Three things we learnt from Cavs – Warriors NBA Finals Game 1

Going into the NBA finals, all eyes were definitely on Cavs big three and Warriors Splash Brothers, with Shaun Livingston not even expected to be on the list of players from Warriors bench to pull any surprises, but on the night the reverse was the case.

Though Cavs’ big three didn’t do badly considering they had 66 of Cavs 89 points but the Splash Brothers were not at the party on the night they had only 20 points from Warriors’ 104.

Here are three things we learnt from the game.

1.There is strength in Warriors numbers

Warriors motto ‘Strength in Numbers’ isn’t just for fun as the Warriors showed there is strength really in their numbers and Steve Kerr can count on the bench when the starters are ‘out of sorts’ like it happened in Game 1.

The Warriors’ bench led by Shaun Livingston (20 points) outscored the Cavs’ bench 45-10, Harrison Barnes (13), Andrea Iguodala (12), Leandro Barbosa (11) had more points than Klay Thompson (9) on the night.

2. The Big Three can’t do it alone

Cavs had a smooth run en-route the Playoff finals, beating Piston and Hawks 4-0 and also rarely troubled in the finals against Raptors winning 4-2. Cavs had a good run and the big three were a big part of the run.

Since they played weaker teams the Big Three were hardly troubled and didn’t feel it when their supporting casts didn’t play well. Against Warriors everyone must be involved if they must take anything from these series, Smith must find his 3-points abilities and the bench must also step up.

3. Golden State Warriors can play

After their break down in game 5,6 and especially 7 OKC’s Kevin Durant attributed their defeat to Warriors long range shooting ability, saying they played better basketball and were the better team on the night but Warriors long range shooting ability won them the tie.

“They beat us in the three-point line the last two games. We beat them everywhere else, they beat us from the three-point line, and that was the series.”

Against Cavs the long range shoots didn’t work for Warriors in fact their best players were reduced to almost nothing but the team played beautiful basketball on the night and showed they are more than a 3 points shooting team.

When you imagine that role players like Livingston (20), Barbosa (11) and Iguodala (12) outscored Curry (11) and Klay (9) then you know that these guys are ‘ballers’ and will do anything to win.