Cleveland Cavaliers beat Golden State Warriors in game 5

Cleveland Cavaliers beat Golden State Warriors in Game 5 of the NBA finals could be reasonably traced to Game 4, three days and three time zones removed. That was when and where LeBron James tangled with Draymond Green, which eventually led to a foul on Green that kept him out of Game 5 with a suspension.

And without Green around to verbally harass and defensively challenge James, the Golden State Warriors lost their spunk as James scored 41 points and pulled down 16 rebounds to lead the Cavaliers to a 112-97 victory on Monday.

Kyrie Irving added 41 points of his own, creating a two-man attack that the cold-shooting Warriors could not contain and could not match. James and Irving became the first teammates to score 40 or more points in a finals game.

“It’s probably one of the greatest performances I’ve ever seen, live,” James said.

The Cavaliers, who trail the best-of-seven series by 3 games to 2, kept the Warriors from clinching their second-straight N.B.A. title and dragged the series back to Cleveland for Game 6 on Thursday.

Playing a physical game filled with hard fouls, sprawling bodies and constant arguments with officials, the Cavaliers turned a halftime tie into a blowout victory. They slowly deflated a crowd expecting a coronation for a team that won a record 73 regular-season games and beat the Cavaliers in Games 1 and 2 by a combined 48 points, the largest differential for the first two games in finals history.

The Warriors were led by Klay Thompson’s 37 points, and his “Splash Brother,” Stephen Curry, added 25. But they got uneven contributions from teammates, and the Warriors shot just 36.4 percent from the field. The best 3-point shooting team in history shot just 3 of 21 from behind the 3-point line in the second half.

“I like our chances going forward,” Curry said.

The Cavaliers hope that they could bring a long-awaited championship to a title-starved city. The Cavaliers have not won an N.B.A. title in their 46-season history, and Cleveland has not won a major league sports championship since the Browns won the N.F.L. title in 1964.

If they should end that curse, however, the Cavaliers would have to win twice more, including a Game 7 back at Oracle Arena on Sunday.

The Warriors, whose 50 home victories in the regular season and the playoffs tied an N.B.A. record, now look to repeat their winning methods of last year, when they clinched the championship in a Game 6 victory in Cleveland.

They will do it, presumably, with Green in the lineup. On Monday, he was not allowed inside Oracle Arena and watched the game next door at Oakland Coliseum, where the A’s played a baseball game. His hope was to sprint into the arena after the final buzzer to take part in a championship celebration that did not happen.

For Game 5, the Warriors owner Joe Lacob was among the fans wearing a Green jersey. Some held oversize cardboard cutouts of Green’s face. A “Free Draymond” chant percolated through the crowd now and again. James was booed whenever he had the ball, which was often, and sometimes sustained the boos long after he gave it up.

Andre Iguodala, the most valuable player of last year’s finals, started in Green’s place and scored the game’s first basket on a break after stealing the ball from James. By the time the first quarter ended, he had 8 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 steals, the kind of score-sheet smorgasbord Green often supplies. Iguodala finished with 15 points, 11 rebounds and 6 assists.

The Warriors had a 32-29 lead after the first quarter, but with James resting, the Cavaliers began the second quarter with a 7-0 run. Intensity grew and the game turned more physical, testing the officials as bodies banged and sprawled in desperation. Thompson unknotted the scrums with a barrage of 3-pointers. The lead changed several times, and by the time the half ended on a last-second miss by James, it was tied, 61-61.

No side has come back from 3-1 down to win the Finals but the Cavaliers will feel they now have the momentum on their home court on Thursday to take it to a decider on Sunday.

By game’s end, James and Irving were on the bench, their season extended. The seats at Oracle Arena were emptying quickly, and there was no sign of Green running over for a celebration.