Golden State Warriors have their sights on back-to-back NBA titles as they enjoy a comfortable 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven NBA Finals against Cleveland Cavaliers. LeBron James and his Cavaliers needs to find a way to stop Warriors from clinching their third straight win as the defending champion travel to Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday for Game 3 of the NBA Final.
The Cavaliers have been outplayed in their last two matches, with Warriors putting up a dominating performance in both their matches, primarily their last game, where Stephen Curry and co. won by more than 33 points. Such kind of a result will provide further confidence to Warriors in Game 3.
Both the losses Cavaliers incurred were away from home, but they will hope to receive full support in front of their fans at Q2 arena, where they are always a strong team.
However, what has let Cavaliers down has been their below par shooting, as a team, in the NBA Finals. Cavaliers scored 89 and 74 points in Game 1 and Game 2, respectively, with major contribution from James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving, but there is a serious need for other Cavaliers players to score some huge points, else it might be disastrous.
James wants to see their players scoring well, and not missing many shots.
"If we can score a little bit more, which I believe we will do in Game 3, that will help our defence out a lot, too," AP quoted James as saying.
"When you miss versus those guys it gives them the ability to get out and run, which they're very good at. Either from Draymond (Green) pushing the break or Iguodala pushing the break or Steph and those guys run the floor and they run to their spots and create a lot of problems. So if they're taking the ball out of bounds, then it slows it up just a little bit. So we've got to do a better job of putting the ball in the basket."
But the problem for Cavaliers is that the Warriors have won both the games, without major contribution from Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. They have been decent, as per their standards. If Curry and Thompson get their A game, the Cavaliers will be in all sorts of trouble.
Warriors' coach Steve Kerr has made it clear it does not matter who scores as long as they are winning.
"We just want to win. It doesn't matter who scores the points or who gets the credit. We do feel like the strength of our team is our depth, and we're not overly reliant on one player, even the MVP. So our depth has shown so far, and I'm sure we'll have different players continue to step up as the series goes on," Kerr said.
With Warriors, they always have one or the other player shining, when their top players look off-colour, which is a hallmark of a great team. It was such formula which helped Warriors snatch a record-breaking 73 wins in regular season, and it seems they are well on course for NBA 2016 title as well.
Where to watch live
Golden State Warriors vs Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Final Game 3 is scheduled for 9 p.m. ET (6:30 a.m. IST, 2 a.m. BST) start. Indian viewers can watch it live on Sony Six/HD, with live streaming onSonyliv.
Viewers in the US can watch the Golden State Warriors vs Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Final Game 3 live on ABC, with live streaming ABC GO.
BT Sport will provide live coverage of the NBA Finals Game 3 in the UK, while the game can also be live streamed on Watch BT Sport.
NBA fans can also watch the Golden State Warriors vs Cleveland Cavaliers NBA Final Game 3 live on NBA.com.
