It was several years ago when the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors last met in the NBA Finals. Those Cavs-Dubs finals matchups in the latter part of the 2010s continue to be talked about these days, and that’s going to be the case for a long time.
The Cavaliers and the Warriors met in each of the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, all of which featured LeBron James and Stephen Curry. Another future Basketball Hall of Famer in Kevin Durant joined the fray in 2017 after he signed with the Warriors in 2016.
All three basketball superstars recently sat down together and discussed that memorable stretch, with James even comparing it to the East Coast vs. West Coast rap rivalry, which peaked in the 1990s.
“Those four straight years, Cleveland versus Golden State… It was literally like East Coast versus West Coast… It was like a rap beef,” the four-time NBA Most Valuable Player said, via ESPN.
The Cavs and Warriors had a legendary NBA Finals run
Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
The finals rivalry between the two franchises started in 2015 with the Warriors beating James and the Cavaliers in six games. It can also be recalled that James was practically left on his own to carry the Cavaliers in that series with Kevin Love unable to participate in the finals because of a shoulder injury and Kyrie Irving playing just a game against the Warriors due to a knee injury he suffered in Game 1.
The following year, the Cavs got their revenge in historic fashion. Down 3-1 in the NBA Finals, the Cavs mounted a come-from-behind series win, forcing a Game 7 and winning the deciding matchup on the road. With that incredible finals win, the Cavaliers became the first team in the history of the NBA to overcome a 3-1 series deficit in the NBA Finals.
Golden State would later seek the help of Durant following the painful collapse in the 2016 NBA Finals. Durant inked a two-year deal contract worth $54.3 million in the offseason, giving the Warriors a top-tier offensive weapon to add to their already formidable machine powered by the Splash Brothers of Curry and Klay Thompson. In the 2017 NBA Finals, the Durant-infused Warriors proved to be too much for James and the Cavaliers, who lost the series in five games. In 2018, the two franchises met for the last time in the NBA Finals, with the Dubs shutting out the Cavs, 4-0.
