Written by Jeff Zillgist at USAToday.com
Remove the asterisk.
Game 7 is necessary.
And one gigantic – potentially epic – basketball game remains in the 2015-16 NBA season.
Game 7 between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors for the whole kit and caboodle? It’s on.
Will the Warriors put the finishing touches on their remarkable season? Or, will the Cavaliers do what’s never been done before and comeback from the 3-1 Finals deficit and win the championship, a championship the city has craved for five decades?
Game 7 is Sunday at Oracle Arena (8 p.m. ET, ABC) because the Cavaliers dominated Game 6 from the start, forcing a final contest with a 115-101 victory on Thursday.
LeBron James dazzled again following up his 41-point performance in Game 5 with 41 points, 11 assists, eight rebounds, four steals and three blocks.
“I thought he was great,” Cavs coach Tyronn Lue said. “He said he felt good. With our season on the line, at the end of the third quarter he said, ‘I’m not coming out.’ I didn’t have any intention on taking him out anyway. I don’t care what y’all say. We’re going to ride him. He had another unbelievable game. That’s what we expect of LeBron, and that’s what he’s been doing his whole career. So, one more game, and we need another one out of him.”
Kyrie Irving was fantastic again, too, with 23 points and four rebounds and three assists.
James directed and scored 18 consecutive Cleveland points at the end of third quarter and beginning of the fourth. In 17 elimination games in his career, James averages 32.9 points, 10.8 rebounds and 6.9 assists.
Win or lose Sunday, James is a serious Finals MVP candidate.
“I give a lot of credit to my teammates and my coaching staff to put me in position to be successful,” James said. “I mean, without the ball moving, without the screens being set, without the coaching staff putting out the game plans for us offensively then, what I’ve been able to do, it doesn’t happen. So those guys definitely get the credit.”
The Warriors were not at their best and were flustered. Steph Curry was in early foul trouble, and not only he did he foul out for the first time this season, he picked up five fouls in a game this season. He finished with 30 points and was ejected arguing the sixth foul called against him.
The Cavaliers jumped to a 31-11 lead after one quarter, and Golden State’s scoring total was the fewest first-quarter points a team has scored in a Finals game in the shot-clock era.
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