A Little NBA Action

The Golden State Warriors say it’s a rivalry. The Cleveland Cavaliers (at least LeBron James) say it isn’t.

The Warriors played like it was and the Cavs played like it wasn’t.

In the long term, Monday night’s 126-91 rout of the Cavs by the Warriors won’t mean much. In the short term, it was important for the Warriors, who are still working to fit Kevin Durant more comfortably into their scheme.

Durant played superbly on defense, frustrating James, and the Warriors ran their offense to explosive perfection. They led by 29 points at halftime and Draymond Green finished with a triple-double.

In the first meeting since the teams battled in the NBA Finals last year and the Cavaliers overcame a 3-1 deficit to win the championship, the Warriors let a 14-point lead vanish in Cleveland and lost 109-108 on Christmas Day. In the second, and first at Oracle Arena, the Warriors looked a little more like the Warriors. They started fast and kept the pressure on.

As the last two champions, the Cavs and Warriors should be considered rivals. The Warriors beat the Cavs for the championship in 2015 and the Cavaliers returned the favor in dramatic style a year later.

“A team that you beat, beat you, it’s definitely fun. If you look at the last two years and this year, we’ve been the top two teams in the league each year, and so I look at it as a rivalry, and it’s definitely a fun game to play in,” Green said.

Certainly there are more fun games ahead.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman