2016 NBA Finals: Game 4 Recap And Highlights

In Game 4 of the 2016 NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors took a commanding 3-1 lead behind a big night from the Splash Brothers.

Coming off a humbling 30-point defeat in Game 3 of the 2016 NBA Finals, it was bit of a question mark how the Golden State Warriors would respond in Game 4 on the road.

Would the Splash Brothers overcome their struggles through the first three games of the series and lead the Dubs to victory? Or were the Cleveland Cavaliers ready to tie it up at 2-2 and make the Finals a whole new series?

Behind 63 points and 11 three-pointers from Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, including an NBA Finals single game record of 17 three-pointers for the team, the Warriors eked out a 108-97 victory Friday night to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the championship round.

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Curry finally surpassed his regular season scoring average with 38 points, going 11-for-25 from the field and 7-for-13 from three-point range. Thompson joined the league MVP in reaching the 20-point threshold for the first time in the series with 25 points on 7-of-14 shooting.

Despite only scoring nine points on 2-of-9 shooting, Draymond Green played a tremendous defensive game, finishing with 12 rebounds, four assists, three blocks and two steals in addition to numerous challenges at the rim and helping hold LeBron James in check.

Kyrie Irving led the Cavs with 34 points on 14-of-28 shooting, LeBron chipped in a 25-13-9-3-2 stat line (with seven turnovers) and Kevin Love added 11 points off the bench. The Cavs only shot 6-of-25 from deep while Golden State made 17 of their 36 triples.

In the first quarter, the Warriors avoided starting with the same complacency they showed in Game 3, trading buckets with the Cavs as opposed to facing an immediate 9-0 deficit. Despite getting slaughtered on the offensive glass, the Dubs managed to weather the early storm.

Golden State’s defense was a lot more locked in after a patchy start — particularly from Curry — but Tristan Thompson‘s stellar work on the offensive glass carried Cleveland’s offense. The Cavs had six offensive boards in the first quarter, with Thompson pulling down five of them.

Luckily for the Dubs, league MVP Stephen Curry started to look more like himself after a shaky start that included losing both J.R. Smith and Kyrie Irving for wide open corner threes. Curry started attacking the basket to find open teammates, drilled two step-back threes and had eight quick points in the first quarter alone.

In the second quarter, the Cavs began to assert their will a little bit more. Despite the Warriors shooting 8-for-15 from three-point range in the first half, Cleveland’s rim protectors held Golden State to 8-of-22 shooting on two-pointers.

Though Curry’s long range shot was falling (3-for-5), Cleveland’s help side defense was phenomenal, particularly from Tristan Thompson off of switches in the pick-and-roll.

With the league MVP suddenly doubting his ability to get into the lane and make plays, the Cavs were able to lock in defensively, hold the Dubs to 43.2 percent shooting in the first half and force Curry into a couple of bad shots.

Despite LeBron James only putting up seven points in the first half, the Cavs led by five at the break behind Kyrie Irving’s 16 points. J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson added 10 apiece, while Kevin Love had seven off the bench.

Curry led the Dubs with 14 points on 4-of-10 shooting and Klay Thompson had 11 points on 4-of-7 shooting, with the Splash Brothers accounting for half of the Warriors’ points at the break.

The story of the first half, however, was the impact that Thompson and the Cavs had attacking Golden State on the offensive glass.

Cleveland collected 10 offensive rebounds by halftime and Thompson’s ability to switch out onto Curry on the perimeter (which started in Game 3) was something of a game-changer.

Right before the halftime buzzer sounded, a critical four-point swing occurred when the officials missed a blatant foul on Andre Iguodala‘s desperation three-pointer and gave the assistant coach Luke Walton a technical foul when he argued the no-call.

The technical foul and a quick Irving pull-up jumper extended the lead to eight with the Warriors’ same starting lineup out there. At that point, Draymond Green started playing out of control and Harrison Barnes , who had a great game with 14 points and eight rebounds, started trying to do too much. It felt like the Dubs were smack-dab in the danger zone.

And then the Splash Brothers returned.

Back-to-back three-pointers from Curry and Thompson — with Curry’s three putting him at the 20-point mark for the first time in the series — cut the lead to two points and sent a tremor through the crowd.

Though Irving was still scoring against Curry, particularly on one nasty set of handles and a jumper that ignited NBA Twitter with Vines, the Cavs’ offense broke down into too much isolation and the defense completely fell apart, giving the Splash Brothers far too many quality looks on the other end.

With the officials letting things get a little bit chippy, Andre Iguodala buried a three to tie the game at 69 before another Curry three in transition gave the Dubs a three-point lead. It marked an 8-0 run by the Warriors and a 17-6 run overall.

At that point, both the Splash Brothers had reached the 20-point threshold, combining to shoot 10-for-15 from three-point range.

With the Cavs’ offense deteriorating into isolation ball and LeBron James failing to take over and get things moving, the Warriors began to pull away.

With Anderson Varejao managing to keep multiple possessions alive for Golden State off the bench, the Dubs built a six-point lead against a suddenly porous Cleveland defense.

Luckily for the Cavs, a Kyrie Irving jumper and two free throws from Love cut the lead back down to two heading into the fourth quarter. The Splash Brothers combined for 22 points and six three-pointers in the third quarter alone.

To start the fourth quarter, it quickly turned into the LeBron James show, with the King scoring four of the Cavaliers’ first six points in the period as the Dubs rested Curry and Green.

But the Warriors weren’t deterred, with two buckets from Shaun Livingston, a Harrison Barnes triple and a pull-up jumper from Iggy giving the Dubs a five-point lead.

With the Q starting to get nervous, the Dubs buckled down on the defensive end for a few key stops. One sequence saw Klay Thompson stop Kyrie in transition and an offensive rebound from Iguodala led to a dagger three-pointer for Barnes that extended the lead to nine with 5:56 to play.

The Warriors defense was the turning point in the fourth quarter as their length began to bother a Cleveland team that looked pretty tired.

With Golden State crashing the offensive glass to extend possessions and swarming Kyrie and LeBron on the other end, the Cavs started settling for short-armed, short-legged jumpers.

Even when King James did the smart thing and attacked the basket, he was met by the Warriors’ all-encompassing length.

Irving got to the basket and knocked down a layup to cut the lead to seven, but a Curry pump-fake and his final dagger three-pointer against Channing Frye extended the lead to 10 and too far out of reach.

At that point, Green and LeBron got tangled up and Draymond exaggerated the contact with a flop. LeBron extended his step over Green and the fiery Warriors power forward took exception to it.

The two kept jawing and crashed the boards for a rebound, resulting in a double foul and both players having to be separated.

Despite Cleveland’s early advantage on the glass, the Warriors actually wound up out-rebounding the Cavs 43-40 and gave only six offensive rebounds in the second half.

More hoops habit: 2016 NBA Finals: Game 3 Recap And Highlights

Facing elimination and losing a second straight championship to the Golden State Warriors, the Cleveland Cavaliers head back to Oracle Arena for a do-or-die Game 5 Monday night.