the court in a heap and an incensed Green accused him of flopping, even mocking his body movements to the fans sitting courtside.
James and Green, of course, changed the complexion of last season’s Finals when James stepped over Green during a Warriors blowout in Game 4 and Green responded by punching James between the legs. Green was ultimately suspended for Game 5 and the Cavs became the first team in NBA history to erase a 3-1 deficit and win a championship.
They never looked like champions Monday. They trailed by 14 with 4:07 left in the half and seemed poised to at least make the game competitive by halftime. But James lost the ball while dribbling in isolation for his sixth turnover of the half and Klay Thompson made a 3-pointer at the other end.
Irving had his shot blocked by Thompson on the Cavs’ next possession — again after dribbling one-on-one — and Durant completed the fastbreak with a vicious dunk. In less than a minute, that 14-point deficit was 19 and swelled to 26 over the next 90 seconds.
Aside from Friday’s win at Sacramento, the Cavs have finished with more turnovers than assists in four of their last five games and five of their last seven.
The Cavs and Warriors split the season series with a win each and now will wait until perhaps meeting for a third time in June to play for another championship. The embarrassing 35-point loss Monday was reminiscent of last season, when the Cavs were smashed at home by 34 against these same Warriors on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
Jason Lloyd can be reached at jlloyd@thebeaconjournal.com. Read the Cavs blog at www.ohio.com/cavs. Follow him on Twitter www.twitter.com/JasonLloydABJ.