The actual words can’t be written in this space, but “FAFO” definitely could describe what happened with the Cleveland Cavaliers before Game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors.
(To keep things PG, we’ll say that stands for “fool” around and find out.)
For the record, the Warriors and their star forward, Draymond Green, were on the “finding out” side.A moment from Game 4 of that series proved infamous and ultimately pivotal. After an on-court play, Akron native and Cavs forward LeBron James walked over Green, his counterpart on the Warriors. Apparently not pleased at the action, Green took a jab at James’ family jewels.
For the uninitiated, there are few things in life — childbirth being one, according to my wife — as painful in the immediate aftermath of being jolted in that area. Yes, that’s coming from experience.
Sports — high school, college, pro — is a cesspool for trash talk, no matter the gender, no matter the game. Athletes try to get inside each other’s heads during play. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s likely the way it will always be.
That series between the Cavs and Warriors, which I helped cover, proved especially intense. The Cavs took drubbings in three of the first four games to trail 3-1. The games proved to be physical. If we’re being real, there was respect but absolutely zero love lost between the teams, and Green liked playing the intimidator and enforcer.
The problem for him? Green was sitting on three flagrant fouls at that point and NBA rules at the time stipulated that if a player rang up four in the postseason he would be suspended for the subsequent game.
Oops.
Green, always known to be a bit of a hothead on the court, suffered the consequences.
Boom! Game 5 suspension.
The NBA flagged him retroactively with a flagrant foul, and he found out. He had averaged 14.8 points and eight rebounds before being put in a corner.
Klay Thompson’s words sparked LeBron James leading up to Cavs title
But the Warriors found out also. Things got greasier after the suspension, courtesy of Golden State guard Klay Thompson.
“Guys talk trash in this league all the time. I’m just kind of shocked some guys take it so personal. I don’t know how [James] feels,” Thompson said before Game 5. “But obviously people have feelings, and people’s feelings get hurt even if they’re called a bad word. I guess his feelings just got hurt. I mean, we’ve all been called plenty of bad words on the basketball court before. Some guys just react to it differently.”
The comments could be taken as dismissive and arrogant, and who could blame the Warriors for being the latter given the situation at that moment in time? Apparently LeBron James, because they poked the bear.
When informed of the comments by late, great Plain Dealer columnist Bill Livingston in a news conference before Game 5, James looked amused and scoffed at them with a chuckle.
“My goodness. I’m not going to comment on what Klay said, because I know where it can go from this sit-in,” James said. “It’s so hard to take the high road. I’ve been doing it for 13 years. It’s so hard to continue to do it, and I’m going to do it again.”
He took the high road back to Oakland and a 112-97 victory in Game 5, moving the series to 3-2 in favor of the Warriors after James and guard Kyrie Irving eached scored 41 points. He traveled the high road back home, where the Cavs tied the series 3-3 with a 115-101 win. That road then went back to Oakland, where the Cavs claimed the team’s first championship after Irving’s shot, James’ block and Kevin Love’s stifling defense on sharpshooter Stephen Curry in the game’s final seconds.
James, Irving and the avenging bench of role players returned from the abyss, as no team had ever before come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals.
James averaged 37 points, 11.7 rebounds and 8.7 assists in those final three games, including a triple-double in the series’ dramatic Game 7. Irving put up 30 points, 4.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in that span, and everyone in the rotation contributed to the historic comeback.
How historic?
Even if the Cleveland Browns win a Super Bowl or the Guardians a World Series, the Cavs’ NBA championship will be on the Mount Rushmore of Cleveland sports because they not only made history locally, but set a standard in the NBA.
Thank Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
George M. Thomas covers a myriad of things including sports and pop culture, but mostly sports, he thinks, for the Beacon Journal.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Cavs fans can thank Draymond Green, Klay Thompson for 2016 NBA title
Reporting by George M. Thomas, Akron Beacon Journal / Akron Beacon Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By George M. Thomas, Akron Beacon Journal | USA TODAY Network
