No team has ever come back from down 3-1 to win the NBA Finals. The Cleveland Cavaliers know this full well and are very likely in a world of trouble at this point. The Golden State Warriors are very likely celebrating a championship on their home court on Monday night in Game 5 of the Finals, though LeBron James and company will do their best to try to prevent that from happening.
NBA Finals Odds at BookMaker.eu
Cleveland Cavaliers +8
Golden State Warriors -8
Over/Under 206.5
SERIES UPDATE
The Warriors set an NBA Finals record with 17 made three-pointers on Friday night, and if they end up playing like that in Game 5, this series will be as good as over with.
Even though Golden State wasn't at its best over the course of the first three games of the series, it still held serve here at Oracle Arena and took one of the two games at Quicken Loans Arena. That's about all you can ask for at this point out of the champs, and that's why they're one win away from claiming their second straight title.
The good news for Cleveland is that Kevin Love was able to play in Game 4 after missing Game 3 thanks to a concussion, though it's tough to say he played all that much of a role. He scored 11 points off the bench and had five rebounds, but he was incredibly quiet for most of the time he was on the floor.
KEY MATCHUP
The Splash Brothers have officially turned it on for the first time in this series. Neither Klay Thompson nor Stephen Curry scored 20 points in a game in Games 1, 2 and 3, the first time these two have combined to go three games in which both were healthy this year that neither one scored 20 or more points.
In Game 4 though, both were on fire, as they combined to go 18-of-39 from the field and 11-of-22 from long range. Curry scored 38 points, while Thompson had 25. If these two men are combining to score in the 60s in this one, Cleveland is going to be in a lot of trouble, knowing that six of the eight halves in the Finals have been horrendous offensively.
KEY STATS
Cleveland's big problem in Game 4 was its lack of offensive production in the second half. The Cavaliers shot 48 percent from the field in the first half and scored 55 points. In the second half, they scored 29 points in the first 20 minutes of the half before racking up some relatively easy buckets in the dying moments when the Warriors were just trying to close out the game.
Live bettors need to be really careful about who is shooting the basketball for the Cavaliers. James really isn't an outside shooter at all at this point in his career, as he badly needs to get to the rack and score. J.R. Smith also can't shoot 3-of-10 again, nor can Kyrie Irving shoot the ball as poorly as he did in the fourth quarter.
The other big issue here is the quantity of minutes the starters played for the Cavs. Smith, Irving and James each played at least 44 minutes, and James was on the floor for 46 of the 48. We're not really fond of the answer Tyronn Lue gave in his postgame interview suggesting that James is going to play as many minutes as he needs to in order to keep Cleveland in this series.
James might be a man child, but he's also a human. He looked gassed at the end of the fourth quarter, and when the Cavs needed threes to come back, it almost looked as if he was just content to get to the bucket and score the easy deuce instead of trying to get his legs under him for long range shots. If that turns out to be the case in Game 5, live bettors should get ready for the Dubs to run away in this game like they did at the ends of Games 1, 2 and 4.
BookMaker offers play-by-play betting odds for live sporting events every day! The user-friendly wagering interface on your smartphone provides an easy way to place bets on the go.
Mobile betting lines are updated by the minute, so click here to start gambling on thrilling live action at BookMaker Sportsbook! The matchup between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Golden State Warriors will go down Monday, June 13, 2016 at 9:00 p.m. ET at Oracle Arena. Game 5 of the NBA Finals will be televised live on ABC.
