Make no mistake about it, the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers have a rivalry. Having met in two straight Finals, and a third consecutive showdown looking likely, it's clear the two teams have developed a dislike for each other.
The two 'superteams' met for the first time this season in a pulsating Christmas day encounter which the Cavs won in the final minute - their fourth win in a row over the Dubs.
LeBron James famously trolled the Warriors with his Halloween decorations several months ago as he wanted to remind the world that Cleveland came back from a 3-1 deficit to win their first championship.
The cross-conference rivals meet for the final time in the regular season on Monday and Klay Thompson admits that LeBron's Halloween antics didn't go down well with them, but they prefer to handle their business on the court.
"It's obviously not respectful, so it's got to be on the other side of the spectrum, so that's fine with us," he said. "They can do that childish stuff. It doesn't matter to us. All we've got to do is handle it on the court, you know?
"I still think we need to play with more of an edge next time we see them ... I mean when we won the championship, though, we didn't do some stuff like that.
"But that's OK. People are built differently. We're not going to - I'm not going to hold it against them. I'm just going to go out there, and we just want to beat them down next time we see them.
"It's a good rivalry, and it's good for the NBA. It makes it more fun, you know? It's rare in pro sports you get rivalries like this, so we enjoy it, and we embrace it."
Unfortunately, Monday's matchup at the Oracle Arena will be the last time we see the two franchises square up until a potential finals rematch.
If the thriller on Christmas was anything to go by, we'll be in for another treat.
No comments:
Post a Comment