NBA Finals Game 1 Preview: The Warriors Perspective

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SteemSports Presenter:@mateonav53

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SteemSports Editor:@scottybuckets

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The Golden State Warriors are back in the final round facing off against their opponent of the last three years: the Cleveland Cavaliers. This is the first time that two teams have been matched up four consecutive times in the finals in the history of the four major American sports leagues per NBA.com. No one really made the Warriors sweat until the Conference Finals. Minus Andre Iguodala, everybody seems to be in good health and ready to defend last year's title.

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If you're the Warriors, it feels like you're at the tail end of finals week and you just passed your second to last exam. But that penultimate test was actually the hardest one that you spent the most time in the library stressing and studying for. This last final you're taking is for some shitty gen-ed that you should ace with barely any studying. You didn't even go to the lecture, you just got notes from your friends all year.

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Barring any crucial injuries, the only thing that can beat them is their own complacency. We saw flashes of this in Games 4 of the Houston series when the Warriors were playing at home and couldn't sink anything. We all just kind of assumed the orange ball would find its way in before the final buzzer expired. They were playing at home after all, and they were too good to lose there. Time passed and the three-pointers never fell, nobody swung the ball around, and Houston's defense and role players came up huge for a surprising road win. If the Warriors just remember to move the damn ball and look for shots close to the basket when they're cold, they should have no trouble with the Cavs.

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Heading into this game the Warriors are favored by an enormous margin. And rightfully so. They're going against the best basketball player in the game in Lebron James...but other than that the Cavs don't have anything that feels threatening. Kevin Love is still under concussion protocol as of Wednesday and is uncertain to suit up. Jeff Green was one of the heroes of Game 7 in the East, so expect him to be the second option once again. Not Kyrie Irving. Jeff Green. I did the math and Lebron will need to average approximately 70-25-25 to take this to six games with his current squad.

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The Warriors have ruled out Andre Iguodala from Game 1 with a leg contusion. They're going to re-evaluate him before Game 2 on Sunday evening. His absence was definitely felt in the Houston series, but the Rockets were good enough to actually punish them for that. Maybe Iguodala won't need to suit up until Game 3 or 4 when they're back in Cleveland. Sure he plays great defense on Lebron James, but the Warriors have enough able bodies in Draymond, Durant, and Thompson that they could gradually rotate to slow him down.

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I think the Cavs will take Game 4 from the Warriors but that will be it. It's tough to beat a playoff team four times in a row in the later rounds. But if this ends up being a sweep I'm not going to be surprised either. If you're the Warriors, you're not afraid of the Cavs at all right now. You're chillin. In fact, this could be a recipe for Golden State complacency. The entire Cavs roster needs to play out of their mind and they probably need a lucky break (like an injury) to have any fighting chance. I'm going to guess that the Warriors come out a little complacent in Game 1 but they easily pull away in the third quarter for a 115-102 win.

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Thank you for following @steemsports and you can find me @mateonav53

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