Golden State Warriors Bags 2017 NBA Championship

NBA
NBA (photo: Pixabay)
By Faith MagbanuaJune 13th, 2017

The Golden State Warriors, won NBA's 2017 championship on Monday, giving Kevin Durant his first NBA championship and the title as the season's MVP. 

For Durant, the victory and the MVP title felt nothing but cloud nine.

The Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 129-120 score in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, bagging their second title in three years and also their fifth in team history.

This was the first; however, that two from the same teams meet face to face for the third time in NBA history. The Warriors; however, won the title in 2015 in six games, while the Cavaliers dramatically won in 2016 in game seven, becoming the first team in NBA history to win a series trailing 3-1.

The Cavs-Warriors III rivalry, had even more star power than in the 2016 game. Last summer, Kevin Durant, who decided to leave his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder (OKC) as a  free agent, elected to join forces with another superstar in the name of Stephen Curry, as well as Draymond Green and Klay Thompson making the Golden State a super team. The group  was close to unstoppable in the NBA regular season and post-season.

While the Golden State Warriors didn't surpass their NBA record of 73 regular-season from 2016 (they settled for 67 this year), they still had the NBA's best regular-season record. Golden State went 16-1 in this year's playoffs, which was pretty impressive for the highest winning percentage (.941) in a single postseason, surpassing the Los Angeles Lakers (LAL) in 2001 (15-1, .938).

The Warriors also did so much of this without their head coach, Steve Kerr, on the sideline for an extended period of this post-season. Steve Kerr coached the first two games of Golden State's first-round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers in April but he then eventually stepped down from his coaching position because he was experiencing complications from back surgery from two years ago.

During his absence though, Kerr was still pretty much involved in team practice, but he handed the game day responsibilities to assistant coach Mike Brown. The Golden State went 11-0 during that stretch before Kerr returned for Game 2 of the NBA Finals.

Monday's loss; however, deprived the Cavaliers a chance to repeat as champions and for LeBron James to get his fourth championship ring. It was; however, his seventh consecutive trip to the NBA Finals, the only non-Boston Celtic to do so. It also kept the Cavaliers from becoming the first team in NBA history to come back from trailing 3-0 to win a best-of-seven series.

 

 

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