OAKLAND, Calif. — As a hoops fan who was weaned on the game in the days when Golden State and Cleveland were two of the NBA’s laughing stocks, my 14-year-old self would have been hard-pressed to imagine I’d be covering the fourth straight NBA Finals between the two.
Of course that is literally only half the story and Klay Thompson of the Warriors put it best when asked Thursday if it was bad for the NBA to have the same teams in the Finals for a fourth straight year.
"The rest of the NBA has to get better," he said. "It’s not our fault that we’re both here again."
And while the matchup is all too familiar, the route these two juggernauts took to get here this time around is not. After losing a combined one game en route to the championship round last year, they were each forced to a Game 7 in their respective conference finals.
And both of those came on the road.
Home court in this series goes to the Warriors and while Oracle Arena is without the modern amenities every other NBA building enjoys, it has no equal in my mind. Three games in the Finals last year, along with a pair of recent concerts (Bruce Springsteen and Roger Waters) were enough to sell me.
Of course, its time is winding down and a shiny new barn in San Francisco edges ever-closer to opening.
The question now is how many championship banners will make their way across the Bay Bridge?
One more beckons over the next two weeks.
In the meantime, here are a few NBA Finals stats to chew on…
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1: Time the same two teams have played in four consecutive championships in the history of North American sports
2: Warriors wins in the first three meetings
3: Career NBA titles for LeBron James
4: Golden State all-stars at the mid-season Classic (Curry, Durant, Green, Thompson)
5: Championship rings as a player for Steve Kerr
6: LeBron’s jersey number in Miami, where he was 2-2 in Finals (1-3 in #23)
7: Three-pointers made by Steph Curry (in 15 attempts) and the Rockets (in 44 attempts) in Game 7 of the Western Finals
8: Consecutive Finals for LeBron (most ever outside of players from Russell’s Celtics)
9: Total Finals appearances for LeBron
10: 2010 – last time there was a Finals without James
11: Halftime deficit for Golden State in Game 7 vs. Houston
12: Point spread in favour of Warriors for Game 1 Thursday
13: Jersey number of Tristan Thompson, the only Canadian in the Finals. (Also the number worn by Canadian legend Steve Nash, here as a consultant for the Warriors
14: 2014 season – Curry and Thompson combine for 484 three-pointers
15: Seasons for James
16: Years since a team (Cavs) was this big of a series underdog (Nets vs. Lakers)
17: Years since one player had this big of an impact on getting a team to a Finals (Allen Iverson)
18: Games it took Cleveland to reach the Finals (last year just 13)
