Cavs blow out Celts to reach finals

LeBron James, who scored 35 points on Thursday night in Game 5 as the Cavaliers finished off the Celtics, expressed his admiration for Thomas after the two stars embraced on the court.

“The whole underdog thing is amusing to me, because yeah, at the end of the day we are defending our title”, Cavs forward Kevin Love said following Saturday’s practice.

“I think what it has to do with, it has to do with the fact he’s got a nice, long, fat contract with the Cavs and he realizes that he can finally afford to pay me the money that he owes me for the shooting game back in 2000 or whenever it was”, Brown said with a grin.

“When you’re growing up and you see Michael Jordan it’s nearly like a god”.

“I knew that if we kept it within 10, a surge was going to happen”, Irving said of the Game 4 win. I’m a playmaker. I’m a player. “I mean, the goals that they set, they were definitely challenging for us, and it made the league turn for a little bit, just 1 versus 2, 2, 1, who was going to get first place and who was actually ready for the playoffs”.

Curry won’t be the MVP this season, is just about as healthy as he could want going into the Finals and is in the middle of his greatest playoff run. He played just 18 minutes in Game 2 while playing through the lingering pain.

James talked about taking fade-away jumpers when he didn’t need to, wearing short-shorts because that’s what Jordan wore, and doing everything possible to be like Mike. “I shot fadeaways before I should have”. I was like, ‘Why are you so mad again? I wore black and red shoes with white socks. “This is one that I can really put in the memory bank and be proud of up until this point because I finally got to play the majority of the games in the regular season and be challenged every, single night. ‘Why am I even responding to this?'”

BOSTON – As they celebrated defending their Eastern Conference title Thursday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers weren’t ready to focus on defending their National Basketball Association championship. These are the 13th and 14th teams to reach the Finals at least three straight times, but it marks the first time that the same two teams have faced each other three straight times. That 2013 deal cost them the No. 3 pick in last year’s draft, the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft and their unprotected first-rounder in next year’s draft. His 33.4 PPG in the playoffs remains a record, easily surpassing the likes of Allen Iverson, Jerry West, Kevin Durant and James on the all-time leaderboard. That makes basketball exciting.

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“How can I get the youth to feel like passing the ball is OK, making the extra pass is OK”, James wondered. He had taken his post-season career points total to 5,995 by the time he took a seat for the entire fourth quarter – along with the rest of Cleveland’s starters. “Scoring is not number one on my agenda”.

James had come into the contest needing 28 points to pass Jordan – victor of six titles with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s – for first on the post-season scoring list. At his recent rate of scoring and availability, James should be able to make up the 3,505-point gap by the end of the 2018-2019 season.