2018 NBA Finals

• 1. The Missed Free Throw

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  The 2018 NBA Finals opened on the 31st of May with the score tied at 107 and fewer than five seconds remaining in Game 1. George Hill of the Cleveland Cavaliers stepped to the free throw line with a chance to win. His first attempt went in. His second did not. Teammate J.R. Smith grabbed the offensive rebound and dribbled toward half court, making no effort to shoot. Cleveland's coach, Tyronn Lue, said afterward that Smith thought the Cavaliers were already leading. Smith disputed this, saying he had expected a timeout to be called. No timeout came. The game went to overtime, where the Warriors outscored the Cavaliers 17-7 and won.

  This was the fourth consecutive NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers. No championship matchup had repeated four straight times in any of North America's four major professional sports leagues. For LeBron James, the series was his eighth consecutive Finals appearance. His run of Finals trips had begun in 2011 when he was playing for the Miami Heat. The Warriors were widely described by sports media as one of the biggest NBA Finals favorites in recent history. Cleveland had made two separate rounds of roster changes in the months before the series. When the Finals began, several of the Cavaliers' players had joined the team just months earlier.

• 2. The Offseason Decisions

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  In the summer of 2017, the Golden State Warriors committed to keeping their championship roster intact. Kevin Durant was re-signed on a two-year contract worth $53 million. Stephen Curry received a five-year extension worth $201 million. Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, Zaza Pachulia, and David West all returned, and guard Nick Young was acquired as a free agent. Golden State finished the regular season at 58-24, winning the Pacific Division and earning the second seed in the Western Conference.

  The road to the Finals required seven games against the top-seeded Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals. Before reaching Houston, the Warriors had dismissed the San Antonio Spurs in five games and the New Orleans Pelicans in five more.

  Kyrie Irving requested a trade from Cleveland before the 2017-18 season even started, despite LeBron James' opposition to the idea. The Cavaliers sent Irving to the Boston Celtics for Isaiah Thomas, Jae Crowder, center Ante Žižić, and future draft picks. Thomas then failed his physical, and Miami's 2020 second-round pick was added to the exchange as compensation. Dwyane Wade also signed with Cleveland, reuniting with James from their time together on the Miami Heat's Big Three roster. Derrick Rose joined on a one-year contract.

  On the 8th of February 2018, just before the trade deadline, the Cavaliers remade their lineup again in just over an hour. The new arrivals were George Hill, Rodney Hood, Jordan Clarkson, and Larry Nance Jr. They came in exchange for Thomas, Rose, Crowder, Wade, Channing Frye, Iman Shumpert, and Cleveland's own first-round pick. Multiple writers argued at the time that the transactions made the Cavaliers significantly better.

  Cleveland finished 50-32 and earned the fourth seed in the Eastern Conference. The Cavaliers needed seven games to eliminate the Indiana Pacers in the first round. They swept the top-seeded Toronto Raptors in the conference semifinals, then needed seven more games to get past the Boston Celtics. The Warriors had gone 2-0 against Cleveland in the regular season, giving them home-court advantage when the Finals opened in Oakland.

• 3. Fifty-One Points

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  James left Game 1 having just produced the highest point total ever recorded by a losing player in NBA Finals history. The total was 51, a figure no Finals player had reached since 1993 and the fifth-highest total in Finals history across all results. Despite that performance, the Cavaliers lost in overtime.

  After the game, James walked to the locker room and punched a whiteboard. The blow left him with a bone contusion in his hand. He kept the injury private for the rest of the series.

  The Warriors adjusted in Game 2 by sending more double teams at James, holding him to 29 points. Cleveland managed only 41 percent shooting from the field overall and went 9-for-27 from three-point range, a rate of 33.3 percent.

  In Game 4, Golden State led 61-52 at halftime, expanded that margin in the third quarter, and entered the final period ahead 86-65. With Golden State leading 102-77 and 4:03 remaining, James came out of the game. The crowd gave him a standing ovation. Across all 22 games of the 2018 playoffs, he averaged 34.0 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 9.0 assists. Many observers, including James himself, have since named the 2018 postseason the finest stretch of his playoff career. It was also, though few knew it at the time, his last game in a Cleveland uniform.

• 4. Durant's Dagger

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  Kevin Durant averaged 28.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 7.5 assists per game across the four games. He earned the Finals MVP award for the second consecutive year. He received seven of the eleven ballots; Stephen Curry received the other four.

  In Game 2, Curry set an NBA Finals record by making nine three-point field goals in a single game. He scored 33 points in that contest. Durant added 26 points, nine rebounds, and seven assists. Klay Thompson scored 20 as well, giving Golden State three players above 20 points.

  Game 3 produced Durant's highest scoring total in any playoff game. Durant scored 43 points, a career playoff high, with 13 rebounds and seven assists. With 49.8 seconds left in regulation, he launched a three-pointer over James to push the lead to 106-100. It was nearly the same shot he had made over James in the same situation in Game 3 of the previous year's Finals. Golden State won 110-102 to take a 3-0 series lead. Curry missed 13 of his first 14 shot attempts that night, and the Warriors still won. The Cavaliers shot 3-for-17 from three-point range in the second half.

  In Game 4, Durant recorded a triple-double with 20 points, 12 rebounds, and 10 assists. Curry scored 37 points and made seven three-pointers in the same game. Golden State won 108-85. Durant became the first player in Warriors franchise history to win the Finals MVP in back-to-back years. He was also the first player in NBA history to earn the award in his first two seasons with a team. The series broke the NBA Finals record for average scoring differential per game; the 2014 Finals had held that mark, and the 2018 series eclipsed it with an average margin of 15.0 points. The last Finals sweep before this one had occurred in 2007. At the victory parade that followed, the first signs of the dynasty's disintegration had begun to show.

• 5. Cracks in the Dynasty

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  At the Warriors' victory parade on the 12th of June in Downtown Oakland, team announcer Bob Fitzgerald served as master of ceremonies. Fitzgerald asked general manager Bob Myers whether Durant could have whatever contract he wanted the following year. Myers scoffed. He replied: "That was just for the media. He can't have anything like that at all." Fitzgerald noted that the previous year, Myers had made a similar comment about Curry. Myers replied: "That was different. He's been here from the way-before days. He's earned it." The exchange seemed lighthearted at the time. Durant took Myers' words to heart.

  On the 12th of November 2018, in a regular-season game against the LA Clippers, Durant and Draymond Green had a heated on-court argument. The confrontation continued in the locker room afterward. Green had been frustrated with his own play in the closing seconds. Durant was upset that he had not received the ball for a potential game-winning shot. Durant later named the confrontation as a contributing factor in his decision to leave Golden State in the summer of 2019.

  James left the Cavaliers in the 2018 offseason to join the Los Angeles Lakers. Cleveland did not return to the playoffs until the 2022-23 season. That was also the franchise's first postseason appearance without James since 1998.

  The Warriors advanced to the NBA Finals the following year for the fifth consecutive time, but lost to the Toronto Raptors in six games. Durant tore his Achilles tendon in Game 5, and Thompson tore his ACL in Game 6. Golden State did not win another championship until 2022, when they beat the Boston Celtics in six games. As of 2026, the 2018 Finals remain the most recent series in which the same team won back-to-back NBA championships, and the most recent in which the losing team was swept in four games.