The unbearable lightness of Cavs-Warriors

The NBA Finals are going to be historic. Let's hope they're not boring, too.

Cleveland Cavaliers' LeBron James, Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry (30), and Warriors' Andre Iguodala.
(Image credit: AP Photo/Tony Dejak)

The Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers will face off in Game 1 of the 2017 NBA Finals on Thursday, the first time in league history that the same two squads have met in the championship series for three consecutive years. (Even though it sometimes feels like the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers have played each other every other year since the league launched in the late 1940s, they've only matched up 12 times, and never three in a row.)

The league would love to sell Cavs-Warriors III as a clash of the titans, a white-hot rivalry, an all-time great "threematch." But while Steph Curry's Warriors and LeBron James' Cavs are unquestionably the best teams in their respective conferences, and have each brought home a Larry O'Brien trophy to their formerly long-suffering fans (the Warriors in 2015 and the Cavs last year), making this third round the theoretical tiebreaker, this matchup just doesn't carry the gravitas or excitment of the three (non-consecutive) Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird finals of the 1980s, Michael Jordan's domination of the '90s, or any of the other great eras in NBA Finals history.

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Anthony L. Fisher

Anthony L. Fisher is a journalist and filmmaker in New York with work also appearing at Vox, The Daily Beast, Reason, New York Daily News, Huffington Post, Newsweek, CNN, Fox News Channel, Sundance Channel, and Comedy Central. He also wrote and directed the feature film Sidewalk Traffic, available on major VOD platforms.