Cavalier Attitude

The inevitable meeting in the NBA Finals of the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers took a short detour on Monday night.

The Houston Rockets, behind James Harden’s 45 points, staved off elimination with a 128-115 victory over the Warriors. The Warriors lead the Western Conference semifinal series three games to one, with Game 5 on Wednesday night in Oakland. Shooting star Stephen Curry, who left Game 4 after a hard fall, should be OK for the Warriors.

The odds against the Rockets are long despite their impressive victory. Only eight times have NBA teams come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a playoff series and it hasn’t happened since 2006 when the Phoenix Suns turned the tables on the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference quarterfinals.

The Cavaliers, a bit more battered than Curry, can close out the Atlanta Hawks on Tuesday night in Cleveland. They lead in the Eastern Conference finals 3-0. LeBron James leads them in scoring (27.9 points per game), rebounding (10.5) and assists (8.4). He also seems to do as much of the coaching as Dave Blatt, who is (at least in name) the Cavaliers’ first-year coach. Give him credit for not letting his ego get in the way of the best player on the planet.

The Hawks enjoyed an outstanding regular season but Kyle Korver, their 3-point shooter, vanished in this series before suffering a high right ankle sprain that has him out for the rest of the playoffs (which likes one more game). No NBA team has ever come from a 3-0 deficit in the playoffs to win the series.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman .