5 reasons Cavaliers and Warriors are the NBA’s best rivalry

2. The players care

There are a lot of “rivalries” where one side really cares about winning, but the other side is really not too concerned about the results. The Bulls used to have this happen a lot during LeBron’s Miami days. They’d go all out for a regular season matchup that LeBron and company clearly were fine with dropping. The reason for this being that they owned Chicago come playoff team. They were unconcerned because the bulls were never a real threat to them. These two? They’re actual threats to each other, and the players legitimately want to beat the other. Draymond Green said he wanted to “annihilate” Cleveland. Iman Shumpert said that the NBA is bringing the hate back.

Remember when Klay Thompson said that LeBron got his feelings hurt?

"“Guys talk trash in this league all the time. I’m just kind of shocked some guys take it so personal,” Thompson said. “I don’t know how [James] feels. But obviously people have feelings, and people’s feelings get hurt even if they’re called a bad word. I guess his feelings just got hurt. I mean, we’ve all been called plenty of bad words on the basketball court before. Some guys just react to it differently.”"

Remember how LeBron literally laughed at the comment? On TV? In a press conference?

They will always try to talk it down, but there’s no denying that these two sides care about beating one another. That’s what makes it such a great rivalry. This isn’t some media spun narrative being fueled along by the occasional scuffle. These guys legitimately want to crush everything the other side stands for, and they’re going to do it in front of a national TV audience. Yet, despite this, there’s also a massive amount of respect both sides have for one another that keeps the games great during every meeting.

It’s not a rivalry of hatred, but more of a mutual respect and disdain for one another. They respect each other just enough to be professional, but not to the point where they can’t bring themselves to get in a shouting match. Notice how nobody ever fights the Spurs? Fighting the Spurs is pointless, because they don’t care, but also because the entire NBA has an incredible respect for them that players refuse to break. Cleveland and Golden State have no qualms breaking that barrier of respect with each other.