NBA Finals: Cavaliers at Warriors Game One

Cavs at Warriors
8:00 pm CDT
ABC

The Finals are here, and present a match up of the teams that dominated their conferences this season. The Warriors are looking to cap off a historically great season with their second consecutive title, while the Cavs are looking for revenge for last season's Finals loss that featured injuries to vital players in their rotation.

Much smarter and more plugged in people than me have written about this series, and I commend you to both SB Nation sites: Fear the Sword for the Cavs perspective, and Golden State of Mind repping the Warriors. The indispensible Zach Lowe went deep on various match ups and combinations at ESPN and picked the Warriors in seven.

As I've said elsewhere, I enter these Finals excited, but neutral. Either team winning would be a terrific story. The Warriors are looking to enter the pantheon as it were, with back to back titles sandwiching the most regular season wins in league history. They were challenged hard by the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals and came through when it mattered most, erasing a 3-1 series deficit to get here.

The Cavs represent a city famous for its sports failures, and LeBron James has spoken openly about wanting to win for his (almost) home city. James, already unquestionably one of the top handful of players in NBA history, will look to burnish his legend even further with his third overall title. The fact that he is appearing in his 6th consecutive Finals is an incredible accomplishment, and winning this one over a staggeringly good Warriors team would be perhaps the peak moment of his spectacular career.

I know opinions vary here, but I would also like to see Kevin Love play well and have a big impact on this series. It's going to be tough, because teams have been exploiting the Kyrie Irving-Love pick and roll defense and the Warriors are better equipped than anyone to make mince-meat out of defenses, especially ones that can't effectively switch, which is a big problem for the Cavs duo. Still, a big series from Love would be great to see.

Anyway, it all gets started tonight. Enjoy it and chat about it right here.