Mitch Perry
Congratulations to the city of Cleveland and fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers worldwide, after they defeated the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals last night, 93-89, bringing the city their first sports championship in 52 years.
OK, that wasn’t too difficult for me to type.
As a lifelong Warriors fan, it’s a crushing feeling, having the team with the best regular season in history coming up just short, but the fact is, the better team won.
Although the series was hardly an aesthetic classic, last night’s championship game was taut with tension throughout, and remained tied at 89 apiece with less than two minutes to go.
That’s when it looked like the Dubs were about to go up as Steph Curry fed Andre Iguodala on the right lane for a sure layup.
And then LeBron happened. “The Chosen One” flew across the other side of the court to swat away the Iggy layup. The Cavs Kyrie Irving then made a three-pointer with less than a minute to go. Curry missed his three-pointer and, a moment later, it was all over.
James is being hailed this morning for bringing his team back from a 3-1 deficit, and he deserves all the praise, and being named the MVP of the series for his incredible stats and leadership. Much maligned throughout his career for frankly simply NOT being Michael Jordan, James gave haters a free pass six years ago when he bolted Cleveland for Miami, and did it in a way that rubbed a lot of folks wrong, many of them in Cleveland.
His return to the team in 2014 was when LeBron won back the love from many fans and media members, and his bringing a championship to “The Land,” will make him a hero to many forever.
Now, about my Warriors.
They’ve been brilliant for the past two years, and beloved — perhaps too much — by the sports media. When you get on the cover of The New York Times Magazine and your owner says you’re changing the game, well, you’re setting yourself up for some serious backlash.
“We’ve crushed them on the basketball court, and we’re going to for years because of the way we’ve built this team,” team owner Joe Lacob told the magazine in April. “We’re light-years ahead of probably every other team in structure, in planning, in how we’re going to go about things.”
Uh-oh. You knew that was setting themselves up for a fall.
Let it begin now. Curry had a subpar series, and he will come under intense criticism for that, some deserved. There’s no doubt James took it to him over the past three games, proving to everyone that though Curry might be the two-time MVP, King James still reigns supreme as the best basketball player on the planet.
In other news …
We were in Hollywood (Florida, not Cali) for the Florida Democratic Party’s Leadership Blue Gala, and filed lots of reports, including the big event on Saturday night.
Patrick Murphy blasted Marco Rubio, calling him “the most homophobic member of the U.S. Senate.”
Murphy unveiled his proposal to reform the criminal justice system Saturday, with Cory Booker and Jim Clyburn standing beside him.
By the way, don’t ask Booker if the Hillary Clinton campaign is vetting him for vice president.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee is ready for Marco Rubio.
Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine says if it were up to him, assault weapons would be illegal in the U.S.
And David Jolly made it official on Friday — he’s leaving the Senate race to concentrate on defeating Charlie Crist in his CD 13 seat.
