LeBron & Irving Combine for 82 Warriors lead series 3-2
Warriors lead series 3-2
LeBron James and Kyrie Irving put up some ridiculous numbers en route to their biggest win of the season. Coming into game 5, all the drama centered around Draymond Green and his issues with LeBron James in game 4 which resulted in a suspension for the All-Star forward and the Cavs feasted in his absence.
LeBron James scored 41 points, grabbed 16 rebounds and handed out seven assists on the night while Kyrie Irving scored 41 points and handed out six assists of his own. LeBron shot 16-30 from the field including a surprising 4-8 from the three-point line while Irving shot 17-24 from the field, 5-7 from three and took over the fourth quarter in the Cavs win. James’ statline was so good, it was the first time in NBA playoff history to record a 41-point, 16-rebound, 7-assist line and the duo of LeBron and Kyrie are the first teammates in the history of the NBA Finals to score 40+ in the same game.
The Warriors were paced by Klay Thompson who had a big first half of his own including a 26 point first half but he was really the lone player who did much of anything for the Dubs on a consistent basis. Thompson finished with 37 points, on 11-20 shooting and going 6-11 from the three-point line. His Splash Brother, Stephen Curry, scored 25 points but many of them were hard to come by. Curry shot 8-21 from the field and 5-14 from the three-point line but he also grabbed seven rebounds and handed out four assists. Harrison Barnes struggled to get anything going, shooting 2-14 from the field but Andre Iguodala stepped up in place of Green scoring 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, handing out six assists.
The Dubs were without the heart and soul of their time, Draymond Green, after he was retroactively handed a flagrant 1 foul stemming from his incident with LeBron in Game 4. It was an incident some Warriors players thought LeBron used to target Green given his flagrant foul issue and the particularly took exception to LeBron somehow leaking out what transpired between him and Green. Banned from the arena, Green watched from a baseball suite in the Oakland Coliseum next door, joined by Golden State general manager Bob Myers.
Game 6 will be in Cleveland on Thursday night starting at 9pm ET on ABC.
