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June 9, 2017

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Clutch victory had roots in key Warriors defeat

FROM clutch heroics to poise under pressure, the Golden State Warriors used lessons learned in last year’s heartbreaker NBA Finals loss to Cleveland to take care of business this time.

Kevin Durant scored 31 points while Klay Thompson added 30 and Stephen Curry contributed 28 as the Warriors rallied on Wednesday to beat the Cavaliers 118-113 and seize a 3-0 lead in their best-of-7 championship showdown.

The Warriors, who are on an NBA-record 15-0 playoff win streak, could dethrone LeBron James and his teammates and become the first champions in league history to make an undefeated run through the playoffs.

But it comes by recalling the pain of last year’s finals. The Warriors had seized a 3-1 lead on the Cavaliers only to have James lead the greatest rally in NBA Finals history, becoming the first team to win the championship after trailing 1-3.

Among the lessons learned were patience and control. Warriors forward Draymond Green was suspended for Game 5 and Golden State lost at home, then on the road, then in an all-or-nothing Game 7 last year.

In Game 3 on Wednesday, Green aroused some concern when he began complaining about a foul call to a referee and Curry did the same.

“Basketball is a feisty sport,” Curry said. “The crowd was giving them a lot of energy and those guys came out with a lot of force. And sometimes that brings some commotion out there between two teams. So it’s nothing personal, it’s nothing serious. We moved on.

“Draymond got a tech, he gathered, got it back together, we moved on. So it just didn’t linger. We didn’t let a call we didn’t like or a turnover or a missed assignment linger over to the next play.”




 

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