Cleveland Cavaliers' Historic 2016 NBA Finals Comeback

On June nineteenth, twenty and sixteen, the Cleveland Cavaliers do something no one has ever done in the NBA Finals ever. Before being down three to one, they win three straight games to capture their very first NBA title. We're gonna dive in to this team and this historic comeback today on Daily Sports History. This episode is brought to you by Our Weird World. Every week, I John Henson dive into weird, crazy and forgotten stories from the history books that you have probably never heard before. I try to put some humor into it, or maybe I just come off sounding like a dick. That's really up for you to decide. But join me every Monday, subscribe everywhere that you get your podcasts. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Reese, your guide to a rapid deep dive into sports history every day. And today's trivia question to listen out for what is the most washed NBA game ever? And today we're gonna head back to twenty sixteen, and this year, Beyonce comes out with her trademark Lemonade album and is ruling the airwaves. And Leonardo DiCaprio finally wins his first Oscar for the reveident, and Netflix gets its first cultural show in Stranger Things being released, and for the first time in a long time, Broadway takes dinner stage as the play Hamilton becomes a cultural phenomenon, and Donald Trump gets elected into the White House, and the NBA enters its seventieth season and heading into the season and coming into this season, the question was would Golden State be able to repeat for winning the twenty fifteen NBA title and who else could come out of the East besides the Lebron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love led Cavaliers. So coming into the season, the Cleveland Cavaliers were the favorite to win the East and compete for another NBA title, but they didn't mean they didn't have struggles as there was tension between the head coach, David Blatt and their star Lebron James, and on January twenty second, they fired David Blatt and promoted assistant coach former NBA player Tyrone lou who helped lead them to a fifty seven and twenty five record, which was good enough for the number one seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs where they would meet up against the Tobias Harris led Detroit Pistons, who they would sweep in four games, and in the second round they would face the Jeff t and Auhrford led Atlanta Hawks, who they would also sweep. Facing off against the number two seed that year, the Toronto Raptors led by Kyle Lowry and Damar de Rosa, who would give them the biggest challenge up to that point in the playoffs, taking them to six games, but again Lebron James would help lead the way, averaging twenty six points over eight rebounds in six to six in the series, setting up a rematch of the previous year's final against Golden State. Now Golden State had just won their first title. The previous year. Golden State was being led by Steve Kerr and went on to do something no one had ever done in NBA history when they won seventy three regular season games, beating the record of the nineteen ninety five ninety six Chicago Bulls of seventy two games. They entered the season as heavy favorites to win it all again, and they won their first twenty four games, which was another NBA record. After this season, Steve Kerr would be named Coach of the Year and Stephen Curry would be the first unanimous NBA MVP in NBA history, and his running mates Draymond Green and Klay Thompson were both were both All Stars and All NBA players, and Andre Igudala was voted the sixth Man of the Year. This team was stacked, having all their players at their prime, and they showed it throughout the entire season and in the first round of the playoffs, they faced off against the eighth seed Houston Rockets, defeating them in five games, and in the second round they came up against Damian Lillard and CJ McCollums Portland Trailblazers, defeating them in five games as well. Despite these first two rounds, Steph Curry with injuries to his ankle and knee, but they were able to make it to the Western Conference Finals, facing off against Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook's Oklahoma City Thunder, the three seed that year, coming back down three to one in the series to win in seven games to set up the rematch against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Now. The first game took place in Oakland, California, where the Warriors took control of this game, leading by four after the first quarter and nine at halftime, but the Cavaliers would end up coming back in the third quarter to take the lead sixty eight sixty seven, but the Warriors went on a twenty nine to nine run, giving them a twenty point lead that they would not give back, being led by their backup point guard in points, Sean Livingston scoring twenty points that game. Despite Kyrie Irving scoring twenty six points and Lebron James almost having a triple double, being one assist, a shy Golden State took the game. In Game two, the Cavaliers wanted to come out to try to even the series. They came out with a two point lead after the end of the first quarter and had as many of US a six point lead with two minutes left in the second quarter, but Golden State went on a twenty to two run, giving them the lead at halftime, and they would not look back as they destroyed the Cavaliers