OAKLAND, Calif. – The pain is over, Cleveland. LeBron James, the native son who arrived in fame and left in shame, has returned to deliver the championship that fans waited 52 years in angst to receive. In place of the city’s pro title drought is now its greatest achievement: A spirited rally after trailing the NBA Finals three games to one against an opponent who posted the best regular season record in league history.
If you have to wait more than five decades to hoist a trophy, this is the way to do it. With a 93-89 victory in Game 7 at Oracle Arena, the Cavaliers became the first team to win the Finals after trailing 3-1. It’s the most unlikely comeback the NBA has ever seen, orchestrated by a 31-year-old superstar who now has an immovable place among the game’s most revered legends.
James helped the Cavaliers clinch their first championship by posting a triple-double. He scored 27 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished 11 assists. He was a menace on defense, swooping seemingly out of nowhere on three occasions to block Golden State shots at the rim. Kyrie Irving scored 26 points and hit a critical three-pointer in the final minute to give Cleveland a 92-89 lead, but this was James’s game. This was the series in which he cemented his legacy.
James won two titles in Miami after leaving Cleveland six years ago to team up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. But he returned to Cleveland two years ago to come home and complete a mission.
That mission has been accomplished in the most dramatic manner possible.
“We just witnessed one of the greatest games in NBA history,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said as the Cavaliers stood on a makeshift stage on the Oracle Arena court.
It was the typical Game 7 of the NBA Finals, hard-fought yet imperfect, a competition and not a beauty pageant. In recent history, when the Finals end with a for-it-all final showdown, the games are more battles of endurance than thrilling, free-flowing basketball. This one followed that pattern, appropriately.
After six games decided by double-digit margins, after a series of seesawing control, it was fitting that this game was not a classic as much as it was two wobbly teams continuing to punish each other and doing everything it could to stay on its feet.
Cleveland started the game well, dictating the tempo and imposing its will in the paint. But then Draymond Green took over. When he first came into the league, the Warriors used to joke about an eager Green trying to do too much, mocking him for pretending to be like James when he needed to find his own game. Now that he’s an all-star and one of the sport’s most versatile players, the kidding has calmed. But on Sunday, Green’s King James impersonation was quite impressive.
With Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson struggling early, Green scored 22 first-half points to go with six rebounds, five assists and two steals. He made 8 of 10 field goals, including all five of his three-point attempts. While the Cavaliers dominated inside, the Warriors made long jump shots. The three-pointer has long been the Warriors’ greatest advantage, and in the first half, they outscored Cleveland by 27 points from behind the line. With Green making every deep shot he took, Golden State was 10 of 21 from three by halftime. Cleveland was 1 of 14. The Warriors led 49-42.
But this series has been defined by dramatic swings, and the Cavaliers regained control at the start of the third quarter and remained that way in a back-and-forth battle to the end.
When James returned to Cleveland, he wrote a story in Sports Illustrated, declaring, “In Northeast Ohio, nothing is given. Everything is earned. You work for what you have.”
No one has had more pressure to deliver a championship. And no one has fulfilled such a mission with style and odds-defying grace as James did during this series.
He did the work when the Cavaliers needed him most, scoring 41 points in back-to-back games after Cleveland fell behind 3-1 and then finishing off a Finals MVP performance with a triple-double in the clincher.
“I’m home,” James said, nearly crying. “I’m home. That’s what I came back for.”
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