The Block, The Shot and The Stop didn't just bring the Cavaliers the 2016 NBA championship.
Those three plays earned them the reputation as the mentally tougher team against the Golden State Warriors.
Going into the 2017 Finals, there was no doubt the Warriors had superior talent after adding 2014 Most Valuable Player Kevin Durant to a 73-win team. But based on the previous two years, even in 2015 when LeBron James willed the Cavs to a Game 6 against the Warriors despite injuries to Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, I believed the Cavs would perform better in the clutch.
The last 3:09 of Game 3 proved that to be a fallacy.
That's when the Cavs' season essentially ended, five days before the Warriors captured their second title in three years with a 129-120 victory in Game 5 Monday night at Oracle Arena.
Had the Cavs had won Game 3, coupled with their dominant 137-116 triumph at home in Friday's Game 4, the disastrous second quarter in Game 5 wouldn't have mattered as much.
The Warriors would have led the series 3-2 with a Game 6 in Cleveland. As daunting a challenge as the Durant-led Warriors presented, the Cavs would have had a chance of getting to a Game 7. It might have required a perfect game to defend their championship, but with James averaging a triple-double in the Finals, that seemed possible.
Instead, in the final 3:09 of Game 3, the Cavs did a complete 180 from the last 1:50 of 2016's Game 7. Their mental fortitude vanished.
They missed their final eight attempts in Game 3 as the Warriors ended on an 11-0 run, seven of those points by Durant and four by Stephen Curry. Kyle Korver, Kyrie Irving and James had chances to put it away in the final 53 seconds.
Those will be the moments that haunt the Cavs in the offseason, similar to me still wondering what would have happened if Indians manager Terry Francona had lifted Trevor Bauer sooner in Game 5 of the World Series.
What transpired was bothering the Cavs even before they returned to Oakland for Game 5. Kevin Love mused to Cleveland.com's Joe Vardon in the wee hours after Game 4, "That damn Game 3. That's not us, though." J.R. Smith said that night, "We felt like we gave Game 3 away."
In these Finals, Curry and Klay Thompson, who wilted down the stretch last June, proved they'd grown. Finals MVP Durant, who lost his only other chance at a title to James and the Miami Heat in 2012, rose to the challenge. Durant became the first player to score at least 30 points in five consecutive Finals games since Shaquille O'Neal in 2000, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
In his six previous trips to the playoffs with the Oklahoma City Thunder, Durant had also been ousted in the Western Conference finals three times, in the semifinals once and in the first round once. It was uncertain how he would handle the pressure, even on a team that when healthy might not need him to beat the Cavs.
The Cavs, meanwhile, with their season on the line in Game 5, lost their composure in the second quarter. That was in keeping with their effort in Game 3, when they had a six-point lead with 3:09 to go, when one more big shot would have changed the dimension of the series. Durant made those, not James, Irving or Korver.
The Cavs, especially Irving, talked frequently about how the challenges of the season strengthened them. The injuries _ Smith's fractured thumb, Love's knee surgery. The tragedies _ Channing Frye losing both parents within the span of a month. The life-altering moments _ Smith's wife Shirley giving birth to their daughter Dakota five months premature. The team-defining stretches _ a 10-14 end to the regular season, including four consecutive losses.
But whatever they gained from all those experiences didn't come together when the Cavs needed it most in Game 3. Some of that had to do with the Warriors' defense and the Cavs' troubling deficiencies there. But some had to be attributed to the Cavs' lack of focus and inability to rise to the occasion, as they did in the Final 1:50 of Game 7 in the 2016 Finals.
The Block by James on Andre Iguodala, The Shot by Irving over Curry and The Stop by Love on Curry defined the mental toughness required down the stretch to capture the 2016 championship. This season the Cavs showed resilience and determination to survive a difficult March and early April. But the final 3:09 of Game 3 was nothing like the last 1:50 of Game 7.
In the waning minutes of a winnable Game 3, the Cavs lost themselves when they could least afford to. It will be a tough memory to get over, whether decompressing in Las Vegas or on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
