Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Cavaliers-Warriors rivalry is an NBA rivalry between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors that became prominent in the mid-to-late 2010s. The two teams met in four consecutive NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, with the Warriors winning three championships and the Cavaliers winning one.
The Cavaliers and Warriors first met in the NBA Finals in 2015, when Golden State won the series after Cleveland lost Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving to injuries. Andre Iguodala was named Finals MVP of that series.
The Cavaliers won their first championship in 2016 by coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the Finals, the first team in NBA history to do so. LeBron James recorded a triple-double and was unanimously named Finals MVP in the 93-89 Game 7 victory.
Kevin Durant signed with Golden State as a free agent on the 4th of July, 2016, after leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder. He helped the Warriors beat Cleveland in both the 2017 and 2018 NBA Finals, winning Finals MVP each time.
Golden State holds the all-time edge in the Cavaliers-Warriors rivalry, leading the combined regular season and postseason series 84-64. The Warriors also lead the postseason series record 3-1 across their four NBA Finals meetings.
LeBron James left the Cavaliers for the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2018 offseason, marking his second departure from Cleveland. That 2018 series was the last one he played for the Cavaliers, and he would face Golden State's Kevin Durant again in the 2026 playoffs, by then with Durant on the Houston Rockets.