Remember a few months back when Cleveland Cavaliers threw a big Halloween house party? Remember how multiple players shared pictures on social media and there were more than a few references to the Cavaliers coming back from the dead and a 3-1 deficit to beat the Golden State Warriors to win the 2016 NBA title?
In case you don’t, here is a 3-1 lead drum that was present at the party and adorned with a skeleton for some symbolism…
Well, Klay Thompson and his Warriors didn’t take too kindly to the jokes and he is still salty about it as he brought it up on the A to Z podcast on USA Today on Thursday.
Here are his comments:
“It’s obviously not respectful, so it’s got to be on the other side of the spectrum, so that’s fine with us. They can do that childish stuff. It doesn’t matter to us. All we’ve got to do is handle it on the court, you know?
“No, it didn’t (come up on the court in the Christmas Day game). But shoot, it might have (to). I mean, I still think we need to play with more of an edge next time we see them … I mean when we won the championship, though, we didn’t do some stuff like that. But that’s OK. People are built differently. We’re not going to – I’m not going to hold it against them. I’m just going to go out there, and we just want to beat them down next time we see them. That’s how it is. Hold that in the memory bank, and just remember that they do that stuff…It’s a good rivalry, and it’s good for the NBA. It makes it more fun, you know? It’s rare in pro sports you get rivalries like this, so we enjoy it, and we embrace it.”
It’s clear that the Warriors are trying to use this and any other bulletin board material as extra motivation and an edge to be able to defeat the Cavaliers if need be in the likely rubber match this season.
They may not want to embrace the villain role too much though as they can look back to how LeBron and the Heat fell apart, losing a 2-1 lead to the Dallas Mavericks in year one of the “Heat” experiment in the 2011 NBA Finals.
Any way you slice it these two teams are the cream of the crop in the NBA right now and have a heated rivalry rivaling nothing we have seen since the Bird vs. Magic, Celtics-Lakers rivalry of the 1980s that saved the NBA.
We may be headed for the most anticipated NBA Finals match-up ever.
