"The Stack" 6-13-17

The NBA Finals are over and the NBA season has finally come to an end. The Golden State Warriors have won the NBA championship. The Stack is back on this Tuesday with reaction to the entertaining game five and more so let’s get right to it and see what’s in “the stack” for today, Tuesday, June 13th:

Warriors win NBA Championship

The Golden State Warriors are NBA champions for the second time in three years. A pretty entertaining game saw the Warriors pull away late and Steph Curry put the dagger in the Cleveland Cavaliers with a three pointer in the corner. The Cavaliers came out ready to play though in this one. LeBron James was playing great and the Cavs had an eight point lead, 41-33, in the second quarter. That is when the Warriors took off and went on a 30-8 run. Kevin Durant was tremendous. Curry was playing great. Even Andre Iguodala was getting in the mix with some great cuts and finding himself wide open for some dunks. The Cavs once up eight found themselves down by eleven in the blink of an eye. It looked like it was getting worse as the quarter went on, but the Cavs righted the ship a bit and kept the gap at eleven points, 71-60 headed into the half.

James and company were not going to go away quietly. Multiple times in the third quarter they made runs to cut the Warriors lead to four or five only to see the Warriors respond. Even though the Warriors got into foul trouble in the quarter, they kept hanging on. Kevin Durant would not let them falter. He was absolutely incredible in this game and the entire series. More on him momentarily.

Eventually the Warriors would pull away in the fourth quarter. They entered the quarter with only a five point lead, 98-93. They would keep pushing that lead though thanks to Durant who kept making shots and Curry who dropped some threes and drove in and made some layups. Their defense was better and wouldn’t let Kyrie Irving do what he wanted to. James tried to keep the team in it, but alas, they could not. The Warriors would go on to win 129-120 and there was a huge celebration going on in Oracle Arena.

Durant had 39 points and was the MVP. Well deserved on his part. He was absolutely phenomenal in this series. Curry had 34 points and dropped ten dimes (assists). And Iguodala, the Finals MVP a couple of years ago had 20 points off the bench. The bench was ultimately the difference in this game. The Warriors got production from their bench. The Cavs did not. James had 41 points and 13 rebounds along with eight assists. Irving had 26 points and J.R. Smith added 25 points, but the bench did absolutely nothing. The Cavs got just seven points from their bench. Seven! The Warriors meanwhile got 35 points from their bench. That’s a five-to-one ratio. Bench contribution was huge. Free throw shooting also contributed to the Cavs losing this game. They were 15 of 23 from the charity stripe while the Warriors were 23 of 28. If you want to beat the Warriors and force a game six, you have to make your free throws and the Cavs simply did not. Bench points and free throws went a long way in determining this game and Warriors ultimately coming away with the NBA championship.

When Kevin Durant left OKC for Golden State, I didn’t like it. I still don’t really. I think this title while albeit enhances his legacy still comes a little more cheap than had he done this with the Thunder. He made the right decision though and he played extremely well. No, not extremely well, but great. One of the best Finals performances in recent memory, maybe ever. He backed it up. Without a doubt he was the best player on the Warriors in this series and the difference in them winning this series in five games versus losing in seven games last year. He is one of the top three players in the league right now and he is vindicated for leaving for the Warriors last offseason by putting together one of the best series we have seen. He’s the difference. He played like it. This is a well-deserved championship for Mr. Durant. While I didn’t like that he left for the Bay, I didn’t have nearly as big a problem with him leaving as I did when James left for South Beach in large part because of “The Decision” and he joined forces with Dewayne Wade and Chris Bosh to form a super team. The Warriors already had Curry and Thompson. They drafted both of them. This was already a great team. Durant just made them that much better and helped them win the NBA Championship on homecourt.

The NBA season has now come to an end for which I am thankful for. And I can already proclaim that unless something changes drastically across the landscape of the NBA in free agency, these same two teams will be meeting again in the NBA Finals next year.

Twins surprise with number one pick

The Minnesota Twins had the first pick in the 2017 MLB Draft Monday night and it seemed like there were three picks for them to choose from. High school phenom Hunter Greene was a possibility along with Louisville two-way player Brendan McKay and Vanderbilt’s Kyle Wright. The Twins did not select any of them, instead taking high school shortstop Royce Lewis first overall. Perhaps this isn’t a surprise to some of the baseball experts out there or those close to the Twins organization. I know Aaron Gleeman from Baseball Prospectus thought they would take Lewis or at least so he says. This is still kind of shocking though for Twins fans I imagine. Lewis had four homeruns and 25 stolen bases this season. The Twins took him over Greene and they better hope this pans out, because it seemed like they had a lot of good options to choose from and they took Lewis over the other three I previously mentioned.

Overall, the first three picks of the draft were all high school players. First time that has happened since 1990. McKay ended up going number four to the Tampa Bay Rays and Wright went number five to the Atlanta Braves. Interesting first night of the MLB Draft.

As the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup Final have come to an end, our blog posts will be shorter and fewer throughout the summer. Keep checking back, but the likelihood is that two to three posts a week will be the norm through the middle to end of August when college football and the NFL get back into action. Of course if there is a big story in the sports world, we will be sure to write about it and post it. Thank you for your patronage and continued support in reading this blog.

Coming up later this week: Reaction to top stories/headlines in sports