Warriors didn't have a chance in Game 3
CLEVELAND – They were doomed from the start.
This much was apparent when Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr called his first timeout, just two- and-a-half minutes after the opening tip. His team was already down, 9-0.
And it was only the beginning.
“We weren’t ready to play,” Kerr acknowledged after the Cleveland Cavaliers thrashed his team, 110-90, in Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. “Just a horrible way to start.”
Maybe it would have been different if Draymond Green had nailed the three-pointer on the game’s first possession, like he swished so many in the Game 2 rout.
Perhaps the Warriors could have found an early rhythm if Steph Curry resembled the MVP again.
Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.
Golden State never led in the contest, which underscores just how it never really had a chance during the event at rowdy Quicken Loans Arena that also served as a back-to-life revival for the championship-starved Cleveland believers.
Hello, avalanche.
As if they needed it, the Warriors have the essential, urgent takeaway that they can carry into Game 4 on Friday night: Mess around early, and you’ll get run out of the building.
“If you let your guard down and the other team is angry,” Kerr added, “this can happen.”
The Warriors scored 16 points in the first quarter – which put them in a dead heat with red-hot Cavs guard Kyrie Irving, who in “taking over the game,” as LeBron James put it, scored 16 of his 30 in the opening stanza on Wednesday night.
“It was the first eight to 10 minutes,” lamented Curry. “They came out with the big punch. We lost the game in that stretch.”
The Warriors – whose resilience was demonstrated in rallying from a 3-1 deficit during the Western Conference finals -- can’t say they didn’t see the possibility of this coming. A key objective in winning big games on the road is always to seize the early momentum, take the crowd out of.
Yet knowing this and doing something about it are two separate matters. This is the fourth time in four playoff series this postseason that the Warriors have lost Game 3 on the road.
Happened at Houston, at Portland, then at Oklahoma City. Now this – the worst Game 3 loss of any.
The Warriors got punched in the mouth and couldn’t do anything about it, with LeBron James and Co. regaining whatever confidence was shaken during the first two games of the series.
“We got bullied,” Green summed up.
At one point late in the first quarter, Klay Thompson already sensed that the bad start had pretty much cinched a bad ending. It was 33-14. Even for the explosive Warriors, that was too much to overcome.
“If it was a 10-point game rather than 19, different story,” Thompson said.
With the Warriors shooting 27.3% from three-point range (9-of-33), the Cavs responded to every threat of a threat. That fed the home crowd with more fuel.
The Warriors will get another shot soon enough in Game 4. If they don’t start fast, it will be another long night.