Cavaliers beat the Warriors on Christmas: 3 things to know

A rematch of one of the greatest Finals in NBA history, the Christmas Day matchup between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers delivered plenty more drama.

Everyone plays a little harder for a national television game. Multiply that by two when the game happens to fall on Christmas Day. Multiply it by a thousand when you’re playing your arch-nemesis. This game doesn’t mean much for the standings but it obviously carried an enormous emotional weight for both the Cavaliers and the Warriors.

After a tense fourth quarter comeback that featured plenty of heroics — thunderous dunks from Richard Jefferson, another from LeBron James, and a clutch layup from Kyrie Irving — the Cavaliers were able to squeak out a 109-108 win. There will be plenty to dissect from this game, but here are a few snapshot reactions.

3. You can argue all you want about which team is better and what exactly was proved in this game. While the Cavaliers can clearly hang with Golden State, they also have a much smaller margin for error. A lot went wrong for the Warriors — Draymond Green got in early foul trouble and only played 12 minutes in the first half, Curry and Durant were 4-of-15 on 3-pointers. Sure, the Cavaliers were without J.R. Smith and Iman Shumpert and Richard Jefferson were pretty terrible outside of those highlight dunks. But it’s easy to imagine the Warriors playing a lot better than they did tonight. It’s kind of hard to visualize the Cavaliers hitting another gear. Although, I suppose when you’ve won four in a row over a historically great team, maybe the gear you’re driving in is just fine.

2. As much as the Warriors belong to anyone (and as much as the hypothetical idea of an alpha actually matters), I think you can argue that the Golden Warriors belong to Kevin Durant. Again, this is an argument about emotional semantics but Durant leads the team in scoring and was the offensive focal point throughout this game. It seems clear that the gravity of Durant has become the primary foundation for the Warriors’ offense. I think that’s probably a good thing in the long run, but it’s something new for tight games.

1. These teams play again on January 16 and then, if the universe is in balance, we’ll see them again for a seven-game series on the NBA Finals. These teams are both incredible. They are balanced. They are evenly matched. They are everything we could ask for.