James, Dellavedova lead Cavs to Game 3 triumph

CLEVELAND (NBA) - Something was crystal clear on Tuesday night by the time the Cleveland Cavaliers had beaten Golden State, 96-91, to take a 2-1 lead in the NBA Finals.

The Cavs have the Warriors' number.

Yes, that would be a Cleveland team playing without FIBA Basketball World Cup MVP Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, a pair of stars that are injured and watching from the sidelines.

What Cleveland do have is probably the best player in the game over the past decade, LeBron James, a coach who knows how to prepare teams for the big moment, David Blatt, and a supporting cast that is playing with so much confidence and resolve that the Warriors now have their backs to the wall.

James had 40 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists on Tuesday to become the first player to score as many as 123 points in the first three games of a Finals.

He had 44 points in Game 1, a 108-100 overtime win for Golden State, and 39 in the Cavs' 95-93 overtime win on Sunday.

Australia's Matthew Dellavedova wrote another chapter in his storybook NBA Finals on Tuesday with a career playoff high 20 points for Cleveland.

As good as they have been all season in the mighty Western Conference, with the best record in the entire NBA, and despite the presence of spectacular players like league MVP Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, both title winners with the USA at last summer's World Cup, the Warriors know they cannot afford to lose Game 4 at the Quicken Loans Arena on Thursday and return home in a 3-1 hole.

The task is already immense.

James is on the other team and history is against them.

Teams with a 2-1 lead have gone on to win the NBA Finals 84 percent of the time.

James is dominating and Dellavedova, who is starting and logging big minutes because of the fractured knee cap that Irving suffered late in Game 1, is making plays.

The Cavaliers are feeding off both.

What defines Dellavedova are not the points or the flashy assists, though, but the floor burns.

Just as he has for the Boomers in international competition over the years, Dellavedova has been diving for loose balls and locking in on defense.

Add to his scoring the five rebounds and four assists he had in Game 3 and Dellavedova, it has to be said, is doing a little bit of everything to help Cleveland.

Undrafted after a marvelous career with the St Mary's Gaels in American college basketball, Dellavedova is showing that a player can do anything with desire and hard work.

"If there's a ball on the ground, he's going to be the first guy on the ground," James said of his teammate.

"He showed up multiple times tonight. He's huge. He's huge for our team.

He [Dellavedova] gives us that grit, that grit that we need. - James

"He gives us everything until that tank is empty, and he has a small little reserve tank that he continues to work through."

How do you know that Dellavedova is giving everything?

He experienced severe cramping and required an IV after the game.

Just as the San Antonio Sours had an international cast of players last year that included a pair of Dellavedova's Australia teammates, Pat Mills and Aron Baynes, Cleveland have FIBA written all over them.

There is two-time Olympic champion James, Canada power forward Tristan Thompson, Boomers playmaker Dellavedova, Russia center Timofey Mozgov and former Russia coach Blatt, whose last summer with that national team ended on the podium at the 2012 London Games.

Thompson had a team-high 13 rebounds to go with his 10 points and rim-protector Mozgov swatted four shots.

The Cavs cannot afford to relax now that they have the lead in the series.

Golden State do have the firepower to come back, something they did against Memphis in the Western Conference Semi-Finals when falling behind 2-1 in that series.

They trailed by 20 points in the third quarter in Game 3 against the Cavs and were behind by 17 at the end of the frame, yet Curry got hot with 17 fourth-quarter points and the Warriors closed the gap to 94-91.

Curry and Co could not quite complete the comeback.

A good start to Game 4 will be imperative, it seems, if they are going to win and level the series.

"It's the way we're playing on the offensive end, especially to start games," Curry said.

"We'll fix that as we try to even the series on Thursday."

FIBA