with the final score of one ten to seventy seven, scoring by Draymond Green. In Game three, headed to Ohio, where Cleveland took control, leading by seventeen points at the end of the first quarter and would take an eight point lead into halftime. And despite not having Kevin Love in this game due to a concussion, Lebron James and Kyrie both scored over thirty points to help lead the Calves to a thirty point victory one twenty to ninety to take the series two to one. But Game four would be Steph Curry's coming out party for the series, as he would go on to score thirty eight points, hitting seven to three pointers, and the Warriors as a team made seventeen to three pointers, which it was the first time ever in Finals history that a team made more three pointers than they did two point shots, and despite this greatness, the Calves were able to keep the game close throughout the game until the fourth quarter, when the Golden State Warriors separated themselves in the closing minute, taking the win one eight to ninety seven with a culture with a controversial ending where Lebron James stepped over Draymond Green and Draymond appeared to try to hit James in the ground, which caused Draymond to be suspended for the next game, But the Warriors still felt confident as they were up three to one and no NBA team has ever come back in the Finals three to one and so they headed back to Golden State for Game five, and in this game, and in this game, Lebron James, along with his teammate Kyrie Irving, took over as each of them scored forty one points, making it the first time in NBA Finals a history that two players on the same team scored over forty points in the same game, and they really took advantage of Draymond Green being suspended for the game as well as Andrew Boget, the Warriors sinner suffering a season ending knee injury, which caused them to dominate the paint and take the win one to twelve to ninety seven, closing the gap where Golden State now only led three to two. Now, the Cavs took this momentum with them back home for Game six, where they got off to a dominant first quarter where they took a twenty point lead, leading thirty one to eleven, a total that the Warriors just could not come back from. Despite having Draymond Green back for this game, Lebron Games again took over, scoring forty one points in back to back games, and towards the end of the game, the Warriors MVP, Steph Curry was frustrated and threw his mouthpiece and got ejected, and the Cavaliers won one fifteen to one a one, tying the series heading into a Game seven at Golden State where the winner would be crowned champions. And this was the closest game of the series as there was twenty lead changes in eleven ties and it was the only time in the series that the winning margin was less than ten points. At halftime, the Warriors had a seven point lead and heading into the second half, the Cavaliers jumped on the Warriors, bringing into a one point game going into the fourth quarter, which was a defensive struggle as the Cavaliers only scored eighteen but the Warriors only scored thirteen points and they did not score a bucket for the final four minutes of the game, including a iconic moment where the Warriors stole the ball and Andre Ugadala, the Warriors sixth man, was on his way to make a fast break layup and Lebron James blocks him from the back so they would keep their lead, and this led to them winning the title with the score of ninety three to eighty nine, becoming the first team in NBA history to come back in the NBA Finals down three to one in the series and gave Cleveland their very first NBA title, and it was the first championship in Cleveland in fifty two years, as they had not won a title since the Cleveland Browns won the nineteen sixty four NFL Championship. And they became the first team since the nineteen seventy eight Washington Bullets to win the NBA Finals Game seven on the road, and they went on to win the spis for the Best Game for their Game seven, which ended up being the third most watched NBA Finals game of all time with over thirty one million people watching. The top two were done by the Bulls when they finished their three beats in the Game six of nineteen ninety three versus the Phoenix Suns and the Bulls Final Championship Game Game six versus the Utah Jazz in nineteen ninety nine, which had over thirty five million people watching. This just showed that you if you never give up, sometimes things can go your way. Because the Caps could easily just sat down and lost in five games like they did the year before, but they didn't sit down. They fought called their way back to winning a championship for the first time. And I want to thank you guys for listening to today's Daily Sports History. And I want to thank Brian Bilac, Nick Harry and Douglas Dody for suggesting this topic. And if you want us to cover a topic that you love in sports, please leave us a review wherever you're listening, give us your name and the topic you would like us to cover, and we'll get that done just for you. And come back tomorrow for more Daily Sports History. And did you catch the answer to today's trivia question, what was the most watched NBA final game of all time? It was the nineteen ninety eight Game six finale where Michael Jordan hit the shot to give them to give Michael Jordan his sixth championship, where over thirty five million people were watching Fie