Overview

The 2017 NBA Finals is the championship series for the National Basketball Association's 2016-2017 season. The first team to win 4 games wins the championship. In the series, the Golden State Warriors are facing the Cleveland Cavaliers for the third straight season.

Background

For the third straight season, the Cleveland Cavaliers, led by star basketball player Lebron James, are facing the Golden State Warriors, led by their star, Steph Curry, in the championship series. Each team has won one championship series thus far, making this season's series the de facto tiebreaker. In the previous series, Cleveland won the championship by beating a Warriors team that had set a record for wins in the regular season and blew a 3-1 lead in the finals. In the playoffs leading up to the finals, the Cavaliers only lost one game of the 13 they played total, and the Warriors didn't lose any of their 12.

Developments

Game 1

Game 1 of the series took place in Golden State's Oracle Arena on June 1st, 2017. After a close first half, the Warriors pulled away in the second half and won 113-91.^[1]

Outcome

The Warriors easily won Game 2 and won a close Game 3, putting them up 3-0 in the series. Cleveland won Game 4, which started whispers of a repeat of last year's historic Warriors collapse, but the Warriors won Game 5 129-120 to win the series. Warriors small forward Kevin Durant, a superstar player who controversially left Oklahoma City to join the already star-studded Warriors before the season, was named Finals MVP.

Related Memes

Lebron Dunk Face

In the first quarter of Game 1, Lebron James hit a one-handed dunk. After the dunk, his face became a subject of Twitter jokes through the rest of the game, making Twitter Moments^[2] the following morning.

Curry High Kick

Later in Game 1, the Warriors' Steph Curry celebrated hitting a 3-point shot by kicking high in the air. This too became a source of jokes on Twitter through the game that was also covered by Twitter Moments^[3] the following day.

Thompson-West Kiss

In the first half of Game 5, Warriors player David West and Cavaliers player Tristan Thompson got into a physical altercation. Though no punches were thrown, the two players shouted in each other's faces and inadvertently touched faces.

This led to several jokes on Twitter about how it appeared that West and Thompson had kissed. These were covered by The Fader,^[4] SB Nation,^[5] Business Insider,^[6] and more.

Search Interest

External References